Hope in Exile: Adapt to Flourish

Israel banded together to discover what it means to be God’s people apart from temple worship. The exile helps Israel realize they are more than the temple, or the land. Further, they learned God is with them even in difficult times. God had not abandoned them and while in a perfect world, the exile would simply “evaporate,” they could flourisheven in exile. We can discover what our mission as a community looks like when forced to step away from building and traditional practices. Our commitment to one another can grow and sharpen even as we are apart from one another. Israel would eventually return to Jerusalem some 70 years later, when Persia conquers Babylon and the King Cyrus’ edictin 538 BCE allows them to return home safely. They are lessons about building community even when at a distance, seeking the welfare of the city in which we find ourselves, and discovering the God who is God even of the exiles.