c. 1999 Religion News Service
JERUSALEM _ Brother David shakes a tambourine while a lady named Grace plays the harpsichord, and the group breaks into an old gospel tune.
It is a blustery cold winter evening in the Holy Land. But some two dozen men, women and children from all over the world have gathered here in this tiny living room in Bethany, an Arab enclave on the edge of Jerusalem to pray and wait _ wait for the Messiah to return.
There is Sharon, a 53-year-old grandmother from California; Kalite, a mother of two from Australia; and Emma, a Hungarian Jew who believes in Jesus _ all of whom decline to give their last names. Kathy Frank and her three children ages 17, 14 and 11, are among the most recent newcomers to Brother David’s millennial community, known as the”House of Prayer.””I don’t necessarily think Jesus is coming back in the year 2000, but something is coming,”said Frank, a former alcohol and drug counselor from St. Petersburg, Fla., who arrived with her family a month ago and now plans to stay, well, until eternity. “The stage is being set for the end times,”she added.”Something incredible is going to be happening. And whatever it is, I believe we’re supposed to be here to help.” That’s the view of about a hundred or more millennially-minded Christians who have quietly filtered into the Holy Land in recent years from the United States, Europe and even Africa. While their numbers are still few, these believers say that their hopes and expectations are shared by millions around the world, and some predict many more faithful will join them as the big date draws nearer.
Brother Solomon, a one-time Seventh-day Adventist who leads another millennial Christian group operating just down the street from the”House of Prayer,”is among those expecting a human tidal wave to begin heading toward Jerusalem any time now.”This year should touch it off,”predicts the lanky retired teacher who moved his Brooklyn-based church,”The House of David”to Bethany five years ago. He expects hordes of Christians to descend on Jerusalem seeking refuge from the last plagues of the final judgment _ plagues which are part of his carefully plotted timeline to the end.”By next year, at Passover 2000, we believe the judgment of the living will end,”Brother Solomon said.”Forty-nine days after Passover, the plagues will begin. And soon after that the Lord will come to take 144,000 believers up to heaven in the Rapture along with a great multitude. Until that Rapture happens, the only place of safety from the seven last plagues will be in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.” It’s no accident these two Christian groups have chosen the village of Bethany _ now within the city limits of Jerusalem _ as the stage to await the endtimes drama. This ancient town, on the edge of the famed Mount of Olives, was Jesus’ home in Jerusalem.
From the roof of her tiny unheated apartment, Sharon, a peppy grandmother of 11 with long reddish hair, looks out onto all of these legendary Christian sites. There is the”Tomb of Lazarus,”the ruins of the house of Simon the Leper, and the boarded-up home of Mary and Martha, where Jesus may have stayed in the weeks before he was crucified.
It was from Bethany that Jesus probably set out on a donkey to ride triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the week preceding Easter. And the New Testament indicates Jesus also returned to the town after being resurrected. That and Old Testament prophecies lead many devout Christians around the world to believe Jesus will return to earth at a site near this village.
Moreover, Bethany is located at the edge of the Mount of Olives, where Jewish tradition has long maintained the resurrection of the dead will take place.”Everyone always wants to walk in the footsteps of Jesus,”noted Sharon.”Well Jesus lived here and so do we. He would go into Jerusalem during the day and come back in the evening, which is what we often do. It’s exciting being in the place where the major events of the Bible happened _ as well as in the middle of God’s actions today. The year 2000 may not be the exact date, but I believe it is a landmark that says we’re getting close.” Sharon, a former inventory consultant for an electronics firm, came to Israel in 1992, after receiving what she describes as a direction from God. “I had been widowed and divorced, raised seven children and my youngest daughter, who was 16 at the time, had just moved into her own apartment,”she recalled.”There I was at home all alone and I prayed. I said `Lord, you must have more you want me to do than just go back and forth to work.’ He said, `Well, Sharon, you always wanted to go to Israel ….'” The first week after her arrival, Sharon met up with Brother David, the former owner of an upstate New York trailer park who had sold his business and given all of the money to charity, before coming to Israel in 1980.
Sharon became a partner in Brother David’s ministry. But they were the target of arson attacks and harrassment by Jews and, ultimately, the police became involved. Brother David was arrested for being in the country illegally but after nine months in jail, the Israeli authorities abandoned their efforts to deport him.
Soon after being released, Brother David settled in Bethany _ ground zero for Christian endtime scenarios involving the Messiah’s return. “The Lord spoke to me and told me to go to the Mount of Olives and prepare the way for the Lord’s coming. We have signs showing that the coming of the Messiah is very near,”said Brother David, 58, who now rents run-down apartments from East Jerusalem Arab landlords, renovates the properties and sublets them to Christian pilgrims who are visiting, or living, in the Holy Land.
(BEGIN FIRST OPTIONAL TRIM)”No man knows the day or the hour,”adds Brother David, who takes issue with Brother Solomon’s precise timetable for endtime events. Yet Brother David, too, is awaiting the beginning of a seven-year period of tribulations, as well as the miraculous Rapture of born-again Christians to heaven.
At the end of the seven years of tribulation, he believes that Christ and his followers will return to rule on earth for another millennium.
At least in technical terms, members of the millennial groups are permitted to remain in Israel and the West Bank only as tourists here for brief visits. In reality, a slow trickle of pilgrims is arriving that is determined to remain at all costs, even if they run afoul of Israel’s tough laws barring most Christian immigration.”I’d rather be called a civil disobedient rather than a God disobedient,”said Brother David in an impromptu sermon to his followers at the Wednesday evening prayer meeting in Bethany.”Did Abraham have to fill out papers to come into the land?”he asked.”There is a cause and a purpose for why God has called you here to this particular place. But you are going to find opposition to what God is calling you to do.” (END FIRST OPTIONAL TRIM)
To resolve the problems with the law, some members of the groups simply stop showing up at government offices to renew their visas or rid themselves of passports and identification papers altogether. Yet as long as they remain few in number, and stay out of trouble, officials in Israel’s Ministry of Interior say they don’t actively try to hunt the millennialists down. “We’re not Big Brother,”said Moshe Mosco, a spokesman for Israel’s Interior Ministry.”If the police come and tell us that someone poses a public danger, then we will issue a deportation order. If we don’t hear from the police, and they don’t constitute a danger to anyone, then we usually don’t go after them ourselves.” Tensions rose, however, following the recent arrest and deportation of 14 members of the Colorado-based”Concerned Christians”cult by Israeli authorities.
The group, led by the elusive leader Monte Kim Miller, was suspected by police of planning some kind of violent activities to hasten the apocalypse. After the Concerned Christians were deported, Israeli police began visiting the homes of the millennial groups in Bethany as well.
Both Brother David and Brother Solomon insist their followers have nothing to do with the Denver-based organization and they are opposed to any kind of violent action to hasten the end times. “There are millions of pilgrims who come here every year just to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. So to take a handful of”Concerned Christians”and to say that they are representative is an exaggeration,”declares Brother David.”Our purpose is to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah,”he said.”But anyone who thinks they are going to commit suicide or blow up other people’s buildings certainly didn’t get that from the teachings of Jesus. The time is near. But we believe in leaving things in the hands of God.”
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