THE SOLACE OF THE SAVIOUR AND HEZBOLLAH’S VICTORY: BELIEF IN THE MAHDI AND JESUS AS AN ENCOURAGEME-2

However, there is a further aspect to Christ’s self-sacrifice that is relevant to our theme: the defeat of Satan. Jesus, speaking of His impending self-sacrifice on the Cross, declares ‘Now … the ruler of this world will be cast out’, (John 12:31, cf. 16:11). The Passion of Jesus at Calvary has analogies with the Passion of Hussein at Karbala: both confronted murderous tyrannical usurpers (John 8:44 – the Devil was a ‘murderer from the beginning’ i.e. of Man). Satan is depicted in the New Testament as the global usurper and tyrant – a kind of spiritual Yazid/Muawaiya. Khomeini even referred to Yazid as a devil, again providing an analogy with the Biblical narrative, and just as the New Testament presents the self-sacrifice of Jesus as effecting the overthrow of Satan’s regime, Khomeini understood Karbala as overthrow of Yazid’s regime:
The Master of Martyrs (a.s.) rose up with a handful of disciples … As the uprising was for God, they defamed and ruined the monarchy of that devil (Yazid). Outwardly, they all got killed but their sacrifice caused the overthrow of the corrupt regime which meant to turn Islam into a tyrannous, corrupt monarchy.
We are told in 1 John 5:19 that ‘the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One.’ Satan gained control of the world through the transgression of Adam in Eden, since this allowed Sin to enter the world. By paying the price for Man’s sins, the power of the Devil was mortally wounded. What looked to the world like the defeat of Jesus was actually His triumph over Satan – Colossians 2:15: ‘When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.’ This has parallels with Karbala: Khomeini stated ‘For the Shiite Faith, Muharram is the month in which victory was achieved amid blood and sacrifice.’ Jesus triumphed by His blood: Revelation 12:11 ‘And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb’. Interestingly, Khomeini saw the triumph of Hussein over the Ummayads as resulting from the blood of the Imam:
The Master of Martyrs was slain, not defeated but, he defeated the Bani Omayyads in such a way that they could not rise again. His blood drove them away so thoroughly that even today, defeat is registered in name of Yazid and his subjects while Islam thrives by the victory of the Martyrdom of Imam Hosein (a.s.).
However, there is a further parallel. As we have seen, the self-sacrifice of Imam Hussein still left oppression in the world, and for Shia, this part of his calling is to be completed by Imam Mahdi, who will extinguish tyranny forever. Equally, Christians often speak of themselves as living between two ages – the ‘present evil age’ (Galatians 1:4), under the continued but wounded domination of Satan, and the Age to Come (Hebrews 6:5) following the Second Coming of Christ, when there will be a New Heavens and a New Earth (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1), with Satan and his followers despatched to eternal Hell (Matthew 25:41, 46). At His first coming, Jesus said ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Reign of God is at hand’ (Mark 1:15 – meaning spatially imminent). The Greek word basileiea is best translated in most cases as ‘reign’ rather than ‘kingdom’ since it usually describes a dynamic activity than a place. When Jesus exorcised demons, He said to the healed person ‘But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you’, Matthew 12:28. Hoekema comments: ‘The Greek verb used here, ephthasen, means has arrived or has come not is about to come.’ Yet the Reign is also future - Matthew 7:21-23; 1 Corinthians 15:50 – ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God’).
How then do we resolve this apparent tension between the fact that the kingdom of God is ‘already’ and ‘not yet’? The answer is that the Kingdom of God belongs to the Age to Come - the two terms are interchangeable - Mark 10:25, 30 (‘…enter the kingdom of God …the age to come’). What has happened is that the powers of the Age to Come have invaded this present age through the Saviour, Jesus. We are presently awaiting the completion of the work wrought by Jesus at His First Coming. After His Ascension, Jesus sat the right hand of God as Ruler and Saviour, Acts 2:33, 5:31. He is reigning now, and His reign is characterised by the subjugation of His enemies, Acts 2:34-35; 1 Corinthians 15:24-25. His Return disposes of the last enemy, death, by establishing the Resurrection Age in its fullness, v23.
5. The Solace of the Christian Saviour
In this sense, the Present Reign and Second Coming of the Biblical Saviour has parallels with that of the Shia Saviour. Both Christians and Shia believe that in some way their respective Saviours continue to intervene in human history. Both believe that their Saviours will return to complete an earlier ministry – in the case of Jesus for Christians, His Second Coming will complete the work of His First Advent, and for Shia, the Mahdi’s coming will complete the work of Hussein. As with the Shi‘ite conception of the Saviour, the Biblical Saviour provides solace in two ways.
Firstly, there is the psychological solace the Biblical Saviour gives His people in times of oppression or ordinary trouble. Jesus warned that the abiding characteristic of this present evil age is trouble, but gave solace and hope because of His triumph over Satan’s power, John 16:33: ‘These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.’ Jesus told a congregation that they were to face suffering at the Devil’s instigation, but their martyrdom would simply be followed by Paradise, Revelation 2:10: ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.’ Christians are promised comfort ‘in all our affliction’ and ‘sufferings’ from Christ, 2 Corinthians 1:4-5. Because of this, Christians cans both rejoice in hope and persevere in tribulation, Roman 12:12. Christians, even when suffering terrible persecution at the hands of the Jewish authorities, the Romans or atheistic Communists, have known the supernatural solace that Jesus gives, enabling them to cope with persecution, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. At other times miracles occur, as when the Lord sent an angel to release Peter from prison chains, Acts 12:7ff. When Paul faced persecution in Corinth, the Awaited Saviour Himself appeared, and gave him words of solace, promising Paul that Jesus would be with him, Acts 18:9-10. Thus the Christians were able to resist oppression.
The other encouragement Christians possess is that they know that the final triumph is theirs over their oppressors because of the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus will come back to punish those who persecuted His people and give Christians relief, 2 Thessalonians 1:5-7:
5 This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. 6 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels…
However great the persecution they may face, Christians know that one day it will end, when Jesus returns. They also know that they may not have to wait until then, because Jesus is already enthroned in heaven, conquering His foes. Sometimes Jesus performs a miracle, such as transforming His enemies into His followers, as with Saul, the zealous Pharisee whom Jesus transformed into the Apostle Paul. Paul’s autobiographical statements demonstrate that before his conversion, he engaged in religious oppression of Christians - Philippians 3:6: ‘a persecutor of the church’. However, an event happened which changed Saul’s perception of Jesus, and thus his attitude to the Christians, namely, the vision of the Risen and Ascended Saviour on the Damascus Road:
This objective, external event had a soul-stirring effect on the very centre of Paul’s being (2 Cor 4.6; Gal 1.16)… It was the moment when Paul was transferred from his false judgement of Jesus (2 Cor 5.16; Gal 3.13) to the true knowledge of him as God’s exalted Messiah, as God’s Son, and as the Lord (2 Cor 5.16; Gal 1.16; Phil 3.8). Thus it brought about a complete change in Paul’s life: the enemy of Christ became his servant. Indeed, he was made a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5.17).
The vision of the Ascended Saviour to Saul/Paul proved that God had raised Jesus from the dead and exalted Him to His right hand: ‘the one thing that could have convinced Paul that Jesus was the risen Lord was his Damascus-road experience; this henceforth was the essence of his gospel, and he owed it directly to that “revelation of Jesus Christ”’. The Acts record presents this as a vision of Christ in some form, Acts 9:3, 7; 26:13ff, 19. Paul himself refers to his seeing Jesus in 1 Corinthians 9:1: ‘Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?’ Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul states regarding the Risen Jesus ‘He appeared to me also’. Thereafter, he proclaimed that which he once persecuted, Galatians 1:23. Interestingly, there are parallels with the experience of people hostile to the Shi‘ite Imams, including the Mahdi whilst in Occultation, being transformed by an encounter with them:
The Almighty Allah has bestowed the Imams (a.s.) of “guiding with command”. They have the capacity to transform a period just by looking at it. Imam Hasan (a.s.) changed the Syrian foe into a humble friend, Imam Husain (a.s.) transformed Zohair Qayn, Imam Mohammad Taqi (a.s.) changed the heart of the Syrian worshipper, etc.. Similarly, Hazrat Vali-e-Asr (a.s.) has brought profound changes in the lives of people like Hasan Iraqi.
The pre-Christian Paul was ‘zealous’ – a term denoting Jewish religious fanaticism:
Zeal was more than just a fervent commitment to the Torah; it denoted a willingness to use violence against any - Jews, Gentiles, or the wicked in general - who were contravening, opposing, or subverting the Torah. Further, a zealot was willing to suffer and die for the sake of the Torah, even to die at one’s own hand...
The Israeli settler responsible for the Hebron massacre, Baruch Goldstein, was ‘zealous’ in this way: a vision from the Saviour in heaven such as that given to Paul would prevent any settlers from copying his outrage. Perhaps those who proclaim their belief in the present power of the Saviour, whether in Christian or Muslim terms, should consider that in their own minds they limit His power by neglecting the transformation that an encounter with the Saviour can accomplish on the oppressive enemy. Mohamed Mossadeq urged cheering Iranian crowds - ‘Don’t say “Death to the British!”; pray God to guide them’. Rather than saying ‘Death to America’, people in the Middle East should pray that God gives them a vision of the Saviour that transforms negative US policies.
However, for those unwilling to repent, the Ascended Saviour has other means of intervention. Jesus predicted the Destruction of Jerusalem in consequence for their rejection and murder of Him: Luke 21:22-23, 27: ‘For this is the time of vengeance in fulfilment of all that has been written... There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people... At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.’ Those responsible for the murder of Jesus were made to pay. Similarly, in Luke 19:41-44, we encounter the weeping of Jesus over the fate of Jerusalem because of its murder of the Saviour, in which a stark prophecy of the actions of the Roman soldiers in AD 70 is found, especially in v43-44 -
The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.
Such did occur in AD 70 - the Romans surrounded the city, and besieged it for five months. After breaking through, they killed nearly everyone and levelled the city, including its Temple, home of the priesthood who incited the Romans to crucify Jesus. The irony is clear: God caused those people – the Romans - used by the Jerusalem Temple authorities to crucify the Saviour – to turn on those same oppressive authorities and destroy the central symbol of their system – the Temple. Just as the Shia Saviour is held to avenge the slaying of Hussein, the Biblical Saviour avenges His own murder.
6. The Strategy of the Saviour
In AD 70, the imperial power of its day, through the sovereign direction of God, turned on the regime it had supported in murdering the Saviour. At this juncture it is pertinent to state that just because the present global power - America - is seen by most Muslims as backing the regime oppressing Muslims and Christians, it does not follow that this will always be the case. From a supernaturalist viewpoint, it is quite possible that the power of the Saviour will transform its attitudes and policies leading America to confront such oppression. Moreover, it must be remembered that this has happened before, and this leads us to consider the strategy of the Saviour.
It is clear that the Occultation and then the manifestation of the Shia Saviour follows a clear strategy – firstly of protecting the Imam from assassination, secondly of his return in supernatural glory to battle his enemies, the Sufyani, the Dajjal and all oppressors. Similarly, the Biblical Saviour’s return has an analogous strategy- His coming completes His victory over Satan, and the Final Judgement ensues. It follows therefore that the followers of the Saviour, whether in Islamic or Christian perspectives, should also be guided by the Saviour in their struggles against oppression, and act with a conscious, workable strategy.
Khomeini, frequently recalling the sacrificial example of Hussein, had a definite strategy in Iranian Revolution. Essentially, the revolutionary jihad was an act of ‘people power’ through popular mobilisation: ‘Thousands of people died in the last months of the Shah’s regime, but they were mainly unarmed demonstrators, not guerrillas.’ A modern Western convert to Islam comments on Khomeini’s strategy in this regard:
For Imam Khomeini not only reinstituted the proper goals of a true revolution, he also defined the means: those of non-violence and the faith of an entire people in the power of martyrdom. The most typical example of this new method was his attitude towards the army, in which the Shah had believed he possessed an invincible power, and the ‘immortal ones’ in his guard. Imam Khomeini had a different conception of power. He had the audacity to see it, not in arms, but in the inner conscience … of the soldiers. All his directives during the time of confrontation were inspired by these principles: ‘Do not attack the breasts of the soldiers, but their hearts.’ Desertions multiplied. This non-violence, like that of Gandhi against the most powerful military and economic force of the day, was to bear fruit… It is thus that unarmed people would prevail over such a renowned and powerful army.
Similarly, Evangelical Christians have sought to extend the Kingdom of God by confronting and resisting oppression by non-violent means. The most obvious example of this is very relevant for British Christians in this year of 2007 – the abolition of slavery. It was Evangelical Christians under William Wilberforce who led a campaign of political lobbying, electoral intervention and popular boycotts of slavery products which led to the abolition of the slave trade in Britain in 1807 and of slavery throughout the Empire in 1833. This was despite the obvious financial benefits to the British economy of slavery, and even purported security aid that the trade generated. Likewise, American Christians were in the vanguard of the fight against slavery in their country, and in both Britain and America, long the worst practitioners and sponsors of slavery in the West, became the most aggressive opponents of this oppression often obliging other countries, such as Brazil in 1885, to abandon slavery.
Perhaps this example should be instructive to the burgeoning Arab and Muslim communities in the West. Together with people from other communities, they could use their electoral numbers to mount an effective lobbying campaign against the oppression of their brothers in Lebanon and Palestine. The election of anti-war candidates in Britain and the largest rally in British history – two million people – against the Iraq war and for Palestinian liberty demonstrates the practical potential for this. What is lacking is a clear strategy - and the example of the Saviour in both Christian and Shia perspectives demonstrates the need for this.
What has guided Evangelicals in such campaigns is their belief in the self-sacrifice of the Saviour, His present reign and the desire to see His Return. In 2 Peter 3:12 Christians are urged to be ‘looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God’, i.e. the Second Coming of Christ. Christians are meant to ‘labour and strive’ for ‘godliness’ because ‘we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of believers’, 1 Timothy 4:8-10, and we remember that He is in Heaven, ‘from which also we eagerly wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ’, Philippians 3:20, and thus are ‘looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Christ Jesus’, Titus 2:13. Indeed, the Lord’s Supper demonstrates how Christians unite the functions of Hussein and the Mahdi in their Saviour, because it not only reminds them of His death, but also of His return, since they practise it ‘until He comes’, 1 Corinthians 11:26. Thus, the Lord’s Supper every Sunday gives Christians solace, both in terms of comfort and in terms of the expectation of Christ’s Return.
CONCLUSION
There are surprising analogies between the solace that Mahdist expectation gives Muslims and that which Messianic expectation gives Christians. The issue of solace in all its aspects - above all, the encouragement to prepare the way for the coming of the Saviour – is a neglected factor in Western studies of religion, largely perhaps because of the post-religious character of especially European academic discourse and its presuppositions. Atheists and people who marginalise God simply cannot understand the idea of faith as a power to motivate people to endure oppression, and even to conquer it. This is what was so difficult for many Westerners to comprehend about the Iranian Revolution. Similarly, by all normal considerations, a few thousand poorly-armed guerrillas in Lebanon should not have been able to resist and beat the strongest military power in the Middle East, but Hezbollah did it twice. What commentators fail to notice was the power of expectation of the Saviour in motivating people in both contexts in their jihad.
Evangelical Protestants do not have a physical equivalent to jihad, but the New Testament reveals a spiritual analogy, whereby their prayers against Satan overcome him, Ephesians 6:10ff. This spiritual warfare undoubtedly helped cause the collapse of oppressive, atheistic Communism in Europe. After that collapse thriving congregations of Evangelical Protestants came to public notice, a testament to the power and solace of the Saviour in the face of oppression.
Finally, we come back to the question of tears. Women shed tears as Jesus was taken to be crucified, Luke 23:27, just as Shia shed tears for the Passion of Hussein. However, Jesus warned the women to cry for themselves, since the Judgment on Jerusalem would follow (in AD 70), v30 ‘Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “fall on us”, and to the hills, “cover us.”’. This is repeated in Revelation 6:16, where in answer to a prayer for justice and vengeance from the martyrs, v10, the terrible divine judgement fell on Jerusalem, described as ‘the wrath of the Lamb’, v16. On the other hand, the promise of God to oppressed Christians is that following the Second Coming of Christ, God ‘will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’, Revelaiton 21:4 (cf. 7:17). Similarly, Shia hold that the injustice of the oppression and murder suffered by Hussein and his entourage will be avenged by the coming of the Awaited Saviour. Christians and Muslim alike in Lebanon and Palestine are awaiting their Saviour to return and liberate them. People everywhere who suffer oppression cry out for the Saviour to come and deliver them, just as oppressors should fear His coming. May God hasten His appearance!