Is Charismatic Renewal for real? part 2

(Letter to Kerry Zmatick continued)

In the 1950's and 60's, after the end of the Second World War, Christians in America and Europe faced a crisis that had been brewing since the end of the First World War. Traditional Protestantism and Catholicism had a hard time making sense of the post war, cold war materialist “eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” world in which they found themselves. All of the truths that humanity had counted on seemed shaken and unsure. The materialism of both communism and capitalism gripped humanity as never before. The intellectualized religion of liberal Protestantism that also infected Catholicism in the 1950's just didn’t satisfy the baby boomer post war generation in the same way that a shiny new car and a house in the suburbs did. Those were days during which man’s search for meaning went only as far as his neighbor’s picket fence. Needless to say, there were some who didn’t find meaning in the sleek shiny world of the fabulous fifties and the groovy sixties.  Among them were one dissatisfied Lutheran/Calvinist minister, one dissatisfied Anglican priest, one dissatisfied (Pentecostal ) Assemblies of God minister,  and one dissatisfied Anglican layman.

The Lutheran was Rev. Harald Bredesen who had been Baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1946. Up to that point, if someone from a mainline protestant church claimed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to speak in tongues he generally left his mainline protestant denomination. If he didn’t leave, he would probably be thrown out. Bredesen saw no reason why he couldn’t be a Lutheran minister and speak in tongues. As far as anybody knows, Bredesen was the first ordained clergyman from a mainline denomination to openly claim Baptism in the Holy Spirit while retaining his credentials in a mainline denomination. It was Bredesen who first used the term “Charismatic Renewal” in an article in Eternity Magazine in 1963. He objected to the term “Neo Pentecostal” and preferred the term “Charismatic”. I am not sure what the fuss was about. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and a platypus by any other name would seem as strange.

Rev. Dennis Bennet, an American Episcopal Priest publicly admitted to having received the so-called Baptism in the Holy Spirit beginning Easter of  1960. His parish, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, in Van Nuys, California, dropped him like a bad habit. Newsweek and Time Magazine zeroed in on the story and once again, Pentecostalism, this time among Episcopalians was making headlines. He was hired by St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington, a parish on the skids, and when the parish stopped shrinking and started expanding, this too made headlines. Fr. Bennet eventually collaborated with another dissatisfied Episcopalian, John Sherrill in a book about his experiences called “Nine O’clock in the Morning.”  

 Sherrill is know to very few people, but I suspect he has had more influence on Christianity than any one since St. Thomas Aquinas. In addition to “Nine O’clock,” he wrote two very important books, “They Speak with Other Tongues” and “the Cross and the Switchblade.”  “Cross and the Switchblade” was written by John Sherrill and Rev. David Wilkerson about an Assemblies of God minister. Wilkerson who was tired of preaching to second and third generation Pentecostals, pastored small churches in Scottdale and Philipsburg, in rural Pennsylvania, until 1958 when the Holy Spirit moved him to preach the Gospel to New York street gangs and heroin addicts. 

These books are not what most people would call great literature or profound theology. They are closer to mystery stories than theological texts. I have heard them called theological bon-bons. Still, I maintain they have changed the world. Their very simplicity explained Pentecostalism and its ability to reach the heart of a church that was dying, a casualty of the materialism and the horrors of the twentieth century. Through these two books Pentecostalism leaked into Catholicism renewing its evangelistic vitality in way that no one could have predicted. How did these books and the experience they claimed find their way into Catholic hands? Catholics weren’t going to pal around with snake healers and ecstatic hillbillies. They would occasionally speak to a Presbyterian, Lutheran or Episcopalian, in the new ecumenical spirit of the post Vatican II Church. And that is precisely what happened.

On a retreat in late February 1967 a few faculty members and students from Duquesne (Catholic) University in Pittsburgh claimed to have been Baptized in the Holy Spirit. The three or four faculty members sponsoring the retreat had already experienced the Baptism in the Spirit in January at an interdenominational Charismatic prayer meeting, the Chapel Hill meeting, in the home of Miss Florence Dodge, a Presbyterian. In preparation for the retreat, the faculty members suggested reading The Cross and the Switchblade, and the Acts of the Apostles. On February 17, twenty or thirty students and a few faculty gathered at the Ark and The Dove Retreat Center. On Saturday, a member of the Chapel Hill Prayer Group spoke to the group about Acts, chapter 2. As a result it was suggested that the retreat close with a renewal of the sacrament of Confirmation. On Saturday night, the students began spontaneously to wander into the chapel and just started   laughing, crying and praying in strange words and so began the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

People who had experienced this phenomenon at the Dusquesne retreat told friends at Notre Dame and Michigan State University. Similar things happened. The phenomenon spread to Benet Lake Monastery in Antioch Illinois, and that is where I come in.

It was 1967. I was a freshman in a college seminary that was in the process of losing its identify. I was in the process of losing my identity. I, like a number of my fellow seminarians had become enchanted with Hinduism and Buddhism, because after all, in the spirit of the times weren’t all religions really the same? I belonged to an ecumenical committee and was assigned to investigate this new Pentecostal movement that had started earlier that year at Notre Dame University. It sounded very ecumenical, all those  Protestants and Catholics praying together. I got the number of one of the Catholics who went to the Benet Lake Prayer Meeting and to a large inter-faith prayer meeting led by a Methodist minister in a Presbyterian church in a Chicago suburb. If that wasn’t ecumenical what was? 

The person whose number I’d been given was a full time mother and homemaker who went on and on about what the Lord was doing in her life, in the church and in the world.  After about an hour, being a college freshman who knew all things, I asked where she had learned all this. 

She laughed and said “ Oh that’s not me talking. That’s the Lord.” 

I looked at the phone and rolled my eyes.  Being an exceptionally lazy student, I asked her what was all this business about speaking in tongues.

She laughed again and said, “Oh speaking in tongues is easy. You could do it right now if you wanted.” 

I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” 

I would call her back if I needed any more information for my committee report. When I hung up the phone it seemed like the room I was in was filled with a light that I could feel but couldn’t see. I remember smiling and singing hymns and feeling like an idiot. I went to my room and knelt down by my bedside to pray, a practice I had long ago abandoned, and only gibberish came out of my mouth. I calmed down, decided I had lost my mind and went to sleep. I was never again the same. 

This was January of 1968, I think the 24^th. The subsequent 45 years of my life have been indescribable. Baptism is a Greek word that simply means immersion, and that is exactly what I experienced, an Immersion in God’s Holy Spirit. The theological adventure books mostly seem written in the happily ever after style of literature. I’m not sure this is honest. True, my Immersion in the Holy Spirit has been a source of great joy, and since experiencing it, I have never doubted the nearness and reality of God, but for me, the Immersion in the Holy Spirit has also been challenging, even fearful. 

There is a very strange passage in the book of Exodus. Read Exodus 4:24,25. “At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah (Moses’ wife) took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,’ she said.”  

People are mystified by this passage, but since being Immersed in the Holy Spirit, this passage of Scripture has never seemed odd to me. “The Lord your God who is among you is a jealous God, and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.” (Deut. 6:115) It is a dangerous thing to play with fire, and an infinitely more dangerous thing to play with the Fire of the Holy Spirit. 

These 45 years have been an unremitting struggle with my own weakness and sinfulness as well as a struggle with those who misuse this outpouring of grace. Some of them were simply foolish. Some of them were inconsistent. I have had friends who put their hand to the plow and then looked back. (Luke 9:62)  Their lives became meaningless and bitter. I have met some people who though involved in  spiritual ministry have simply been evil. I have also met real prophets and amazing saints along the way. In a time when both the Church and I were forgetting the supernatural reality of the Christian life, I met people who never let me forget that to be a Christian is to live in a supernatural reality.

Next: the problems of Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal

Is Charismatic Renewal for real?

Author’s note: A lot of people will find this even more tedious and pointless than many of my other efforts, and some will find it irritating. I am writing about a phenomenon that has caused much of the unprecedented growth of Christianity in our times and continues to do so. I am not writing to convince anyone to join a movement. I personally don’t like movements. They involve too many meetings.

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

What is all this nonsense about Charismatic Renewal? Is it for real?

Sincerely,

Kerry Zmatick

Dear Kerry,

Short answer: Some of the Charismatic Renewal is for real and some of it isn’t. 

Long answer: What is generally called Charismatic Renewal was formerly called the Pentecostal movement. It has it’s most recent roots in 1900, when Rev. Charles Fox Parham rented an old mansion called Stone’s Folly as a site for his Bethel Bible College. He used the run down old mansion as a gathering place for Bible studies and prayer meetings. He and his students were part of an outgrowth of Methodism the Holiness movement, which taught divine healing and sanctification, or how to arrive at a sinless life.   

As the year 1900 drew to a close, Parham and his students were focused on the Bible phrase “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38) For us Catholics that’s a no-brainer. It’s what happens before the big party after a long boring Confirmation ceremony. A bunch of Methodist Bible students had to admit that they weren’t quite sure what it meant. Parham and his students decided that if the Holy Spirit  descended on you, you would have to speak in tongues, because that’s what happened in the Bible, and this gift of tongues would prove that you had received the Holy Spirit. On New Year's Eve 1900, Parham and his students spent the night in prayer asking to receive the Holy Spirit. As the clock ticked over into 1901, one of his students, Agnes Ozman, (no relation to Donny or Marie) asked Rev. Parham to pray for her with the laying on of hands that she might receive the Holy Spirit, because that’s what they did in the Bible. He did and she started babbling in unintelligible phrases. And the Christianity of the 20th century changed irrevocably. 

As I heard the story in my youth; the next evening, Parham’s students were praying at their mission in downtown Topeka and Agnes Ozman’s babbling was understood by a Bohemian who happened to be there. This was huge! Understand that classical Protestantism does not believe in modern miracles. The Protestant founders taught that “When the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.” (1Cor. 13:10) They interpreted this to mean that Scripture, being perfect, ends any need for other kinds of revelation. Sure, God may heal a sick person now and then, but the age of prophecy and miracles ended when the last word of Scripture was set down on paper and the last of the disciples either keeled over or provided a snack for a lion in a Roman arena. 

Bishop Butler (Church of England b. 1692) told John Wesley (Anglican founder of Methodism, a forerunner of Pentecostalism), “Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.” This was essentially the attitude of Parham’s Protestant neighbors at Stone’s Folly, and so the lease was not renewed. The place was sold to Harry Croft, a bootlegger, who turned it into a bar. The old mansion burned to the ground on December 6, 1901 and is today the site of Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church. The wonder of it all! From  birth place of Pentecostalism, to gin mill, to Catholic Church. I think this means something, but I’m not sure what.

In 1899, there were no Pentecostals. Now there are about 300 million members of Pentecostal churches and untold hundreds of millions of Charismatics, so called, in traditional churches. It is easy to make the case that the explosive growth of Christianity in the world’s southern hemisphere, particularly Africa, as well as in parts of Asia is due to a Pentecostal style of worship and evangelism. The case can also be made, and I will make it eventually, that the resurgence of traditional Catholicism is in large part a consequence of Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church. What happened?

The closing of Bethel Bible College/Stone’s Folly had the effect of throwing water on a grease fire. Charles Parham moved on to El Dorado Springs, Missouri, where in 1903 he set up shop again and started healing the sick at the local hot springs.  Mary Arthur invited him to Galena, Kansas, after he had prayed for her healing. He went preaching in Galena, Kansas and Joplin, Missouri where  1,000 claimed to have been had been healed and 800 had claimed to be converted. This sort of thing tends to get noticed. Parham sent out “bands” to preach the “apostolic faith” spreading the movement in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Parham opened a Bible school in Houston in 1906 where African-Americans were welcome including William J. Seymour. Seymour left Houston to serve in a black holiness mission in Los Angeles, California. When the Baptist congregation that had hired Seymour found out that he was one of those new “Pentecostals” they rescinded their offer, so Seymour set up shop down the street in a church that had been converted into a livery stable which now got a second chance at being a church. Why not? Jesus was born in a barn. 

This church/stable/church blossomed into the Azusa Street Revival, which went on for nine years, 1906 -1915. Evangelicals came from the world over to see what was happening and whole denominations, like the Church of God and the Methodist Church of Chile were pentecostal-ized. The years of the Azusa Street Revival were the catalyst that started the world wide Pentecostal/Charismatic phenomenon. The old building is no more. The site is now occupied by a parking lot to which I, being a traditional Catholic, once made a pilgrimage.  Seymour and Parham soon parted company over the Azusa Street church because Parham was critical of the emotional style of worship at Asuza Street and hesitated over whites and blacks praying in the same services during the time of the Jim Crowe racial laws.

In April 1914, 300 preachers and laymen from the US and a few other countries met in Hot Springs, Arkansas to figure out where God was leading. Pentecostalism, being at odds with Protestant orthodoxy, was rejected by most churches and Pentecostals were simply not welcome. There were objections to the claim of resurgent miracles and prophecies. The emotionalism of the participants was disapproved of  and there were questions about racial familiarities in the new movement.

There were also  theological questions to be answered.  Could one be truly saved if one did not speak in tongues? After all, if the Bible says  “...no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit”,(1Cor. 12:3)  and if one did not speak in tongues, could one say that he truly had the Holy Spirit, and if he wasn’t sure that he had the Holy Spirit, could he be sure that he was really capable of saying that Jesus is Lord? And if one cannot say that Jesus is Lord is he truly saved? So, the big question: Can one be saved if one does not speak in tongues? 

Already we see theological wackiness setting in. The movement has been plagued by theological wackiness ever since its beginning.  There were other issues, such as can one lose one’s salvation? Is prayer that is not emotional really prayer? (They call it agonizing in prayer.) These pressing issues caused splits among the delegates and again, as I heard the story, there were those who believed that God was calling them to form the perfect, full-Gospel, Bible-believing, New Testament Church. That faction formed the Assemblies of God. There were those who insisted that God did not want to form a new Church. They formed the Independent Assemblies of God. And the wackiness went on and on and on until today there are innumerable Pentecostal denominations in the grand tradition of Protestant Reformation Unity. 

It is great fun to drive down to the west side of Frostbite falls and read the church names. I remember one that read “Fire Baptized Church of God With Signs and Wonders Following,  Inc.” The sign continued, “Rev. Jones, Bishop, Apostle, Prophet, Healer and Pastor.” This guy didn’t need a church. He was a church.  Even today, the proliferation of churches goes on unabated as do the scandals from Aimee Semple McPherson, in the 1920s-1940s to Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman and Jim and Tammy Bakker in the 1980's.   

The snake handlers of Appalachia are among the most delightful variations of  Pentecostalism. 

In 1910, George Hensley started snake handling  in the recently pentecostal-ized Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee. He later resigned his ministry and started the first holiness movement church to require snake handling as evidence of salvation. In other words, if you’ve never danced around with poisonous snakes, you’re clearly not going to heaven. At least that’s what they think it says in the Bible.

“And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:17-18)

If you’re going to prove you’re a believer who is saved, you are going to speak in tongues, heal the sick, right? ....Right.  Well, what about drinking poison and handling snakes? Shouldn’t you have to do these things to prove you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and thus saved? Oh, they drink poison, too. And they often drop dead. If they die from poison or snake bites it’s obvious they didn’t have enough faith and weren’t saved. Don’t you just love this stuff?

The Pentecostal/Charismatic phenomenon, and it most certainly is a phenomenon, not a movement, chugged merrily along blissfully creating church after church and dubious evangelist after dubious evangelist along with a few dead snake handlers for the next 60 years. How can something like this be one of the major forces in Christianity today? How can anyone think that a movement that encourages drinking poison, waltzing with rattlesnakes and babbling in Babylonian can make any sense at all.  Sorry I’ve run out of time, and you’ll just have to wait until next week.

Rev. Know-it-all

How do Hebrew Scriptures show Jesus as the Messiah? -- part 2

Continued from last week…..

At the time of Christ, it was believed that the Messiah would renew the manna given in the wilderness. This is why the crowds got terribly excited when Jesus fed them all with only five loaves and two fishes. He told them to calm down, because that was just lunch. He was the true bread come down from heaven and that unless we ate his flesh and drank his blood, we would have no life in us. This made the crowds a little queasy and they decided to pack up and go home. So has the Messiah reestablished the manna of the Exodus? You betcha! It’s called Holy Communion. Every Sunday the Messiah and His lovely Bride, the Church prepare a wonderful sacrificial banquet for 1,200,000,000 Catholics and another 250,000,000 Eastern Orthodox. That’s around one billion five hundred million folks. Not all them come to the feast, but it’s there for them. What a wonderful way to fulfill this Messianic expectation to a degree and in a way that none of the prophets or patriarchs could even have imagined. See you there Sunday?

Here is another expectation. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court will be re-established.  “And I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as in the beginning.” (Isaiah 1:26) Some claim that Christ did not establish a government or structured Church. These are people who are clueless about how to read the Bible. Whenever you see the number twelve it refers to government. Twelve tribes, twelve judges in the Book of Judges, etc. Jesus gathered twelve students and says they will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. This expectation of governmental restoration certainly seems to reflect the Messianic council of twelve expected by the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Manual of Discipline 1QS 8:1). Similarly, Jesus’ council of twelve was clearly headed by three leaders, Peter, James and John, just as the council of twelve in the Qumran document was headed by three priests (1QS 8:1). We Catholics have maintained a Church government for 2,000 years. In this sense, the Messiah Jesus has certainly fulfilled the Sanhedrin expectation.

Yet another Messianic expectation: “Once He is King, leaders of other nations will look to Him for guidance.” (Isaiah 2:4) I think most people resent the involvement of the Church in secular politics, but this involvement is a Messianic expectation! Nations have warred against the Church and its leadership while at the same time looking to that leadership for guidance. The West was incapable of defeating European Marxism until Ronald Reagan consulted with Carol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II). World leaders turn to Rome whether they are Catholic or not. So the leaders of the world do look to Christ in the person of His Vicar, the Bishop of Rome.

In 1917, Pope Benedict XV proposed a seven-point peace plan to end the hostilities of the First World War, but President Woodrow Wilson rejected the plan. A peace treaty was never arrived at, an armistice was signed, but not a peace treaty. That finally arrived too late in 1923. Germany was heavily punished for the war and the Versailles Armistice practically guaranteed the Second World War which the Germans saw as a resumption of the Great (First World) War. President Woodrow Wilson, one of the most thick-headed of American Presidents, fired his Roman  Catholic adviser Joseph Tiumulty in 1916 because of the anti-Catholic bias of his wife Edith  and his adviser Col. Edward M. House. House was the promoter of the US government’s effort to aid Mexican Freemasons in their  attempt to destroy the Catholic Church in Mexico. Edith then had complete control of Woodrow’s schedule, and was her husband’s major foreign policy adviser. 

This meant that the pope would be excluded from the Versailles peace negotiations. If the world had listened to Pope Benedict XV, six million Jews and countless other would not have gone to their deaths, Hitler would have remained a schlock artist selling his post cards in the gay bars and flop houses of Vienna and the whole world would have been different. Oh, by the way, there was a Vietnamese busboy named Ho Chi Minh in Paris at the time of the Versailles conference. He hoped that Woodrow Wilson would help negotiate independence for Vietnam from the French, but Woodrow and Edith were no more available to Ho Chi Minh that they had been to the pope.  Bad call. So the pig-headed Edith and the compliant Woodrow can be blamed, to some degree for the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the  Holocausts -- Jewish and Cambodian -- and the deaths of the Cristeros. It’s a good thing at least to listen to the Pope, and even to the busboys.

Yet another expectation. He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) through Solomon

(1 Chronicles 22:8-10, 2 Chronicles 7:18). Jesus has two separate and different genealogies. One in Luke traces Jesus’ descent from David through Solomon, one in Matthew traces Jesus’ descent through Nathan, David’s fourth son. Sextus Julius Africanus (160- 240 AD) a native of Jerusalem who lived in Emmaus claims that the family of Jesus claimed that Joseph had legal genealogies and a natural one. The family of David was much intermarried as was the custom and still is in the Middle East, near relatives adopting children of one branch into their own branch to keep that particular blood line from dying out. There is another objection to Jesus Davidic descent. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are those of Joseph. Joseph was a son of David, but the Scriptures are quite emphatic, he was not the father of Jesus. Jesus had no human father. The ancients answered this objection quite simply by pointing out that Mary was also a descendant of David, and a relative of Joseph, which too was a custom and still is in the Middle East. So Jesus is descended from David.

    The “Spirit of the Lord” will be upon Him, and He will have a “fear of God” (Isaiah 11:2) The Holy Spirit certainly was upon Jesus, and Jesus certainly had a fear of the Lord. It was not the fear of a creature before a mighty God, but the awe of a Son who fears nothing more than disobeying or disappointing His Father in heaven.

Another expectation.  Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4). Have you been following the recent past? Hitler tried to kidnap or kill the pope. Stalin did the same. As did Robespierre and Napoleon. So did the Roman Emperors and the Holy Roman Emperors, some of whom were none too holy. Now presidents are giving it a shot. We’ll see how that works out.

“He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful.” (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9) It is an interesting side note that the wilds and wastes of Europe in middle ages were opened up by the farming know-how of monks. In their quest for ever greater hardship and solitude, monk moved to the fringes of civilization, and where they went others followed. This is continued by the long history of priest-scholars who have blessed the world with learning. Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) – Augustinian monk and father of genetics, Bishop Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) the father of modern geology and stratigraphy (look it up) and Georges Lemaître (1894–1966), father of the Big Bang Theory (the theory, not the sit-com). There are maybe a thousand more. Look it up at “List of Roman Catholic cleric-scientists” on Wikipedia. 

Everybody knows that the Catholic Church is opposed to science and progress. Take it from me. Everybody is an idiot. I’ve met him. He’s nothing like his cousin Everyman. Perhaps you’ve heard that “None of us alone is as stupid as all of us together.”  When you here someone say, “Everybody knows that....” assume that what everybody knows is wrong. The efforts of the Catholic Church, clergy and laity, have advanced the well being of the world inestimably. They have made barren land fruitful over and over again.

There are a number of expectations that are very similar, and I believe, are fulfilled in a very direct and clear way by the Roman Catholic Church, the Bride and Body of the Messiah Jesus. First, the peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23) Second, knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9) and, third, He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10). Fourth, The people of Israel will have direct access to the Torah through their minds and Torah study will become the study of the wisdom of the heart (Jeremiah 31:33) When we hear the words “People of Israel” we assume that it is synonymous with the “Jews.” This is not so. Jews are a subset of the people called “Israel,” especially as the prophets used the term. They were thinking of all twelve tribes, not just the tribe of Judah, which is rendered “Jew” in modern English.

Dr. Hahn makes the point that the in-gathering of the Lost Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel would be impossible without the in-gathering of the peoples among whom they were dispersed and with whom they intermarried. There are Jews in China who look Chinese . There are the Lemba in South Africa and Zimbabwe who look as African as any African, but who have a higher percentage of men descended from Aaron the high priest than do most obviously Jewish communities. Among Jews there is a particular genetic marker, CMH. It is prevalent among Jewish “Kohanim” a word the means priests descended from Aaron. The Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe tell the story that the founder of the Buba clan led Lemba out of Israel. A genetic study found that 50% of the men in the Buba clan had the Kohanim marker. That means that more of the Buba are descended from Aaron the brother of Moses, than, for instance the population of Bensonhurst, New York, or even, dare I say, than Skokie, Illinois!!!

 I once met an appliance salesman who was clearly from India. I noticed his last name was clearly not from India, so I asked him if he were a Cochin Jew. Cochin Jews are a community of Jews in India, who claim to date to the time of King Solomon, 950 BC. He was astonished that I knew about his community. I told him I don’t get out much, so I have time to learn a lot of obscure and pointless things. As it turns out , he too was descended from Aaron the priest. 

There were Israelites in India at the time of Christ, which is why St. Thomas the Apostle went there, to tell the Israelites about the Messiah from the Tribe of Judah, Jesus, Son of Joseph, Son of David, Son of God. Many of those Cochin Israelite/Jews accepted the Messiah, and became “Nasrani” followers of the Nazarene and they have been Christian since the time of Christ and they come to the 7:15 AM Mass at my parish. Fr. Simon, a man  more Teutonic than the former pope, had a mother who was the most Jewish looking woman I have ever known. When she was asked to disclose her religion on a form or questionnaire, they would say to her “Mrs. Simon, it’s no shame being Jewish.” She would respond, “I know, but I’m Catholic!”  To gather Israel in, the Messiah will have to bring in the Chinese, the Indians, the Lemba, the Germans and even perhaps the Irish. When the Bible mentions Israel is does not necessarily mean “Jew.” Jews are certainly Israel, but we Catholics think that we are too, at least by adoption, and often enough genetically. 

So, is the in-gathering of Israel that is the great work of the Messiah, the Son of Joseph, and the universal knowledge of the One God, accomplished by the Messiah, Jesus? Been to the Vatican lately? All those theology and Scripture students scurry about getting to class on time. The Books of Moses are read there in a way that the prophets would have thought inconceivable.  For instance, Pope John Paul’s funeral was the single largest gathering of world leaders in history -- four kings, five queens, at least 70 presidents and prime ministers, and more than 14 leaders of other religions attended.  The funeral was the most-watched television broadcast in history. Billions of people heard “The Lord is my shepherd.....”) As for the gathering of the nations, these days in Rome you have to stand in line to get into a line. The whole world goes to Rome to marvel at the art and beauty inspired by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Could you imagine the amazement of Abraham to see how the word that God gave him was to be fulfilled?

Yet more expectations. All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12) and death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8). At that same funeral those billions of watchers heard the beautiful chant In Paradisum 

 “May the angels lead you into Paradise. May the martyrs come to welcome you on your way, and lead you into the Holy City, Jerusalem.” 

If our understanding is right, then death is swallowed up and all Israel, scattered through the nations will be gathered into the true and eternal Jerusalem, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) So in this Jesus has fulfilled another expectation “There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease.” (Isaiah 25:8)

The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness. (Isaiah 51:11) Those Jews who accept the Messiah Jesus, they seem to think this is true. Nations will recognize the wrongs they did to Israel. (Isaiah 52:13-53:5) Even the Vatican has been making apologies.  The ruined cities of Israel will be restored. (Ezekiel 16:55) Take a trip to Israel. Lots of construction going on.

There are still just a few Messianic expectations to go He will be a messenger of peace. (Isaiah 52:7) Ever heard the words, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27) If the Messiah has come, why is there no world peace? Remember the story of Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi and Elijah? If you here his voice, he has come and if you receive he gives peace not as the world gives peace, words repeated at every Catholic Mass.

Weapons of war will be destroyed. (Ezekiel 39:9) We are working on this one. It’s not easy because the governments of this world are so thick headed. Still we have some proud moments, like the Peace of God in the Middle Ages, St. Francis, Mother Theresa, Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II who brought down Marxism in Europe without a shot being fired or a soldier being killed.

He will give you all the worthy desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4) Remember that the desires of the heart and the desires of the head are quite different. Most of us think that the desires of our head and heart arm the same. When you get to know the Messiah, you find that He’s all that’s worth desiring.

And finally, all of the dead will rise again. (Isaiah 26:19) We still wait for this with our fellow Israelites, the tribe of Judah. We already have a taste of the Resurrection in the Messiah, risen from the dead and present in our tabernacles, but we still await the resurrection of our own bodies. Though our bodies have not risen, our hearts have, and those who were dead in their souls have found hope and life and purpose by learning to hear the Messiah’s voice. I invite you to do the same, to ask Him in the quiet of you own heart if all this could be true, ask Him to speak to your heart and mind and to make His home within you. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.  

As the little golden banners fluttering on cars in Skokie and elsewhere proclaim, “Khai Melech Hamoshiach!” (That’s Hebrew for “Long live Christ the King, or Viva Cristo Rey!)