On July
13 I was watching the final of the World Cup soccer tournament with a number of
Bahá’ís after a Nineteen-Day Feast in Stouffville, Ontario. Near the end of regulation time, the German
team took Miroslav Klose out and substituted Mario Götze. It was a notable moment mostly because of
Klose’s stellar career, but what caught my attention immediately was that Götze’s
jersey number was 19. Surely this was
prophetic! All I said at the time was “Are
you kidding me?” but what I meant was that since the number 19 is a magical and
mystical number in the Bahá’í Faith, this player was fated to score the winning
goal in this tight game which was still scoreless. Regulation time ended in a scoreless tie, as
did the first overtime period. But eight
minutes into the second overtime Götze did in fact score the championship goal
in spectacular fashion, becoming an instant household name over much of this
planet of ours. In retrospect should
have been more explicit in my comment when he was put in the game, for without
witnesses I cannot prove what had been in my mind.
What’s
up with the number nineteen? In fact it
was Bahá’u’lláh’s forerunner, The Báb, who interpreted a passage in the Qur’án that
19 equals one unit in the eyes of God.
(Numerology was a going concern at that time, especially in that part of
the world. It has since shriveled down
to a mere curiosity in the general eyes of men.) He therefore used 19 in many ways to
signalize the uniqueness of this Revelation, not the least of which was the
solar calendar He created, consisting of 19 months of 19 days each. In fact, the Universal House of Justice had just
announced on Mercy 17, 171 B.E. (July 10, 2014), the final touches to some
ambiguities to it. Has anyone told Götze? I’m sure he would like to know.
psst: (I called it first!!!)
