At least that was what Miriam told her father after Moshe was born. She knew her brother was Moshiach from the day he was born, if not earlier. She was a prophetess after all, even at such a young age.
Her father and Gadol HaDor, Amram, believed his daughter at first. But when they were forced to set baby Moshe afloat in the Nile river, the Midrash says he had his doubts. “Where is your prophecy now?!” he asked her disappointingly.
But Miriam never doubted her prediction for a moment, though it would take another 79 years to prove her right, and a lot of doubtful moments right up until the year of redemption. Even Moshe Rabbeinu did not see anything special about himself even AFTER God contacted him.
When people hear “Messianic Era,” they think about explosive events and historic excitement. They think about Moshe confronting and overcoming Pharaoh with spectacular miracles, or Mordechai conquering Haman and Achashveros as a result of a remarkable turn of events. They don’t consider the increased slavery in Egypt, or the frightful time of Haman’s rule as part of Messianic times.
But they were. Moshe knew it in his time, and Mordechai, in his. That’s why they could be so upbeat about the impending redemption, even after things seemed to go south for the Jewish people. As they say, night is darkest right before dawn, and redemption comes in the blink of an eye, etc.
If the final redemption is within eight years of now, as the Zohar seems to say, b”H, then we can safely assume that Moshiach is ALREADY here, and has been for some time now. True, he may not yet know he is Moshiach, just as Moshe didn’t know he was until the year of the redemption. But that was also when it became clear that everything Moshe had undergone since birth had actually been part of his Moshiach training.
Likewise, history may seem to us at this time to be very Moshiach-less. The Messianic Era may seem like a very distant reality. But that is not because of what we KNOW, but because of what we DON’T know. We perceive reality based upon our assumptions about it, so if our assumptions are incomplete or wrong, so will our perceptions be.
It will all be cleared up once Moshiach does finally get the divine nod and reveals himself. Then we’ll look back on the events of the last few years differently, accurately. So, we can wait to do that later after the fact, or we can start doing it that, while it’s relevant. It’s all part of being real with life, history, and preparing for the Messianic Era.