Happy Re-Birthday Israel

When I was a card carrying member of the evangelical, charismatic, biblical inerrancy crowd I believed that the rebirth of the Jewish nation was a miracle.
I still see it as a type of miraculous event but we can scarcely know what this miracle means especially when we consider that modern Isreal was birthed in the extermination camps of Nazi Germany. The unspeakable atrocities committed there forced the Western (dare we say Christian) World to come to grips with our history of anti-semetism. The guilt we felt was the goad that finally pushed the cause of a Jewish homeland to the top of the world's agenda. In 1948 the miracle of rebirth was realized. Its continued existence takes on almost miraculous aspects when one considers how it has been the object of the military, political and spiritual wrath of nearly all its neighbours and much of the rest of the world.
No doubt this amazing land inhabited by a remarkable people has not lived in perfect righteousness since its founding but they have striven to make a good life, ruled by law, democracy and compassion.
In my simpler days I took comfort in the sign of Israel's rebirth and its miraculous existence. I hoped that the return of Jesus would follow fulfillment of ancient prophecies about regathering God's people from the four corners of the earth. I even calculated that there could be no more than 70 years from the time of the formation of the modern state of Israel till Christ's long awaited Parousia. The prophecy of the 'greening of the fig tree' and Christ's promise that the generation who saw this greening of the nation of Israel would not pass away till He comes in power seemed to point to a soon coming King who would put an end to this present darkness.
I reasoned that a generation could be interpreted as 3 score and 10. '4 score for reason of strength' seemed like an exception and not a definition so I told a few confidants that if Christ did not come back by 2018 then all my literal interpretations of scripture and prophecy would have to be rethought. I guess my rethinking has been a little ahead of schedule. For several years I have not been able to find a reasonable coherence of interpretation that allows a simple literalistic treatment of the scripture to stand and so I no longer cling to my old ways of seeing and believing.
I celebrate the miracle of Israel's existence and pray for peace in Jerusalem and all the nations surrounding her but I do not see the miracle as a portent of the second coming any longer.
I have to trust that Jesus has come in power as prophesied and He did so in the generation of his first followers and that coming in power was a spiritual transforming experience that has always seemed weak and unimportant in natural terms but is like the leaven in the dough of our violent self justifying hearts which will continue to do its job until the kingdom of peace and love preached by Jesus has come in power and glory.

May His Kingdom Come
His will be Done
In earth as In Heaven.
forever and ever
Amen!

LH