Maybe you remember God’s promise to bless those who bless his people and curse those who curse his people.
We are, as Christians, called to pray for God’s people. So, one of the things many of us are praying for and looking forward to in the New Year is a new level of support for Israel.
In fact, the Israeli flag is a blue Star of David with two blue stripes on a white cloth. And according to Jonathan Cahn, it’s a copy of the “tallit” or Jewish prayer shawl.
Rabbi Jesus likely wore a white cloth garment with two blue stripes around the hem. Maybe you remember the prayer of the woman who touched the hem of his garment (prayed) and was healed?
What you might not know is that particular blue dye was missing for almost 2,000 years and only recently re-discovered and used on their flag. It was the very same blue dye the woman might have touched on the hem of Jesus’ garment before she was healed.
And both Jews and Christians are praying for the coming of the Messiah which will bring three things:
• Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished.
• And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband.
• I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: “Now God's home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God.”
There is a problem; God’s chosen people are lost and need to repent and come home to him. The word is “teshuvah” or “repentance” and in the Jewish world, autumn is the season of repentance.
So, God has embedded that truth in the Jewish calendar. It’s the Festival of Tabernacles or Sukkoth, which is the Jewish thanksgiving when his chosen people will come home to him in the autumn of time — in the end of time.
The repentance of God’s chosen people will signal to the rest of the world that Jesus is coming. And every time you see the Israeli flag, it’s a prayer of intercession for the repentance of God’s chosen people and a prayer of thanksgiving that he has also chosen us — a thanksgiving that won’t end on November 28!
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga.
