LET US SPEAK OF ANCIENT PROPHECY that has the deepest of meanings for all of mankind, but allow first this fabled image as we begin our discussion: * “The phoenix bird is a mythical immortal bird found in Greek mythology; associated with the sun, it regenerates from the ashes of its own cremation.” Some early branches of Christianity adopted the depiction of the phoenix rising from the ashes as a symbol of rebirth and eternal life, seeing a close link with our own story of the resurrection.
There has been no other nation on earth that exemplifies these allegorical qualities more than the nation of Israel. This life-death-life-again imagery is replete in the biblical stories of Abraham and later Joseph, whose personal biographies establish in microcosm the mega-patterns that Israel will follow as she travels from formation to nation and to diaspora—and beyond. Both men received promises from God that required faith on their part—faith applied through the most difficult of circumstances over long periods of time. Abraham never physically saw more than a glimpse of the outcome that God revealed to him; Joseph, after going from promise to pit to dungeon, ultimately realized God’s personal and ‘national’ promise in his own lifetime. Both these men were foundational in the developing story of Israel; we turn to Moses, God’s next pivotal leader of the Hebrew people, for further revelation.
Moses was the “Deliverer.” He delivered Israel out of slavery. He delivered the Law—not just the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai, but the totality of the 613 laws of the Torah. He delivered the people to the edge of the Promised Land. And, he delivered a long message (cf. Deut. Chapters 27-30) of promise, warning, and prophecy as they were poised to take possession of the land. A view down the long corridor of time comes clear—to us, at least partially, if not to the Israelites who heard it then: “When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it.” (Deut. 30:1-5)
The history of the third Diaspora—the great scattering—of Israel is undeniable. Two earlier object lessons prior to Jesus’ time had not made Israel’s way straight with God. Their rejection of their Messiah was in fact the rejection of God himself. Their punishment began at the earthly hand of Rome, and was indeed dispersion ‘among the nations.’ Jews were sent to every no-mans’-land of virtually all the nations of the earth. They have suffered persecution and pogrom in every place they tried to inhabit. The greatest of these pogroms came at the hands of Nazi Germany in WWII with their “Final Solution.” In the concentration camps and extermination camps built in Europe, six million Jews were victims of ethnic cleansing. Many died from literally being intentionally worked to death; two million seven hundred thousand were burned in the ovens and funeral pyres that ran day and night. Their ashes rose to the heavens and darkened the skies, and drifted down on homes and city streets for many miles around the death centers.
This is a stunning picture, a gruesome metaphor in which God’s wrath is carried out against the rejection of his chosen. We shudder as we try to comprehend the scale of his anger. We are forced to think of our own existence in the face of heaven and hell, in the context of both the temporal and the eternal. We are left with our minds reeling and soul and spirit shaken to the core as we struggle to comprehend and reconcile our oh-so-limited view of the God of Wrath and the God of Love.
Here we must take a deep breath, and gain some kind of fragile objectivity. Mankind’s long journey from the Garden towards the New Heavens and the New Earth is continually marked at its low points by separation from the Creator. At each low point, the creature is dumbfounded by divine discipline. This is true historically of nations; it is true experientially of all individuals. It was/is certainly true of the Jews. Paul, considering the collapsing state of Israel after Jesus’ time, says “It is not as though God’s word had failed. It does not depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? What if God showed his wrath and made his power known to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory?” (Rom. 9:6, 16, 20, 22-23) The point of the object lesson is not lost, whether we consider it a lesson to the Jews, or to all of mankind, or to you and me.
We return to the allegory of the phoenix. The Jews, after being turned to ashes in WWII, are back—1948—resurrected in the Promised Land, for God promised to ‘restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it.’
God kept the promise made through Moses, and it remains a desperately needed object lesson for all of us for the “time, times, and half a time” (Dan. 7:25, 12:7) that all of mankind shares together in the journey of the chosen people. The ashes of history speak a clear message, and they will come again, for we are not yet to God’s Final Solution. But know this: We will rise again. The resurrection of Jesus is our proof and our promise. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him, and we believe that we will also live with him.” (Rom. 6:6a, 8b)
Q. Are the ashes of my life a reassurance of God’s grace to me?
* Wikipedia contributors. “Phoenix (mythology).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Aug. 2021. Web. 16 Nov. 2022.
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