Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is an everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31
After a week of posting pictures that put a happy face on “Sheltering in Place,” a friend confessed that it had been hard and depressing. Although they looked cute in the pictures, the kids were restless and cranky. Working at homes wasn’t really working out and there were worries about their spouse’s job security.
Another friend told of calling the bank to take advantage of a plan to waive three months of mortgage payments after their spouse was laid off. And although the bank was agreeable and friendly, it took an hour and a half because the call volume was so high.
Lost jobs. Failing businesses. And, by the way, there’s that funky the stock market thing.
And as bad as all that is, it’s not as bad as the geometric increase in cases and deaths. The recorded numbers may not seem as scary as the projections, but they are scary enough.
Luckily, for most of us, we see only the abstract numbers. We have not seen the actual deaths. But we will.
It feels like Exile.
I have often said that Christianity begins in Exile. We could date it to the first time that “Followers of the Way” were called Christians, or to the formation of churches apart from the Synagogue. We could date it to Pentecost. Paul Tillich dated the beginning of Christian faith tot the moment when Peter responded to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” by answering, “You are the Christ.”
But for a long time I have believed that Christian faith begins in Exile.
This is the test.
I don’t mean that God sent COVID-19 to test our faith or that God sent the virus to teach us something. I don’t believe God sent it at all.
But it does test us.
When Jerusalem fell and the people of Israel were taken into captivity, the prophets and great religious thinkers asked themselves, “How could this happen? How can it be that the holiest city of the very people God has chosen to bring his message to the world has fallen? If this can happen, then how can we trust God?” This was the greatest challenge that Israel had ever faced.
Israel responded to this theological crisis with some of the most brilliant and beautiful literature that human beings have ever produced. The wisdom and depth of thought were amazing. Israel responded, in the words of Biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann, “precisely against the data.”
It was out of this crisis, says Brueggemann, that Israel gave birth to the concept of hope. It was in these great reflections on the crisis of exile that the concept of hope was first introduced to the world. Hope was Israel’s gift to the world.
Hope is always “against the data.” It is not an analysis which says that things will get better. It is not the cheerful assertion that every cloud has a silver lining. Hope says we trust in God, regardless of the data; regardless of the presence or absence of a silver lining.
You and I are called to reaffirm our hope: our hope in our fellow human beings, our hope in our nation and in our world. And underneath it all, our hope in God.
This is the The Lord,
the One who created you, O Jacob,
the One who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name,
and you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1
When Jerusalem fell and the people of Israel were taken into captivity, the prophets and great religious thinkers asked themselves, “How could this happen? How can it be that the holiest city of the very people God has chosen to bring his message to the world has fallen? If this can happen, then how can we trust God?” This was the greatest challenge that Israel had ever faced.
Israel responded to this theological crisis with some of the most brilliant and beautiful literature that human beings have ever produced. The wisdom and depth of thought were amazing. Israel responded, in the words of Biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann, “precisely against the data.”
It was out of this crisis, says Brueggemann, that Israel gave birth to the concept of hope. It was in these great reflections on the crisis of exile that the concept of hope was first introduced to the world. Hope was Israel’s gift to the world.
Hope is always “against the data.” It is not an analysis which says that things will get better. It is not the cheerful assertion that every cloud has a silver lining. Hope says we trust in God, regardless of the data; regardless of the presence or absence of a silver lining.
You and I are called to reaffirm our hope: our hope in our fellow human beings, our hope in our nation and in our world. And underneath it all, our hope in God.
This is the The Lord,
the One who created you, O Jacob,
the One who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name,
and you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1
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