Matt Mings on A Lenten Exercise: Analyzing Exile – Part 3
This is the third Part of an ongoing post. Part 2 is here. Part 1 is here.
Grief gives way to a response of hope. The grief of the prophet Ezekiel goes so far as to find hope in the “good figs” now in exile. There is hope in a new future, now that the past has been relinquished.
Though God has walked away he cannot stay away. For the sake of his holiness and out of divine love and mercy he will return to his people and transform them into something altogether new. The language of hope in something new is riddled with language of the old. Yet there is a re-narrating of the old traditions, making sense of the exilic condition. In light of this re-narrating, God is seen for who he truly is: a God that is sovereign, a God that is still God.
Hope is found in the very person of God, whose divine love wills something new for his people. There is hope in the wake of relinquished control. The people can no longer depend on their inadequate abilities and incomplete understanding. Hope is found in the person of God alone: he is capable of transcribing an all-new understanding on the inner person of his people.
Looking toward a homecoming then becomes the metaphor for receiving God’s will. Homecoming can only follow where relinquishment has yielded acceptance of exile. The language of homecoming applies faith to hope and anticipates a social reality that does not yet exist.
Second Isaiah’s narrative aims at a new relational, covenantal reality. The people can operate in a new reality after they see afresh their cultural-spiritual circumstance. The people are guided to look beyond what is available to what might be possible now that the old standard has died. The freedom, power, and sovereignty of Yahweh make possible precisely that which appears impossible.
By remembering the triumphs of God in the past and re-narrating these in the contemporary reality, the people can look into the face of the impossible and call it possible; they can return to a new home.
SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
What does the practice of remembering look like in your social reality?
——
Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.
Related Posts:
Category: Christianity, Theology Comment »