Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (34 page)

Simon the Zealot and Mary Magdalene made their way up the Mount of Olives. The eleven disciples, along with the seventy closest followers of Jesus had been called to meet there by the master.

These were the seventy that Jesus had appointed earlier in his ministry to go before him and proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom of God to unrepentant cities. They had been given the authority to tread on the Serpent and to have power over demons in his name.

Simon knew that this particular gathering would be very important. Because these seventy stood for the seventy nations whose principalities had just been dethroned. Would these seventy now become the new rulers over those nations as the twelve apostles would lead the twelve tribes of Israel?

Perhaps this was the final gathering, since Jesus had yet to bring those nations under his newly established kingdom. Simon knew that the prophet Zechariah had foretold this very location for his final battle.

Then Yahweh will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west. Then Yahweh my God will come, and all the holy ones with him
.

Simon looked all around the valleys surrounding the mountain. There were no armies amassing to fight. None were in the distance marching their way toward the holy city. It was just another quiet, sunny day in all the land.

The seventy had gathered around Jesus, and made small talk.

Jesus quieted them down and announced to them, “What I told you earlier in Galilee, I tell you again. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Simon frowned with confusion. Jesus had said in this very spot that the end of the age would be signaled by the destruction of the holy city and Temple, within their generation. But the city and Temple were still standing. He had used astronomical poetics to explain that when the ruling authorities, both in heaven and on earth, would fall, that Jesus would come like the storm god, “on the clouds of heaven,” a sign of him seated at the right hand of God. This was a prophetic way of saying he would come in omnipotent power to judge.

Simon could not help himself. He blurted out, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus responded, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. For it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

This made some sense to Simon. The prophet Daniel had said that Messiah the prince would put an end to the sin that caused Israel’s exile, to atone for iniquity and bring in everlasting righteousness. He had said that Messiah would put an end to sacrifice and offering. This atonement Jesus had accomplished to be sure with his death and resurrection.

But that was only the first half of the prophecy. The other half said that on the wing of abominations would come another prince, one who makes desolate. The abomination of desolation. Jesus himself had said to look for this abomination in the armies of the prince of Rome surrounding the holy city. The people of this prince would destroy the city and sanctuary of God.

But the armies of Rome were nowhere to be found.

But then Simon remembered that Jesus said these things would happen within a generation of his prediction. A generation was about thirty to forty years. It was still early in the gathering storm.

Jesus continued to explain, “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Clothed with power from on high?
thought Simon.
To do what? Proclaim the Kingdom of God? Who then would fight the armies of Rome?

Simon swallowed with a dry throat and felt a pit in his stomach, because it was starting to become clear to him. Jesus had also taught the disciples regarding the abomination of desolation that when it came, they should not stay in the city but flee to the mountains. He was already familiar with such thinking. As an Essene at the isolated Qumran, he thought that they were the true remnant of Yahweh’s holy people and all of Israel would be judged when Messiah came. But Messiah came and the Essenes rejected him. They were not the remnant. The Pharisees and Sadducees rejected him and along with the Herodians, led the people in crucifying him. None of them were the remnant.

That could only mean one thing. Israel was going to be judged. She had rejected her Messiah and Jesus was going to come on the clouds and destroy her through the armies of Rome, as he did through the armies of Assyria in Isaiah’s day. Yahweh was going to protect his remnant of true believers, the followers of Jesus.

But how could this pathetic group of fishermen, ex-Zealots and plebeians draw all the nations into Zion if Zion was destroyed? Was Jesus himself the spiritual Zion, a heavenly mountain? His New Covenant kingdom, a heavenly Jerusalem?

Mary grabbed Simon’s arm. He had become so lost in his thoughts, he wasn’t listening closely to Jesus. But she had been listening. She had been watching Jesus closely to see what he was going to do. She had scanned the faces of the disciples all around, watching their reactions. Joanna, Salomé, and the other Mary stood beside her as they had done on Golgotha and at the empty tomb. They were inseparable.

But now, Mary felt herself separate from the others there. As if her body stayed in their midst, but her spirit seemed to stand apart. It reminded her of when she would go into trances at Panias. But this time it was not evil. This was from God, because in her hazy vision, she now saw what appeared to be a myriad of holy ones on chariots surrounding the Mount of Olives. Just like she had seen at the cross.

The chariots of God are twice ten thousand,
thousands upon thousands;
the Lord is among them; Sinai is now in the sanctuary.

She scanned the crowd of faces, and realized that none of the others had seen this heavenly vision. Only she.

But she had been so intent upon the heavenly vision in the distance that she almost missed the earthly miracle that happened right in front of her.

Jesus began to rise up off the ground before their very eyes.

Some went silent with awe, others screamed in fear, still others fainted. Someone cried out, “Jesus, don’t go! Come back!”

As he ascended, he became temporarily obscured by the blinding sun behind him in the sky. Was this an apotheosis, a deification?
No,
thought Simon.
He had always been the unique Son of God, Immanuel, God among us.
He was born the Seed of the Woman
and
the Seed of the Holy Spirit. He had always been the true god-man, that which the fallen Watchers had sought to mimic, and by so doing, destroy his incarnation. But they had failed. And they had failed to stop his seedline through all of history. Now, he had conquered the powers. Now they were subject to him, as he ascended to the right hand of God, the very position of sovereign power and majesty. Simon knelt in awe as the resurrected messiah, Jesus, faded into the clouds above
.

That was not all Mary saw as she watched the Lord ascend. She also saw into the spirit realm. She saw a train of what could only be ancient saints taken from the Bosom of Abraham, freed from their wait for Messiah in Hades, follow him up into heaven.

              You ascended on high,
leading a host of captives in your train
and giving gifts to men.

Silence permeated the crowd. No one knew what to say. They all knew this would be the last they would see of their Lord on this earth. He had told them before that unless he left them, the Holy Spirit would not come. But Simon wasn’t sure exactly how the Holy Spirit would guide them.

Since everyone was looking up, no one saw the two men in white robes arrive in their midst. But Mary recognized them from the empty tomb. Angels.

One of them said, “Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Mouths agape, minds bedazzled, the disciples looked amongst one another trying to understand just what was going on.

But Mary saw. And Simon knew. Jesus would return on the clouds of heaven within their generation as he promised. They had to be prepared. The Day of the Lord was coming.

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

Daniel 7:13–14

The disciples returned to Jerusalem and replaced the twelfth apostle by drawing lots. Matthias would become Judas Iscariot’s replacement.

It had been seven weeks since the Passover and the terrible events of that week. But Yahweh had established a new Passover with a new lamb, his Messiah, and now he was preparing to consummate his new covenant.

The feast of Pentecost had arrived and with it, another pilgrimage of Jews from all the nations into Jerusalem. This was the celebration of the harvest, but also the renewal of the covenant. Many offerings were made at the Temple to celebrate the original entrance into the Promised Land and the rich bounty that Yahweh had laid upon his people.

The seventy were gathered together at a home near the Temple gates, along with an additional fifty or so followers. Simon had been asked by Peter to share with them the story of the Tower of Babel. It struck him as strange, but he did so, having studied it quite deeply during his days in Qumran. All those hours of scrupulous reading of petty details came in handy sometimes. He missed those days of academic lectures at the community. But these days were so much better.

Simon looked at the faces of those around him as he told his story. “And so, Yahweh saw that the whole of mankind had once again rose from the muck and clay to make an idolatrous name for themselves. Nimrod, the mighty rebel before Yahweh, had built a tower, a cosmic mountain, that united heaven and earth. And all the earth spoke the same language back then. So in order to stop a united humanity from rising to incalculable heights of evil, Yahweh went down and confused their language so that they could not understand one another’s speech. And from that land of Babel, Yahweh dispersed them as the seventy nations over the face of the earth. He placed those nations under the authority of the fallen Sons of God, allotted them as their inheritance, the gods of the nations. But he kept Jacob for himself. He was Jacob’s inheritance, and Jacob was his.”

Simon was about to tie it together and make his theological point when he was interrupted by the sound of a mighty rushing wind from heaven.

People exclaimed with fright as they saw tongues of supernatural fire rest upon each of them. Fear turned to awe when they saw that the fire did not injure their bodies or consume them. Awe turned to joy. And then to laughter.

They began to talk amongst themselves. But something even stranger had happened. They now each spoke in foreign languages unknown to them. Simon recognized some of them; Latin, Persian, Egyptian. But these were not known languages to these common folk who spoke them.

It dawned on Simon what was happening. He gestured for everyone to move out into the streets.

Peter led them across the street to the Great Arch, the stairway up to the southern gates of the Temple. He encouraged the followers to speak of the mighty works of God to those passing by. They spread out so as not to sound like a cacophony of confusion.

Simon realized that Yahweh was undoing Babel. He was reversing the curse. He had filled his new emissaries with the Holy Spirit and was using the tongues of nations to unify a new humanity, not in wickedness and violence, but in Messiah and his Spirit.

So this is how Yahweh would bring in the nations.

Simon saw Jews from every part of the diaspora, the Great Dispersion, stopping and listening all over the street. They were astonished to hear Galileans telling them of the mighty works of God in their own tongues. They were from Parthia and Media, from Elam and all over Mesopotamia. Judea, Asia, Egypt and Rome. Simon wouldn’t be surprised if all seventy of the nations were represented here at this festival of pilgrimage.

Not all pilgrims were impressed. There were mockers as well. One of them yelled out like a horn, “These men are drunk on new wine!”

People laughed in the crowd. They started to murmur. Simon could see this sensitive moment of God’s moving might so easily be ruined by the presence of hard hearts.

Peter took control at the top of the steps. He spoke with a supernatural presence. His voice boomed and curried attention.

“Men of Judea and Jerusalem! Hear my words! These people are not drunk on wine as this heckler suggests. But rather they are part of a profound movement of God that you had better consider for yourselves, or you will be sorry!”

The crowd went quiet. He had their attention now.

“These very events are what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:

And in the last days it shall be, Yahweh declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;

even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.”

Simon knew the implications of this prophesy. In their patriarchal culture, only men were allowed the privileged status of such things as prophecy and spiritual leadership. But for God to say that even women, and worse yet, male and female
servants
, would be equally baptized in God’s Spirit, was a scandal for their culture. A deeply offensive scandal. A spiritually liberating one. It marked the Last Days.

Peter continued his quotation of the prophet,

“And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;

the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the Day of the Lord comes,
the great and magnificent day.”

Simon looked out upon the crowd. They had no idea of the terror that was coming. The last days of the Old Covenant were upon them, just as Jesus had said. The end of the present age, and the start of the age to come, the age of Messiah. The Day of the Lord was coming for Israel. Isaiah had used that phrase, “Day of the Lord,” along with similar astronomical language when describing the destruction of Babylon and then of Edom. Ezekiel had used the same poetry for the destruction of Egypt. Now Peter was reiterating the same language to claim that the Day of the Lord was coming to Israel, just as Jesus had promised. Judgment was coming to Jerusalem.

But so was salvation for the remnant.

Peter continued, “‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!’”

As Simon listened to Peter, he watched the crowd become agitated. Peter spoke of King David, the forerunner of Messiah, and how he was dead and buried in his tomb, awaiting one of his descendants to sit on this throne. He explained that the Son of David was Jesus and that David had foreseen the resurrection of Jesus when he said Yahweh would not abandon him to Hades or let his flesh see corruption. He told of Jesus ascending to heaven and being exalted to the right hand of God, from where he poured forth the promised Holy Spirit upon his followers that the crowds were now seeing.

David himself did not ascend to heaven, but rather spoke of Messiah’s apotheosis of deity, his crowning exaltation of omnipotence.

Yahweh said to my Lord Adonai,

“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies my footstool.”

Yahweh sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.

Rule in the midst of your enemies!

Adonai is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.

He will execute judgment among the nations.

But then, Peter laid out his climactic accusation to the throng of people listening. “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.”

Simon felt his mind clear with understanding. Jesus was the Messianic stone of Daniel’s prophecy that would crush the iron and clay feet of Rome and grow to become the cornerstone of a new cosmic mountain that would fill the earth. Simon saw a similar understanding sweep over the listeners as agitation now melted into conviction. The Spirit of God had fallen upon this crowd. People began to weep. Others were crying out to ask what they should do.

Peter told them. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For this promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone the Lord our God calls to himself. Therefore, save yourselves from this crooked generation, upon whom judgment is coming!”

Some of the apostles led the repentant listeners south to the Pool of Siloam to be baptized. Hundreds of them. But Peter kept preaching as new people were drawn to the spectacle that had just occurred. Simon suspected that hundreds would turn to thousands that day.

The great ingathering had begun. The messengers of the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah were drawing in the elect from the four corners of the earth, before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. It was a day that Jesus had promised some of them would live to see. It would happen within their own generation. Days of vengeance, a great tribulation, was coming upon them.

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.

“For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory
.”

Jesus in Luke 21:20–27

The Chronicles of the Nephilim
continues with the next series
,
Chronicles of the Apocalypse
, click here.