Advent Devotional — Saturday, December 8

December 8, 2007, 8:00 am; posted by
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Saturday, December 8, 2007
“Yes, I know the plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. When you call to me and come to me, and pray to me, I shall listen to you. When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14a; a midday reading from The Divine Hours)

On the face of it, this passage is part of a letter from Jeremiah to the people in exile in Babylon. The first paragraph of the letter is downright depressing: to the people who had hoped that this exile would be short-lived and that they’d be able to return home soon, Jeremiah says, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease” (Jer 29:5-6). In other words, settle in; you’re going to be there a while.

But then Jeremiah delivers this word to the people, that God still has plans for them, plans for a future and a hope. Though many of them would not live to see it, God still had their best interests in mind. There would be a future for God’s people.

I remember during my time in college, we would sing a song where the words were simply the NIV version of this Scripture: “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good to give to you a future and a hope.” The song caused many sentimental tears as seniors contemplated life beyond Houghton and reflected that God would take care of them wherever they went.

Of course, this is true. But in that setting there was something supremely foreign to the original text. We were college students, many of us children of privilege, graduating from a school known as one of the “Evangelical Ivies.” We were going into a world where job prospects were bright, where a degree could take us a long way in business, ministry, or graduate school. Most of us were returning to homes where our parents would put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies as long as we needed them to, while we got our feet under us.

This word was not written to children of privilege; it was written to foreigners and aliens in exile. And it did not tell them that if they just held on, they would see evidence of God’s faithfulness; it assured them that they would not see such evidence. And even though they would not see such evidence, still God was faithful. It assured them that even though they would live and die as foreigners, God was still in control and had a plan bigger even than their individual lives and success.

One cannot hear this passage as it was intended until he is in exile. One cannot understand it until she has given up their need for resolution in their lives; we cannot grasp it until we have given up our need to understand, reconcile, or be satisfied with their lives. Only when we have given up happiness as a main goal can we know, as those ancient exiles did, that God has a plan bigger than ourselves.


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