By Jim Denison
Why is a plot of land smaller than New Jersey the stage for so much world history? I am leading study tours in Israel and Egypt as this column is being posted. This is my 12th time to travel in the Middle East. Each visit I marvel at the diminutive scale of Israel and think of the armies through history that have marched across her borders and fought over her lands.
You can drive the length of the country in a morning; at one point the distance from the Mediterranean Sea on Israel’s west to the Palestinian West Bank on her east is six miles.
Galilee is beautiful; Samaria and Judea less so. Israel possesses no navigable rivers. The nation has one airport. Her 8 million residents would not replace New Jersey’s population.
And yet this tiny country is in the news every single day. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 for making peace with her; Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly predicts her destruction. Osama bin Laden cited America’s alliance with her as one of the chief reasons for the 9/11 attacks.
Lahcen Haddad, a political scientist at Rabat University in Morocco, describes the meta-narrative that drives a wedge between the West and Islam and leads radical Muslims into terrorism: “Arabs and Muslims are victims of an imperialist-Zionist conspiracy aided by reactionary regimes in the Arab world. It has as its goal keeping the Arabs and Muslims backward in order to exploit their oil riches and prevent them from becoming as strong as they used to be in the Middle Ages — because that is dangerous for Israel and Western interests.” In this view of history, Israel has co-opted the West in a conspiracy to subjugate Islam and rule the Middle East. Multiplied millions of Muslims agree.
One popular version of Christian eschatology concurs that Israel holds the key to world history, though for very different reasons. Dispensationalists claim that the creation of the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and expect the final battle of human history to be fought on her soil. Jerry Falwell warned America that God “will bless those who bless the Jews and curse whoever curses the Jews.” While many theologians disagree, it is obvious that Israel is the central stage of the biblical drama from Genesis 12 to Revelation 22.
Why? The nation began with Abraham, a man whose story is marked by courageous obedience (cf. Heb. 11:8-12) but significant moral failings as well (cf. Gen. 12:10-20; 16:1-4).
“Jacob” means “deceiver,” a name he repeatedly justified; “Israel” means “one who wrestles with God,” an adversarial relationship his descendants maintained throughout Scripture. The nation that carried his name rebelled repeatedly against Moses before their leaders refused to enter their Promised Land. Israel’s sins led to divine judgment at the hands of Assyria, Babylon and Rome. And yet God called them “the apple of his eye” (Deut. 32:10), a people who were “precious and honored in my sight” (Is. 43:4). Isaiah assured his nation, “the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion” (Is. 30:18).
It is not anti-Semitism to suggest that the Jewish people possessed no intrinsic characteristics that merited God’s calling on their nation. My point is simply this: God’s decision to use Abraham’s seed as the chief conduit for his revelation and the setting for his Son’s incarnation was a choice made by grace.
Here’s the good news: if God would use Israel, he can use us. Her story of calling, failing and redemption is our story. What our Father did with Abraham and Moses, David and Peter, he can do with us.
How do I know? Because, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:26-29).
God loves Israel for the same reason he loves you. Why is that fact good news today?