Exile Is a Christian Experience
As a child my wife was often fearful. I only know because she told me. When her parents would leave her and her sisters at home alone, she often felt a sense of anxiety that her parents would not come home. Hope sat by the window waiting for her mother to return from work. This experience left her feeling abandoned, lonely, vulnerable and frightened.
For many years I had trouble relating. As a child I daydreamed of being abandoned due to some family tragedy out of which I became the master of my own destiny. I would accomplish great things, overcoming tremendous obstacles. People would write books about me! Or, at least comic books. Superman’s flight from krypton to earth is a tale that captures the imagination of many a small boy. As to my attraction – alas, that is another story filled with confessions of pride, ambition and self-will. This is Hope’s story, and one I have learned to relate to through subsequent griefs.
Such abandonment is also Israel’s story. Scripture calls this part of Israel’s story exile. Being exiled describes a few of the greatest fears a human can experience. Desertion, loneliness and lack of belonging are given expression through the category of exile.
Redemption is the undoing of these maladies of human existence. Everyone knows something about not belonging, but only in Christ do we discover the truth of what it means to be accepted – accepted completely with all faults known – nothing hidden.
Security comes from God. Insecurity is a base emotion common to human beings. It is one of the common tragedies of the Fall. A true sense of belonging and being cared for is a precious gift of salvation. Those images in the Bible of Shepherd watching sheep and sheep grazing in green fields are messages of the grace of security offered by God.
Being convinced God will never leave you nor forsake you is a great comfort in a world where people leave one another all the time. God’s promise to be with his people makes several Old Testament stories very frightening. In 1 Samuel 5-7 Israel loses a battle to the Philistines where the ark of the covenant is captured. This story appears to be a story of God abandoning his rebellious people but actually God defeats Israel’s and his enemies from inside the cities of the Philistines. Exile is a bigger version of this same story. When Assyria captures Israel and later Babylon captures Judah it appears God has left his people for good. The exile lasts upwards of 200 years. One could make a case for much longer if you include the fact that Israel remained oppressed by foreign nations during and long after Israel’s return under Ezra and Nehemiah. In light of this extended exile, Israel’s leaders begin to pray like Asaph in Psalm 80 and 74 – “How long O Lord?”
Because God allowed his children to remain in exile from about 722 B.C. to the appearing of Christ many began to question whether God would keep his promises to Abraham and David – the promise that Israel would have a place to belong and a king to rule righteously over them. It seemed that God’s word was in question, and despair among his people was the result. How could any of them have known that God was secretly entering the camp of the enemy to foil him from the inside. Jesus lived sinlessly, died, returned from the grave and ascended to heaven in triumph over the devil and all his cohorts – sin, death and hell.
In the coming of Christ, by the intervention of his cross and resurrection, redemption and deliverance from exile has come. We now have a place to belong, a people to call our own, and a son of David to be our king. God has not left us. Rather, he intensified the gift and gave his very self to dwell in us. It has not all been completed. We live in a time of transition, but we are confident the reality is coming because of the nature of the down-payment.
So, when you sit by your window and wonder if your family is coming home, or if God will make good on his promises, remind yourself that Christ has promised a security that makes the securities of this world grow thin and the securities of the world to come substantial. We have not received it all, but we have received enough to trust him for the rest. When it feels like you have been exiled, I encourage to you to trust him for the future you can not see.
Trusting With You,
Pastor Andy
The grace of understanding comes through thinking as opposed to not thinking. - John Piper
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