As Israel’s war with Hamas passes the six-month mark, here are some updates:

• The IDF is withdrawing troops from the southern city of Khan Younis; Hamas rejected an Israeli ceasefire proposal and Israel set a date for an offensive into Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah.
• Israel and the US are preparing for a significant attack by Iran in response to Israel’s strike in Damascus last week.
• Israel is also preparing for a second war on its northern border with Hezbollah.
• Iran is arming fighters in Iraq to join Hezbollah in an attack on Israel.
• The UN recently adopted what Israel’s envoy to the group called the body’s 105^th anti-Israel resolution.

Despite all the hardships Israelis are facing these days, Gallup’s recent World Happiness Report lists their country as the fifth-happiest nation on Earth, behind Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. The US ranks twenty-third.

Why, in the midst of a battle for its very existence, surrounded by enemies on all sides and confronting the escalation of anti-Semitism around the world, are Israelis so happy?

And how is the answer relevant to Christians in our secularized culture?

“An intimate society that runs on trust and generates hope”

Gil Troy is an American presidential historian and senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, he explains the difference between Israel and the US: “Amid unspeakable suffering, Israelis have found comfort in one another and a higher calling. Too many Americans feel lonely and lost.”

According to Troy, “Israelis pursue happiness through family and community, by feeling rooted and having a sense of purpose.” He adds: “Despite disagreeing passionately, Israelis live in an intimate society that runs on trust and generates hope. Israelis feel that they’re never alone, and that their relatives and friends will never abandon them.”

After leading more than thirty study tours to Israel over the years, I can attest personally to the truth of his description. The Israelis I know are indeed some of the most optimistic, gracious, and family-centered people I have ever known.

By contrast, Troy says of anti-Israel progressive students in the US:

These illiberal liberals trash traditional families, religion, and America’s noble story of a flawed nation becoming “a more perfect union.” These campus commissars are among the unhappy Americans the surgeon general sees in the depths of loneliness and despair.

Israelis didn’t seek this war—but when attacked, they unleashed a patriotism, idealism, self-sacrifice, and grit that today’s regressive progressives scorn. Israelis’ resilience, duty, and love of life explain how this often polarized and besieged society remains such a happy place. Rather than demonize these heroes, protesters could learn from Israelis about the art of living—not only for their sake but for America’s too.

Secularized Americans can indeed learn from Israelis about “resilience, duty, and love of life.” But both are missing a factor that should cause Christians to be an even greater model for “the art of living.”

The gospel before the Gospels

Witnessing yesterday’s solar eclipse, I was reminded of the biblical report that on Good Friday “there was darkness over the whole land” from noon until 3:00 PM (Luke 23:44–45). The ancient historian Thallus the Samaritan attempted to explain this darkness as an eclipse of the sun. The church father Julius Africanus showed that Thallus was mistaken since Passover always occurs at the time of the full moon, but a full moon cannot come between the earth and the sun.

I mention this discussion because Thallus wrote his account around AD 52, likely before any of the canonical Gospels. Here we find fascinating, early non-biblical historical evidence for Jesus’ existence and crucifixion.

Of course, the best evidence for Jesus’ existence in the first century and relevance in the twenty-first century is the changed lives of his followers.

Think of it: the God who made you now lives in you (Colossians 1:27). His Spirit indwells you (1 Corinthians 3:16) and is working to make you more like Christ every day (Romans 8:29). You are literally the “body of Christ” in the world (1 Corinthians 12:27), continuing his earthly ministry through your own.

Here’s the point:

The more we become like Christ, the more we will draw the world to Christ.

“The condescension of compassion”

To this end, let’s close by reflecting on the miracle of Jesus’ incarnation. Pope St. Leo the Great wrote:

[Jesus] took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself. . . .

Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death. . . .

One and the same person—this must be said over and over again—is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man.

Because Jesus became one of us, we can be one with him.

How fully will you seek to know him and make him known today?

Tuesday news to know:

• Trump says abortion law should be left to the states
• Biden announces new student debt relief plan for millions of borrowers
• The Vatican says surrogacy and gender theory are “grave threats” to human dignity
• UConn dominates Purdue to capture back-to-back national championships
• On this day in 1865: Robert E. Lee surrenders

Quote for the day:

“Christlikeness is not produced by imitation, but by inhabitation.” —Rick Warren

Denison Forum

When an event won’t happen again where I live until 2317, of course I’m writing on it today. Total solar eclipses occur every eighteen months, but at any given location, it can be centuries between appearances.

When the “totality” occurs this afternoon in Texas, the moon will completely cover the sun for about four minutes, the temperature will noticeably drop, and birds and other wildlife will become quiet, changing to their nighttime behavior. They’re not alone in responding to today’s unusual event:

• Umbraphiles (“shadow lovers” in Latin) have booked hotels in my area and across the path of totality for months if not years.
• Those traveling to see the eclipse will bring a financial boost of as much as $6 billion to communities across a dozen states.
• Some will travel up to thirty hours in the air to see the eclipse from the sky.
• Four NASA pilots will remain in the path of totality for seven minutes to observe the eclipse at an altitude of fifty thousand feet, one of numerous ways scientists will be studying the event.
• Product releases tied to the eclipse include donuts, cookies, juices, chips, pizza, chicken, and other restaurant offerings.

A 105-year-old man who has witnessed twelve solar eclipses is ready to watch his thirteenth today. He is aware that this might be his last: “They don’t come but one or two, every couple of years. . . . I may not see any more eclipses.”

The same is true for you and me.

“God is the most ancient of things”

Today’s eclipse reminds us of both our Maker’s omnipotence and our finitude. He created the sun and the moon (Psalm 148:3, 5); we did not. He rules the universe (Isaiah 40:22); we do not. From the earthquake that rattled New York City last week, to the nor’easter that cut off power to hundreds of thousands, to the critical fire threat in the Central US, to the avalanche that killed three people in Switzerland and the falling tree that took the life of a woman in a storm, we are reminded daily of human frailty.

We can’t even look at today’s eclipse without the right protection for our eyes.

However, one of the hallmarks of our fallenness is our steadfast attempt to deny our fallenness. When the philosopher Thales predicted a solar eclipse using empirical rather than religious reasoning six centuries before Christ, he became known to history as the “first scientist.” While Thales also called the universe “the work of God” and claimed that “God is the most ancient of things, for he had no birth,” many who followed in his scientific footsteps have sided with the French mathematician Laplace who is reputed to have said of God, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

Let us not fall victim to the same self-reliant temptation.

When humans die, they obviously cannot produce life beyond the grave for themselves. Death is the final, irrefutable proof of the fact that we can do nothing in our own capacity to survive death. The psalmist asked the question facing us all: “What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” (Psalm 89:48).

There is only one Answer to his question.

“They heard him and saw the signs that he did”

Here’s the problem: The same temptation to self-reliance that keeps secularists from depending on God can keep Christians from depending on his Spirit. When we fall to this satanic deception (Genesis 3:5), our fallen culture pays the price.

Why is Christianity declining in popularity and influence in the West at the same time it is growing dramatically in the Muslim world, Iran, Cuba, the underground church in China, and other places where it is persecuted so fiercely? Self-dependence amid prosperity robs us of the Spirit’s power, and without his power, we cannot convict a single sinner of a single sin or save a single soul. However, Spirit-dependence amid opposition empowers Christians to be used in transformative ways to change hearts and win multitudes to Jesus.

We read in Acts 8 that “the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did” (v. 6). It was not just his words but his Spirit-empowered deeds that persuaded them.

The great need of our day is for more Philips. For this reason, let us note today:

Self-reliance is spiritual and cultural suicide.

In response, let us use today’s solar eclipse as an invitation to worship the One who made the sun and the moon and measures the universe with the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12). And let us begin today and every day by asking his Spirit to empower and use us to advance his kingdom through our influence (Ephesians 5:18).

When we do, the Son of God will eclipse the Moon of our fallenness and bring us from the shadow of sin into the sunlight of grace.

“It made me feel the majesty of the universe”

Leticia Ferrer has been chasing solar eclipses around the world for several decades. She’s seen twenty in total and every one since 1998. But she’ll never forget her first one in 1991: “It made me feel the majesty of the universe,” she said.

Her experiences have shown her the immensity of the universe but also her personal finitude. She says of her eclipse viewing: “I’m the most blessed person in the world, but yet I’m a minuscule little ant.”

When we understand the latter, we can embrace the former, to the glory of God.

Monday news to know:

• South Carolina caps perfect season with NCAA championship
• The world steels for a Middle East escalation
• Experts warn about rise in gambling addiction thanks to legal sports betting
• Dutch woman, 28, to be euthanized over mental illness
• On this day in 2013: Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, dies

Quote for the day:

“Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.” —Corrie ten Boom

Denison Forum