8.10.12

Three Week Mourning Period For Jews Around the World Points to Their Messiah

2Kings 25,8-9: "And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard... unto Jerusalem: v9. And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house..."

Jeremiah 52,12-13: "Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebbuzaradan, captain of the guard, ... into Jerusalem. v.13 And burned the house of the Lord....

Lamentations 1,3: "Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no comfort: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits." (see also Lamentations 1,9;1,17;1,21;2,13 all cries for comfort).

Isaiah 51,3: "For the Lord will comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places: and he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody."

Isaiah 61,2: "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn." 

Matthew 5,4: "Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted."

Jews around the world have just ended three weeks of varying degrees of mourning known as  ("Bein Ha-Metsarim", the time between the straits)- the three week tight spot of distress between 17 Tammuz when Babylon King Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem in 586BC and Tish 'Av Be-'Av (9 AV, Day of Mourning) when the Temple was burnt to the ground.

And of course in 70AD, on 10 Av, as Jesus prophesied (only the gentile Luke clearly memorializes this at Luke 21,6; John hints at it per 2,21), the Roman Emperor Titus sacked the Temple and carried off the treasures therein.

And in 135AD on 9 Av (the traditional date of this Day of Mourning), Betar, the last stronghold of the Bar Kokhba messianic uprising against Rome fell (Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion, 1997,694)

Praise Jesus that we faithful don't get lost in dates and history, and times and seasons, or keeping festivals, but stay with me and the Spirit because we can learn from each other.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters looked upon all their suffering as a people, such as the book of Lamentations in response to Babylon's Temple destruction in 586 BC, and all the biblical  promises to bring comfort through a messiah such as Isaiah 51,3 and 61,3, and then taught that their messiah was to be born on 9 Av (Midrash on Lamentation Rabbah 1, Oxford Dictionary Of The Jewish Religion, 1997, 694):

"The Messiah, the Savior, was to be born on the day the Temple was destroyed."

In other words, within a few hundred years after Jesus' death (400-500 CE), still faithful Jews were well aware that their messiah was the only one who could appease their hearts from all the losses and sufferings of their history, of which the Temple destruction by Babylon was the greatest and eternal prototype.

This timeless Jewish Teaching of Lamentations Rabbah 1 is of the same seamless and faithful biblical piece with Lamentations and the messianic prophesies of Isaiah and what Jesus said: "THERE IS SOMETHING GREATER THAN THE TEMPLE HERE." (Matthew 12,6).

And also of the same seamless and faithful biblical piece with what Jesus' contemporaries heard from him (and which Jesus did not deny before the high Priest, who didn't argue with Jesus that the messiah was more important than the temple): "This fellow said I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it up in three days." (Matthew 26,61)

Zechariah 12,10-13,1 takes the idea of still seeking  a messiah and still mourning Israel to another level and points unmistakeably to them seeing Jesus.

It boldly prophesies to Israel and to those of us grafted in that there will be a final burst of revelatory mourning, amidst the dire straits of the endtimes, for having missed their messiah, a mourning that goes beyond the mourning of 9 AV, and mourns anew upon actually seeing their pierced messiah.

But their mourning will turn to joy when they also see that Jesus' merciful "blood" and cleansing waters still flow for them, the people Israel:

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon me who they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. v.11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadarimmon in the valley of Megiddo. v.12 And the land shall mourn, every family apart [no earthly joys]

Zechariah 13,1: In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleaness."

This fountain is the living waters still flowing from Jesus on the cross of Calvary!

John 19,33-34: But when they [Roman Soldiers] came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: v.34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water."

The baptisms of our beloved brother and sister Jews this last time will be voluntary!

They will have seen with their own eyes what we have gratefully seen in faith, our messiah and Lord, and their messiah and Lord, One God, merciful to all.

Prayer

Lord God we love all your children, and especially your first people, your servant Israel, and we pray In Jesus NAME, our mutual Jesus, Our Jesus who mourned over Jerusalem, and was finally blessed for it, that these last three weeks of prayer by Jews around the world would turn their hearts toward a new understanding of the suffering servant messiah of Isaiah, and towards forgiving us Christians for our part in their history of suffering, and toward a great outpouring of thanksgiving for the ongoing miracle that is Israel today.

In Jesus NAME I pray.