Faithful Exiles: Finding Hope in a Hostile WorldSample

God’s chosen people have always experienced a particular and persistent exile. Abraham sojourned in Egypt. Moses ran to Midian. David fled to Philistia. The nation wandered in the wilderness. Eventually, they were taken captive to Assyria and Babylon.

But in one sense, we could say such exile is common for humanity. Ever since the fall, sin has separated us from God and from one another. Part of what it means to live east of Eden is to experience the effects of sin’s corruption, the corruption that touches every aspect of life for every person in the world.

Suffering is never far from us. Flung from Eden, we experience discomfort from life’s first cry. No human being experiences life without death. That’s the word of the Lord to the woman and man. But it’s not his only word. To the deceiving Serpent, he said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).

The woman’s offspring, born east of Eden, would experience pain and death. Jesus is that offspring, and suffering wasn’t theoretical for him. He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ” (Isa. 53:3). He too suffered exile, not only being hated by the world but also suffering “outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood” (Heb. 13:12). With his bruised heel, with his pierced side, he has opened a way back into the presence of God. So we can draw near with confidence, not shame, dressed in his righteousness, not clothes of our own making.

This is our present and constant hope. We’re not alone in our exile; we join in the yearning of our forefathers since the beginning of creation. We have lost our home but not our family. We’re not in the garden, so we lament. But while we suffer, we do so in the presence of him who was pierced to bring us back to God.