The Time of the Lamb Will Come
The lion. King cat of the pridelands. Apex predator. But not the “King of Kings”. To become the lion has been the endeavor of every tribe, nation, and individual since recorded history. Except the most impactful human being in history was not a lion. He was a lamb. A shepherd named Yeshua. This lamb received the full brunt of violence from the Roman and Hebrew empires, and held up a mirror for all to see. Not only did He hold a mirror, He offered forgiveness. This was a dramatic break from the ideology of the time, an old testament of wrathful gods and vengeful kings. He broke the wheel of the ancient ‘eye for an eye’ Hammurabism. This Son of Man has had a far greater impact on the world than any conquering king, khan, sultan, or emperor. His actions are often reduced to the simple act of pacifism, which fails to recognize the assertion of supreme spiritual dominance he exemplified. Now of course, the Holy Roman Empire and its Protestant children, inverted many of His teachings and went on to slay tens of millions of innocents in their rapacious quest to become the new lion. But despite all of this, an imprint from the first lamb is still one of the most significant drivers for consciousness in the world.
The new testament speaks of a second coming of Christ that will usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. Apostles like Paul and John believed this would happen in their lifetime. Many fundamentalists still believe that the second coming will be the incarnation or immaculate conception of a single being, happening in their own lifetime. While possible, given the failed history of this prediction, that seems to be the least likely scenario. What I believe will happen, is that Christ will return as a consciousness that underpins a series of heroic acts that collectively change the trajectory of the world. One of the most significant opportunities for this passed the world by on the days following October 7th, 2023.
Before I get into my laments regarding Israel’s response, let’s get one thing clear. The attacks on Jewish civilians carried out by Hamas were heinous. I’ve personally spoken to chiefs of state who have seen the video compilations of torture so horrendous they haunt my mind to this day. They were never released to the public to offer decency to the families of those who were tortured and slaughtered. A UN fact finding mission in March of 2024, concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas had committed not only murder but gang rape, and sexualized torture. The Human Rights Watch documented “numerous violations of the laws of war that amount to war crimes, including attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of people in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling bodies.” The abuse extended in different and varied forms to hostages that had been held in captivity in Gaza.
It is a sad reality that some people still deny that October 7th happened, calling it “Israeli propaganda”. This was the case on social media immediately following the attacks, and it continues to be an idea in the zeitgeist–even as all living hostages have returned to tell their stories.
Why was there an immediate gut reaction to discount the possibility that Hamas, undoubtedly a legitimate terrorist organization with violent religious ideologies perpetrated these crimes? Directives written in their published charter such as Article 7 cites a Hadith saying “When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims…there is a Jew behind me come and kill them.”
Like holocaust deniers, the impulse to deny October 7th assumes an a-priori proposition that the Jews are always liars, and always the bad guys. Even the name Kabal, used to describe the nefarious deep state (whatever that is) is an anti-semetic slur referring to Kabbalah. The Jews are no stranger to being the villains in a story, and in this new story they are the oppressive colonizers, and therefore Hamas must de-facto be playing the role of the noble indigenous rebels.
But here is the reality: Atrocities happened on October 7th and there was nothing noble about it. The kids slain at the music festival were real kids. The hostages taken were real people. The receipts are in, and their families have spoken.
And now my critique: The response from Israel. What a horror. Not just in action, but in the language and process by which these actions were taken. However justified the intentions might have been, however responsible Hamas may have been in utilizing human shields, tens of thousands of innocent Gazans, who themselves were oppressed by Hamas, were bombed, starved and slain overtly in the pursuit of hostage rescue, Hamas eradication, and Israeli safety. One could also conclude from Netanyahu’s speeches that vengeance was also on that list, and there is a non-zero possibility that there was a further covert or ideological agenda.
The last two years have been horrid and impossibly tragic, and we’ve gotten to witness it all on social media. To justify the sheer volume of killing that occurred during Israel’s counter-offensive, it is morally requisite that all other options were seriously considered. If the goal was to limit Hamas terrorist capacity and rescue the hostages, was this war the only way? And will it ultimately have been worth it?
Even though there is a ‘ceasefire’ as of late 2025, Islamic extremists as a whole are still active. Rockets are still being fired indiscriminately at Israel, even if the volume has decreased. Furthermore a new generation of Jihadists, some of whom surely have had their families slain by Israeli bombs, have been radicalized in their already seeded hatred for Israel. The recent massacre in Australia during a Hanukkah celebration, is just the bloody tip of the iceberg in the intensified global anti-semitism.
Israel could have changed the course of history if it took a breath to consider playing the lamb in the story, who is victorious over its enemies by holding up a mirror for evil to look at its own reflection. In other words, Israel had a chance to be the Jews that went Christic, just like Yeshua the Nazarene. While I disagree with some of his conclusions, I have to give credit that this was a move that Charles Eisenstein intuitively felt early on as the best possible response.
Nonetheless, showing Christic consciousness, a loving forgiveness of one’s enemies, would not have been an easy decision for Israel. After all, if Israel as a state is the father of its citizens, how could they not pursue the hostages by any means necessary? How would any father not pursue the rescue of his children who are being tortured as captives? The plot of the movie Taken is just one of a thousand stories where the archetypal father goes on a murderous rampage to rescue his child. Yet in the movies, the bad guys are easy to find and kill, and the collateral damage is minimum. If Liam Neeson used his special set of skills to kill 100 innocents for every bad guy, it would be an impossible movie to watch. Just as the last two years have been impossible to watch.
Yes, Israeli hostages have been rescued and returned. But in the process tens of thousands of Gazan civilians were slain. Yeshua said that to follow his way, you have to release your attachment to your familial relations (Luke 14:26). Perhaps one of the reasons why, is that to abide by His morality, you can’t consider any one life to be fundamentally more important than any other. That’s a tough ask for a father, unless you are the Father.
Is it polyannish to think that Israel playing the role of the lamb, and refusing to respond to violence with more violence could have worked? Maybe. Maybe Hamas was simply too entrenched in their own radical ideologies that no matter what evil they saw in the mirror, or what the world said to them, nothing would have changed. There is an argument that without taking out the leadership and infrastructure of Hamas, October 7th would have been repeated again and again ad infinitum. I can sympathize with Israel for ultimately deciding that violence was the only recourse. But I witnessed no signs in the early days that they considered another recourse. So I hold Israel accountable for not even considering that there could be another option. Before we could even grieve the slain, Netanyahu was already planning the offensive.
We can’t know if playing the role of the lamb would have worked this time. Living out the role of the lamb didn’t work for the Jews during Nazi invasion. The Nazis would have continued their ethnic cleansing until they were stopped by force. But I do know that just as 100,000 people rose to their feet at Charlie Kirk’s memorial when Erika forgave her husband’s killer, Israeli support would have gone through the roof if they played the lamb. People would have been waving Israeli flags instead of burning them, as the world looked on in admiration as Israel became the new beacon of morality. Then what? It’s not out of the realm of possibility that an internal revolt against Hamas from the Palestinian people would have been successful, and broader Israeli support from less radical Arab leadership would have demanded an evolution of outdated ideologies. Even if they would have held the position of the Lamb for two weeks, it would have changed the texture of the story.
Israel had the chance to be the lamb, and to lead a movement toward the second coming of Christ Consciousness. They missed that chance. And now Palestinians, and by extension all Muslims, have become the lamb in the global story. Israel may have military supremacy, but they ceded the power position in the great narrative to a religion with a significant portion of its constituency holding an antiquated morality as it concerns women’s rights, human rights, and ethnic equality. Unless the moderate, progressive, or mystic Muslims (of whom there are many) rise, this is not the consciousness we want in the power position of the world story.
Einstein said that you can’t solve a problem at the level it is created. Meeting violence with violence is an old story, and it has never worked in the long run. It has never stopped the incessant warring. One day, the lamb will be triumphant or the lion. It’s just a matter of how much more death it’s going to take until we get there.