the end of exile

Posted by: Leonard Hjalmarson
Church: Aylmer EMMC Aylmer
Date: January 1st, 2010

Last year Scot McKnight noted that Christmas is the end of exile. He writes,

“Christmas is the End to Exile. Tom Wright made a big deal of the theme “exile” as dominating the Jewish world and that Jesus and Paul both set their theology into such a context by proclaiming that the exile was now ended. Tom has probably over done this theme at times, but it is a theme that he captured for us and brought back to our understanding of the historical context of Jesus. And Matthew evidently thought along similar lines.

The implications are clear:

1. Jesus is the Victor, the one who enters into enemy territory and releases us from captivity. This is the point of Mark 10:45.
2. Humans are in captivity, and this has traditionally been seen with words that begin with “s”: to sin, to self, to Satan, and to systemic evil.
3. Jesus releases us, not simply through the cross, but at Christmas in the Incarnation, in his Life as the obedient life of the Second Israel and Second Adam, through his death by taking on our captivity, and through the Resurrection by breaking the powers of sin, self, Satan, and systemic violence. He now gives us the Spirit to be empowered to live that life.

4. Christmas is about bringing the end-to-exile theme to others.

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRi1GDoaQu4&feature=player_embedded”>Veni, Veni Emmanuel</a>
Related: <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KY6Hov0wSc”>Labor of Love</a> (Andrew Peterson’s song performed by Jill Phillips)