Lo Kal Lehiot Messiach (It's Not Easy Being Messiah)

I had seen her walking around Jerusalem before. I found her interesting, this little lady clad in a white robe adorned with flashy Hebrew letters. Occasionally she would stop, hold out her arms, raise her silver scepter, and proclaim, “I am the messiah. I am the new Jerusalem. I am your king. I am the mother of all.” This small lady with a short haircut believed that she was going to save humankind.

Tonight I decided to follow her around. I wanted to get some pictures and, if the opportunity presented itself, to speak with this self-proclaimed messiah. I knew I would be disappointed if I came all the way to Israel and never met someone pretending to be Israel’s new king (or queen, in this poor lady’s view of things). I saw her first outside the Jaffa gate of the Old City and then followed her as she traveled downtown Western Jerusalem. It was the final hour of Shabbat, and countless Jewish families saw her as they traveled home after synagogue services. Most stared at her, whispered and giggled, then turned around for another look after she passed. Some hurled insults, cursing her proclamation and the mockery she brought to the very real and serious Jewish expectation for messiah.

I took several pictures of the lady then followed her around to catch the reactions of other people on the street. Eventually, she caught on to the fact that I was following and stopped to talk to me. I was excited, and nervous, to meet this strange and seriously-mistaken lady.

She introduced herself by saying that she liked me. She could tell from my appearance that I was like her -- I was seeking the truth and was on a higher plane of spirituality than everyone else. I asked her to tell me a little about herself. Come to find out, she was a Polish Jew from Toledo (she later reckoned this was one of the reasons she liked me -- we were both from Ohio). As an adopted child she had been raised in a Catholic family. At a young age, however, she began questioning her family’s faith and came to the conclusion that she disagreed with Catholic teaching. She got married, had a son (who is now 37), and then began having dreams and visions. She believed that God was showing her the true way to wisdom and that she was the one responsible for showing everyone else the path. She was bringing the message that God’s power could be accessed through a “secret number code that only (she) knew,” much like electricity can be accessed on a power grid. I didn’t follow her explanation, but she told me that if I looked to the book of Daniel long enough I would be able to figure out when her messiahship would commence and her path to understanding recognized as the only way to her god. Telling me that she was the spiritual mother of all, she also mentioned a male messiah who would come down some day and validate her authority. The prophetic time was very soon, she said, and we should all be ready for the magnificent event any day now.

The little lady shared that it was not easy being the king. She knew she looked crazy and even expected bad treatment from people. She communicated to me that she had given up everything to be messiah. She had left her home and lost her family, people thought she was nuts, and little children stared and laughed at her. Why would anyone do what she had done willingly if they were not legitimately being spoken to by God? When I told her I didn’t believe her claim, she smiled and said that was all right. People do not know the truth now but they will soon, she said matter-of-factly.

I shared with her several times that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and she was very wrong. She told me that Jesus was dead and that he needed her as well.

The little lady was very patient and smiled at me until the very end of our conversation, when I told her I would pray to the real God on her behalf. The fact that I would be interceding for her so that she would come to know the truth in Christ seemed to upset her messianic sensibilities. She said that one day I would regret the fact that the messiah had taken time out her schedule to speak with me on the street and that I had rejected her out of hand.

Looking back on the situation, I’m reminded of the words of G.K. Chesterton. “If we said what we felt (to the madman who called himself Christ), we might say, ‘So you are the Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies! How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no life fuller and no love more marvelous than yours; and is it really in your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a high God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!”

I pray that the true God does smash the world of delusion in which this tiny, self-proclaimed messiah finds herself. The real Messiah came to Earth, gave his life on the cross, and was confirmed as the true Son of God by his Resurrection from the dead so that this lady, trapped by the maniacal machinations of her mind, might be reconciled in relationship to the real God