Lesson 4: Salvation as the Journey of Exile and Return

For our opening prayer, let’s begin with Psalm 123:1-2

To you I lift up my eyes,

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

 Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maidservant

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

till he has mercy upon us.

If you are with others, please continue this prayer in silence.

What is occupying your mind right now?  Give to God any concerns you have, or any preoccupations that might keep you from bringing your whole self to this study.  Then, when you are ready, go to the next paragraph.

• Offer thanks to God for watching over all things, including those things that concern you.  
• Offer thanks to God for watching over you, too.
• Offer any other prayer that is on your heart.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us. 

For today we pray for all who are brokenhearted, for all in need of your mercy.

Check in

This week we will be looking at another key teachings about salvation from the Bible.  Before we start, though, I want to give you an opportunity to check in.  

First, if anyone is new, please let us know (be sure to tell us that by posting a comment to this page.  In your comment,) and let us know what brings you to this study at this time.

For those who participated in the previous lessons, what would you like to share with the study group?  Do you have any new questions or thoughts to share a week later?

  

This week I am again traveling as part of my work.  This means that I this is again shorter than usual,l with less information.  Still, I think we can get a good overview of the them of Salvation as the Journey of Exile and Return.

The Journey through Shattering Loss

In the 6^th century BCE the babylonians conquered Jerusalem, damaged the Temple and filled it with their idols,  and took many of Jerusalem’s residents as captives to Babylon.  They called this journey into captivity the Exile.

Jerusalem had thought that God would never let them be conquered because of a promise God had made in the past. Although prophets like Jeremiah warned them that their faithlessness was leading to a fall, many people felt that if they were truly faithful, they would believe that God had made their armies invincible.  After all they had this promise:

Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.  2 Samuel 7:11b-16

Despite this promise, 2 Kings records the fall of Jerusalem this way:

In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him.

2 And the LORD sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon; He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD which He had spoken by His servants the prophets.

3 Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, 4 and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the LORD would not pardon.

7 And the king of Egypt did not come out of his land anymore, for the king of Babylon  had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the River Euphrates.   2 Kings 24:1-4, 7

Jeremiah’s Call: Listen to the Voice of the Lord

Long before Judah fell, the prophet Jeremiah cried out for the people to pay attention.  He recognized that the people were leaning on God’s promises of old, but not in a faithful way.  The people were not living in a responsive, active relationship with God.  

Instead of asking the people to pay attention to the Word of God, he called on the people to listen to the Voice of God.  The people seemed to treat the promises of Moses’ and David’s time as a Word from God that released them from the need to pay attention to God.  Jeremiah called on the people to listen to what God is saying about the situations we face now.  That is what he meant when he asked the people to listen to the Voice of the Lord.  Check out these examples:

Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you.  (Jer. 26:13)

Jeremiah said, “That will not happen. Just obey the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall go well with you, and your life shall be spared.” (Jer 38:20)

disaster; and now the Lord has brought it about, and has done as he said, because all of you sinned against the Lord and did not obey his voice. Therefore this thing has come upon you.  (Jer. 40:3)

a number of other verses describing the disaster that fell upon the whole people as resulting of not listening to the voice of the Lord: Jer. 42:13, 21; 43:4, 7; 44:23.

A number of the Psalms also pick up Jeremiah’s them regarding the power of God’s Voice for today.  Check out these Psalms: 18, 29, and 106.

Do you listen for God to speak today?

How would you describe ways that people can expect to hear God’s voice, today?

How do you hear God speaking to you, today?

Return to Life through God’s Salvation

Undoubtedly, some people gave up on God when Jerusalem fell, believing that God had broken a promise.  However, the Bible gives us the writings of the people who survived, and whose faith survived.  The journey of faith seemed  to take the people through several stages.  For our purposes I want to describe these as three stages:

1. Shock that prophets like Jeremiah were right: the people of Judah were not invisible; they could be conquered, and their future was not predictable like they had thought. 
   

This put the people into some real grief 

that they had let the Lord down by not listening to the prophets, and that 

their failure had huge consequences for so many people.  

Check out this song, adapted from a Psalm composed during the Exile: Ps 137:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYK9iCRb7S4&list=RDvYK9iCRb7S4#t=168

     The consequences were huge.  It was almost as if God had put them back into the
     slavery of the Egyptians. Like their ancestors in Egypt, they were oppressed,
     impoverished and powerless.  Lack of faithful living brought them back to a place
     much like Egypt.

     The people of Judah felt that the very foundations of their world had fallen apart.  The
     life they expected of safety and prosperity was gone in a flash.

     Many people today express a great sense of loss—as if the life that should have been
     had suddenly been taken from them.  It is as if they no longer lived in a land they
     know, but find the world foreign and different to them. 

     What peoples of the world today find themselves forced to leave their homelands as 

     refugees? 

     In some ways this is different than forced exile, but many refugees do use 

     the word “exile” to describe their distressful existence.

   Closer to home:
     When have you witnessed people living in shock and grief because the life they
     thought they were going to have is taken from them?  I invite you to make a list.

     What about you?  Has your life suffered that way due to some particularly tragic
     experience? 

     If so, how did you pray in those days? 

     How are you praying now?

You may be interested in how Jeremiah prayed after the people were taken into exile.  

Jeremiah was the prophet who asked the people to repent before it was too late; but Jeremiah 

had to witness his people’s faithlessness to God that led to their defeat, and he had to witness the consequences as so many died, and so many more were taken into exile.  The Book of Lamentations was written by Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem.

1. Discovery that God was still with them, even in captivity.  This discovery opened the door to new hope, but required the people to open their eyes to a bigger understanding of God, and a different view of God’s promise of salvation.

Isaiah 40 is about the coming of the new regime under a new Persian King, Cyrus.  Isaiah proposed this hope even before Cyrus was prompted to send the people back.  Isaiah prophesied that the time for the people’s suffering was over:

 Comfort, O comfort my people,

 says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

 that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

 double for all her sins. 

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all people shall see it together,

[Note that God is the One building the road and showing the way

to restore the people to Israel, and (later), to restore the Temple.]

See, the Lord God comes with might,

 and his arm rules for him;

 his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead the mother sheep.

[God comes like a shepherd—to protect and care for the people.]

Isaiah speaks of this time using the words “salvation, saved and savior.”. 

     Isaiah 45:17

But Israel is saved by the Lord

with everlasting salvation;

you shall not be put to shame or confounded

to all eternity.

Over half of the Old Testament references to God as Savior are found in the second part of Isaiah, starting with Chapter 40.  Here is another:

       Isaiah 43:1-4

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

 he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior….

Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you…

All of this began to deepen the people’s understanding of salvation.  Now salvation included the meanings of endurance of great trial,  God’s presence and love through it all—even in the unfair twists and turns of life, God promising to provide a way forward somehow, the experience of journey and the promise of return (to Jerusalem), and the knowledge that the journey changes us, even as we return home.

1. Salvation: 50 years later God provided the way back. 
1. The Persian conquered the Babylonians
2. The Persian king, Cyrus, decreed that the people could return to Jerusalem and rebuild both the Temple that had been desecrated and the city.
3. But the people returned with a growing understanding of salvation: 

You may be interested in looking at Jeremiah and Lamentations.  Jeremiah tells of the prophet’s efforts to get out God’s message that the people needed to repent if they were to avoid Babylon’s invasion.  Lamentations describes the people’s grief, and yet the surprising endurance of their faith through the midst of it all.

You may also be interested in looking at the Psalms that were composed during this time.

Psalm 44—a Psalm of despair, praying for God’s salvation out of confusion

Psalm 89—reviews the history of God’s mighty actions for the Hebrew people and asks “How long?” and begs God to “remember.”

Other Psalms: Psalm 74, 79, 85, 102, 106, 123, 137

Applying “Exile” Lessons to Our Lives

1. When have you witnessed people living in shock and grief because the life they
        thought they were going to have is taken from them?  I invite you to make a list.
   
        What about you?  Has your life suffered that way due to some particularly tragic
        experience? 
   
        If so, how did you pray in those days? 
   
        How are you praying now?
   
2. Despite defeat, God always saves a remnant of the people to continue the faith.  However, after a major event like this, the remnant who survive must adapt in their understanding of God’s will if they are to embrace God’s salvation for a new day.
   
   How does the idea of “preserving a remnant” speak hope to you today?
   
   What kind of issues do you think require us to adapt in our thinking and acting today?
   
3. God’s salvation always heals or restores damaged relationships.  Does the exile’s adaptive view of salvation give you new understanding of God’s healing and restoration?  If so, how would you describe this new understanding?

The Messiah Expectation

One of the things that adapted was an understanding of how God’s Kingdom takes form on earth.    The Exodus experience ended with God establishing Israel as a nation. The Exile left the people longing for that kind of fulfillment.  This included a growing awareness that God would need to renew what had been lost in a deeper way than they had experienced it so far.

The expectation of a Messiah (which means “The anointed one”—which came to mean another saving leader, like Moses and David were saving leaders).  Check out these prophesies of the coming Messiah:

1. Deuteronomy 18:15-20          A prophet like Moses
2. 2 Samuel 11b-26                    A king like David:
3. Jeremiah 33:14-26                 A king of  David’s line will restore the kingdom
4. Micah 5:2                              Will be born in Bethlehem
5. Zechariah 9:9                        Shall enter Jerusalem humble, riding a donkey

Jesus’ Teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven

When Jesus began to reveal himself as the Messiah, he expected the people to remember that God calls on us to receive God’s Word freshly.  When Jesus taught about the Kingdom of Heaven, he again called on the people to be ready to change their expectations of what God wanted.  Instead of coming as a victorious army General, as did Moses and David, he called for a different view of the Kingdom of God.

A good place to look at Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom of God is Matthew 13.  In this chapter, Matthew lists a number of Jesus’ parables for understanding the Kingdom of God:

• The parable of the Sower
• The parable of the Weeds
• The parable of the Mustard Seed
• The parable of the Yeast
• The parable of the Treasure
• The parable of the Pearl
• The parable of the Net
• The parable of the householder holding old treasures along with new treasures.
  

Let’s Look at one: The Parable of the Mustard Seed

1. It begins in the hearts of  individuals as the smallest response of faith.
2. As it takes forms in the lives of a community of disciples, it grows to offer God’s extravagant hospitality, affecting families and setting the values for whole communities of grace.

How is God’s grace growing in you?

How is God calling you, and your faith community, to share God’s extravagant grace to expand. 

Closing Prayer

Let’s Close with this reading from Psalm 118, which the gospels quote when they speak of Jesus’ coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Open to me the gates of righteousness,

that I may enter through them

and give thanks to the Lord.

 This is the gate of the Lord;

the righteous shall enter through it.

 I thank you that you have answered me

and have become my salvation.

 The stone that the builders rejected

has become the chief cornerstone.

 This is the Lord ’s doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes.

 This is the day that the Lord has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 Save us, we beseech you, O Lord!

O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!

 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

We bless you from the house of the Lord.

 The Lord is God,

and he has given us light.

Bind the festal procession with branches,

up to the horns of the altar.

 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;

you are my God, I will extol you.

 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever