On May 14, 2018, the 70th anniversary of sovereign Israeli statehood in the modern era, action was given to those words when the US Embassy officially moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
I was in Jerusalem that day.
We had had a hint of things to come the first evening in Jerusalem. Before we ever got inside the hotel, we'd been met by this banner on its front wall →It was late evening, the first time my feet ever touched ground in Jerusalem, and the pressure was on to identify and collect my luggage from among hundreds of suitcases and backpacks being unloaded from the buses. My phone's camera also compensates for low lighting so the true deep-dusky effect is missing, but you can tell that this was snapped quickly without proper alignment and focusing. I will excuse that this way: Those imperfections only highlight the blur of my first impressions in Jerusalem! I never expected to see my President's picture plastered on the front of the David Citadel Hotel in the center of Jerusalem.
Note the tagline: You Promised. You Delivered. Smaller and harder to see are these sentences: "Thank you for courageously recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Eternal Capital," and "Time after time, President Trump has sent an unambiguous message to the world: the bond between the US and Israel is strong, and after eight years of the Obama Administration, the days of daylight between our nations are over." Yes, Obama was openly trashed.
Whether you realize it or not, that bond between the US and Israel goes beyond the political and long ago found a foothold in the spiritual realm. The implications are deep, staggeringly positive, and I hope to scratch the surface of some of them at the end of this post. But first, more pictures!
Although I could not visit the embassy, a sense of the importance of the festivities was still present in the lamppost banners, newspaper headlines, and additional security at checkpoints! The thought floated through my mind, 'If I could just collect all the security video I'm caught on, I would have great documentation without the bother of taking pictures.' Even so, there was never a sense of fear or imminent threat. Jerusalem was ready to party! The next morning I discovered that fringed pennants, banners, and flags were all up and down the main streets. Near our hotel, there would be about three streetlights with the Star of David Israeli flag, and the fourth would sport the Stars and Stripes American flag. (A couple nights later, there was a cool light display with the two kinds of stars coming together.) I began facing the reality that the recognition of Jerusalem is a much bigger deal than the average American realizes.
It may not be readily apparent in the spiritual realm, but the celebratory energy was certainly showing up in pop culture. Take a look at the kippahs/yamulkes sold by this street vendor.
On Jerusalem Day, the tour group had been out visiting historical sites in the morning and we barely made it back by mid-afternoon when they really began stopping and questioning every vehicle entering Jerusalem. A couple hours later, I got this easy-to-understand visual of why they were checking so scrupulously: The crowds (plural) were massive. When I stood on a retaining wall for a better view, the street was full for as far as I could see. I tried searching online for an estimate of the crowd size, but to no avail; all I found were estimates of the relatively small groups of protesters. It had to be in the tens of thousands.
Unfortunately, my photo, for all its attempt at nicely framing American flags, just doesn't effectively show HOW MANY PEOPLE were in the street. This shot actually covers four blocks before being obscured by trees, and this is only one direction.Underneath the dangling leaves on the left is a portable stage with live music. This is as close as it got to what we think of as floats in our hometown American parades. The crowd was actually a slowly traveling procession made up of smaller units that frequently stopped to dance or sing. There were civic organizations, school groups, small businesses, anyone really, who wanted to participate. I don't read Hebrew, so I missed a lot of who was what, but their espirit de corps came through loud and clear.
I have a couple of cultural observations. First, I have never seen people dance in the street like this unless they were drunk. These youths are not drunk! Secondly, in any corresponding American celebration, there would be an unspoken societal pressure to have co-ed groups. Here, the young men had their arms around each other in a circle dance and there was no trace of LGBT-agenda shaming or promiscuity over it. A few minutes later, a women's group came by with the same differences. Hold that thought for when I get to the spiritual implications at the end of this post.American parades are spectator events; we watch a pageant parade by us. President Trump is planning a military parade for November 11th. I think he hopes to release this sort of inspiration and respect for heritage upon the American people. If so, those are grand motives that ought to be supported, but Israeli grass-roots participation has an electricity that is a very high bar to match. We are talking Energizer Bunny longevity here. The photos below were taken from my hotel window. In the first one, taken before a late dinner, over three hours past and three blocks from the views above, many people are still in the street.
In the second one, same intersection, but shortly before bedtime, many are still out and active even after the fireworks and light shows ended. It was an incredible experience, and one that most tourists do not get, to see how Jerusalem celebrated Israel's "Fourth of July" Independence. The following day was the official opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
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Extra Info for Perspective- No one could get near the Embassy when it opened unless they'd been on the list and vetted weeks in advance. So no pictures of that, but many good one are available online at news and .gov sites.
- The banners in my pictures were not paid for by the Israeli government.
https://www.fozmuseum.com/ Street banners sponsored by Friends of Zion in Jerusalem
rjchq.org A political lobby group in the US sponsored the banner on the hotel.
- America, while first, is not the only nation that pledged to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Guatemala, Paraguay, Honduras, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Romania have expressed a desire to move their embassies as well.
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Implications and Observations
These events have significance on multiple levels. I will touch on my personal Top Three.
1. Promises Kept.
Promised is promised. It has been only in the past couple of years that I realized how big a deal this is for me. I don't make many promises; when I do they often have time limits on them. Keeping promises was ingrained into me unknowingly as a child. If you don't want to do something, tell me up front. I am much happier lowering my expectations than I will be finding out you lied to me, and I can respect your honesty when you tell me no.
And it turns out that "doing what you say you are going to do" is one of two seemingly universal laws. Anthropologists have found that across all cultures, times, and religions, keeping promises is a universal rule of good behavior. (The second one is don't encroach. No one likes it when you encroach on their space, their stuff, or their authority.)
So whether by intentional strategizing or inspired happenstance, but either way, definitely by well planned marketing, the English edition of the Jerusalem Post was covered in a advertisement that any civilized person had to respect at a basic level: Promises Kept.2. God Promises Stuff Too!
Psalm 122:6
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: They shall prosper that love thee.
They will prosper.
Love is a partner with respect. Love & Respect. If something sort of feels like love but fails to meet the "Doth not behave itself unseemly" qualifier of 1 Corinthians 13:5, then it is hankering or enchantment, but not biblical love. Adulation with no foundation for fidelity.
After the US officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last December 6th, that act of respect opened a flow of prosperity. Over 100 companies gave bonuses of at least $1,000 or more to over a million workers, and 90% of middle class Americans received a tax cut. Public optimism over the economy grew to exceed 50%, a place it had not held in over a decade. Political pundits credited Trump's tax bill, but they missed the reason that the tax bill passed: the breaking of a spiritual curse.
For the opening of our embassy, many were praying for the peace of/in Jerusalem. At month's end, the Wall Street Journal ran the headline, "U.S. Jobless Claims Drop to Lowest Level Since 1969." Correlation or coincidence?
Prospering extends far beyond economic benefits. It may be harder to see, and spiritual perception improves when honed in prayer, but look for other extensions of God's favor. I believe that the Lord will show the President ways to deal with world leaders, probably ruffling their feathers, but ultimately advancing the Kingdom of God with a side-effect of prospering the US.
3. Much has been said in the religious media about how "prophetic" it is that the United States has officially recognized Jerusalem. I am not wholly comfortable with using prophetic in that manner. I prefer the term "tactical." An honest show of Respect for Jerusalem is a tactical strategy in a spiritual warfare.
I was stumped on finishing this post for a couple days because, even though I had a sense of the difference between my points 2 & 3, there is an overlap that I was having a hard time writing about. I have finally settled on this: #2 is about our love relationship; it's about human action or response from a heart of love. #3 is about God's Word; God's is going to do what God is going to do whether or not we jump on His bandwagon. When our love-based choice to be on that bandwagon positions us in a place to hear the music, the distinction blurs.
But a sizable chunk of what I am talking about in my third point is the harvest of our ancestors.
[Science Time-Out — Let's talk about dormancy! A dormant seed is unable to germinate (sprout) until all the environmental factors for its survival are present. Elements such as moisture, temperature, perhaps the presence of a certain enzyme or even abrasion of the seed coat may be necessary for germination. Until everything is in place, the seed will not sprout. Some cacti will have seeds that lay dormant for decades until there is an unusually wet spring. Some pine trees need the heat of a forest fire to open the seed pods. Date palms have been cultivated after 2000 years of storage at Masada.¹]
The prayers of our forefathers were seeds lying dormant. During the first half of US history, Jerusalem was under a declining Ottoman rule; a hodgepodge population of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian inhabitants totaled less than 8,000. Segments of Christianity believed that the Church had replaced Israel, since there was no formal Israel. After WWI, the city was under the British mandate and a few Jews began trickling back to their homeland. But for the most part, conditions were not yet suitable for germination.
Now, in 2018, prayers and labors of past generations have an environment where they can come to fruition.
Footnotes
¹ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/051122-old-plant-seed-food/
Curious sidebar - I was looking up Jewish history for the years Americans were fighting for independence. http://www.jewishhistory.org.il/history.php?startyear=1770&endyear=1779
1777 - 1836 NATHAN MEYER ROTHSCHILD (Germany-England) Famous for his Waterloo scoop in which he used carrier pigeons between England and Belgium to gain knowledge of the victory before anyone else. He expanded his father's bank into a world-wide firm.
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