03/21/2012
An excerpt from Timothy Keller’s book “The Prodigal God”. Okay, a long excerpt but I couldn’t cut anything out. This hit my heart and messed with my head. Hope you like it too.
There is more to the state of “exile” than just human moral evil. According to the Bible, we live in a natural world that is now fallen. We were not made for a world of disease and natural disaster, a world in which everything decays and dies, including ourselves. This world, as it now exists, is not the home we long for. A real, final homecoming would mean a radical change not only in human nature but in the very fabric of the material world. How can such a thing be accomplished?
By the time of Jesus’s ministry, many in Israel realized that despite the return from Babylon, the nation was still in exile. Injustice and oppression, loss and affliction still dominated national life. The final homecoming had not yet happened. Many, therefore, began to pray to God for it, but they conceived of it as a national, political liberation for Israel. It was thought that the Messiah, the king who would redeem Israel, would be a figure of great military strength and political power. He would come to his people, be recognized and received by them, and then lead them to victory.
Then Jesus appeared, and declared that he was bringing in “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:15). The people crowded eagerly around to observe and hear him, but nothing about him fit their expectations. He was born not in a palace behind a royal curtain, but in a stable feed trough, on the straw, far from home. During his ministry he wandered, settling nowhere, and said: “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay is head” (Matthew 8:20). He remained completely outside the social networks of political and economic power. He did not even seek academic or religious credentials. Finally, at the end of his life, he was crucified outside the gate of the city, a powerful symbol of rejection by the community, of exile. And as he died he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), a tremendous cry of spiritual dereliction and homelessness.
What had happened? Jesus had not come to simply deliver one nation from political oppression, but to save all of us from sin, evil, and death itself. He came to bring the human race Home. Therefore he did not come in strength but in weakness. He came and experienced the exile that we deserved. He was expelled from the presence of the Father, he was thrust into the darkness, the uttermost despair of spiritual alienation – in our place. He took upon himself the full curse of human rebellion, cosmic homelessness, so that we could be welcomed into our true home.
