Persistent Hope

We want what we want when we want it. Well maybe you do not: have you conquered the curse of impatience? If it is a trivial thing, to want what we want might mean we are spoiled and have no discipline. When it is a serious thing, then our wish is important indeed. When it is a need—relief from oppression or a chance at survival—then, “to want what we want” is a deeply wrenching hope. For these fundamental needs, people of faith must have patience and persistence.

Often, relief takes too long. In human history and specifically in the sacred story of God’s people, there are long stretches of dire need. After the reigns of Kings David and Solomon, in the tenth century B.C.E., the united kingdom of Israel split north and south. Only two centuries after that, the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. A hundred and thirty-some years later, in 586 B.C.E. the southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians. The writings of The Hebrew prophets preserve for us in the Old Testament a record of their warnings to the people of these kingdoms about the trouble they would have. After each fall, and during the times of exile, they encouraged the people to hang on and anticipate, however long it took, the rescuing hand of God.

Jeremiah’s word of encouragement, more than a hundred years after the destruction of the northern kingdom, Israel. People from those ten lost tribes had been deported to various places in the Assyrian empire. These many years later the prophet speaks to foster hope to a southern kingdom, Judah, threatened by the mushrooming power of Babylon. Note the long years before and after Jeremiah. Imagine people estranged for multiple generations from their centers of life and worship. Somehow undaunted, despite harassment and imprisonment, the prophet casts a vision of hope, laboring to stir despairing people to anticipate the powerful hand of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord:

Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,

“Save, O Lord, your people,
the remnant of Israel.”

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame, those with child and
those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.
(Jeremiah 31:7-9)

Scholar, Robert Altar, in his commentary writes it must have sounded like a utopian fantasy and that it sometimes irritated the people immersed in generational fear and despair. Jeremiah, here, offers poetry harboring hope of a restored Israel rejoined with a restored Judah. This is his song, despite the reality that for more than a century there were no visible remnants of the kingdom of Israel left. In the middle of this passage is an image of people returning, even those too impaired to make the trip easily, even those carrying children in their womb. This shows hope for those spent by ravages of harsh life, and for the rising generation, life awaiting entrance into the world.

When I want a correction in life, I can hardly wait a week for it. The Bible is one of the powerful records of a people who lived on the sharp edge of hope and despair waiting for generations for a new covenant, even while there were no signs of restoration in play. Can we manage what Jeremiah urges, can we “sing aloud with gladness” before there is evidence for our hopes to be realized? Can we push forward for our hope to persist?

Here are the three things we take from the whole poetic scroll of Jeremiah: First, never give up on the power of God to rescue; second, commit yourself to personal corrections for loyalty to the Holy One; third, visualize the wondrous scene of your movement into secure restoration with God and with other people. Patiently we strive to practice these commitments. Then can we sing out our praises and say, “The Lord has saved his people…we come home weeping, the God of love gives comfort, escorting us to flowing streams.”