20.11 | Exile Longings
1 Peter 1:1-2:3
‘Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia’
1 Peter 1:1
I never really got into Dr Who, although, in the few episodes I’ve watched, I’ve always enjoyed the idea of the Tardis.
The Tardis is Dr Who’s base—a combination of time machine and spacecraft, named as an acronym of ‘Time And Relative Dimension in Space.’ From the outside, the Tardis looks like a 1940s British police call box. And yet, on the inside, it is an expansive base of high-tech gadgetry and rooms.
Some words in the New Testament are like this. Words like covenant, land, exodus, redemption, kingdom or peace. Sometimes they might feel like religious jargon to us—words alien to contemporary conversation—and we can quickly pass them by.
And yet, these are Tardis words—words with great stories and expansive ideas behind them. So often they are huge themes of the Old Testament story, that, when used in the New Testament, are trying to draw all these ancient ideas together to illustrate a new perspective. We can walk past them like a 1940s police call box. But if we open the doors and walk in, we find a cavernous world of ideas behind them.
Peter—the disciple of Jesus that we now are familiar with—is the author of this letter. He’s writing it at least twenty years after the Resurrection, and likely during a time of fierce persecution for Christians under the reign of Caesar Nero. His writing shows he has come a long way from his humble beginnings, casting those nets into the Sea of Galilee. He writes with eloquence and intellect, a sharp mind being hid behind those calloused hands. And his words show exceptional understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures—weaving verses and themes and words into his letter.
And Peter uses a Tardis word today:
Exile.
One word. Such a deep backstory.
For exile refers back to the story of the people of God through history. It looks back to the experience of the people of Judah, who went from being established in the city of God and land of God under the golden days of Kings David and Solomon, to their later enslavement and exile in the land of Babylon—led away as slaves to live in a foreign land that could never be called Home. To be an exile was to live in that place, but with the customs and culture of their true Homeland still firmly in their hearts. It was to be a people resilient in hope, that their days of exile were hard, but numbered, and that their longings for something greater were no empty hopes, but were their heartsick longings for a return that would surely come.
To be an exile, in the story of God, is to live with this tension. To know you belong to the land of peace, and yet live in a place of conflict. To know that your homeland is beauty and wisdom and love and life, and yet to live in a place broken and corrupted. It is to walk outwardly in a place that that feels so far from God, and yet to carry inwardly a deep and abiding knowledge of your true Homeland.
The Christian experience inhabits this story, and homesickness is a part of the experience of the Christian pilgrim. For the city in which you live is not your Homeland. The workplace in which you work is not the fullness for which you were created. The challenges and pain, corruption and struggles through which you walk are temporarily heavy to your soul, and yet the yearnings within for greater days to come are exile longings—your own heart’s witness to the coming Homeland for which you were made.
Reflect:
How does being an exile of the heavenly world to come change how I view my life and work right now?
Pray:
Father,
The path on which I walk leads me
Home.
This I know to be true,
For I follow my Lord
Who has walked this path first.
And yet, Father,
The way is hard,
And in the hardness,
My eyes can be cast downward, and see
Bruised feet on a stony pathway.
Father,
Lift my eyes today:
Grant me the surety of living hope—
That sees beyond and sees above,
Knowing my feelings of yearning to be
Exile longings,
And a sure witness
To the Homeland to which I will certainly come.
In the footsteps and Name of Jesus,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ezekiel 40 | Psalm 132