| We will look at three verbs of great worth and interest to God's people in "YHWH's Originary Love for Israel" - Walter Brueggemann. We will do this by looking take a look at love and today we will look at the 3rd cluster of uses for this love.
Third, in the midst of the crisis of the exile, when Israel has ample ground to imagine that YHWH's love for Israel is spent, the verb reemerges among the poets of the Exile: I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. (Jeremiah 31:3) I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:3-4; cf. 48:14; Hosea 14:4). These latter statements attest to the durability and resilience of YHWH's love for Israel, and therefore Israel's capacity to continue in life and in faith, in extreme circumstance.
From the side of the one who has been unfaithful, it is natural to expect that Israel would feel abandoned and forgotten and yet all of that is deserved because of the way they have lived contrary to the love that never lets them go. And yet, the power of the words of these prophets is that God is the foundation upon which life can begin again. Never will the name 'chosen' be take away for it is the power that is able to transform the people into the beloved - Israel. Nothing else is able to do that. God's faithful love makes the people into the light so that the world and they themselves will see the power and meaning of being chosen - for the sake of the whole world.
Connection: As Christians, we do not have a great history of prophetic voices like the great prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. And yet, there are voices that continue to press upon us this love that is given freely, lasts through time, and is not controlled by our actions. From that love - that reminder - hearts are stirred up to become the love that loves us.
O God, whose love become the power to shape us, though we see how we live and how far we can move from you, you, O God, never fade away and leave us alone. Blessed are you. Amen. |
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