By Elliot Ritzema
After Judah was conquered and Solomon’s temple destroyed in 586 BC, the Jews who were taken to exile in Babylon had a choice. They could take a posture of denial, living in a fantasy, refusing to grapple with the magnitude of what had happened. In Jeremiah 29:8–9, we see that there were false prophets who encouraged this approach, telling the people that this was just a temporary setback and that things would be back to the old normal before long.
Their other choice was to accept exile, to look that trauma full in the face and ask what they could learn from it. Accepting exile meant acknowledging that it was not only Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who had done this; God Himself had sent His people into exile (Jeremiah 29:4,7). He wanted His people not just to return to the land but to return to Him and be His faithful covenant partners again. That meant settling down and pursuing the well-being of the city where they were in exile because that was where God had placed them.
Anyone who has suffered a traumatic event has some small idea of what this choice entails. Whether we have suffered the death of a loved one, the death of a relationship, or even the death of a dream, denial is an attempt to stop the hurt through magical thinking. Acceptance means owning the hurt and acknowledging that there is no going back to the way things were. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but only acceptance will allow us to meet God where we are.
In Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles, we see both an encouragement to settle down (vv.5–9) and to look beyond exile (vv.10–14). By the time Jesus was born, the people of God had returned to the land, but they were under the oppression of Roman rule, much like exile. There was more to look forward to. That is why when Jesus stood up in His hometown synagogue and quoted Isaiah 61:1–2, the people were amazed (Luke 4:22). However, they were scandalized when they heard that proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor” involved welcoming people into the kingdom of God who they thought had no business there.
Yet that was the plan all along. Paul would later write to the Ephesians that, through Jesus, Jews and Gentiles “both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” This means that Gentiles “are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:18).
God has made a home among His people for both Jews and non-Jews. It is true that Christians can still suffer exile, in a sense. We have no permanent land here (Hebrews 13:14, 1Peter 1:1), and we still experience loss. But in another sense, we are not exiles. We are at home because Jesus Christ is our home. And if Christ is our home, we can be at home wherever we are, even as we look forward to our full homecoming.
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