Ilkley
West Yorkshire
LS29 9QL
Baruch 5. 1 – 9
Luke 3. 1 – 6
Fr Alex
“Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods … have shaded Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy…”
Those words from the end of our first reading are typical of the kind of thing we hear a lot in the lectionary at this time of year –promises of a bright future for Israel and Jerusalem.
But there’s quite a tension, isn’t there, in this language that is such a key part of our worship, when we consider it in the light of 21st Century politics.
The current phase of the conflict in Israel and Palestine is well into its second brutal year; and it isn’t always easy for us to sing about God bringing joy and prosperity to ‘Israel’ amidst the terribly complex situation in that land.
Hearing this language in our worship raises questions for us as Christians. Is the modern state of Israel a continuation of the Israel of the Bible? If so, what place does a restored Israel have in the story of salvation? And is it acceptable to criticise war-like actions of the Israeli government, or must we look the other way?
Nice easy questions for a Sunday morning! Of course I’m not proposing to solve the situation from the pulpit here today, but in this situation that seems impossible to reconcile, I think it’s important to think about what we’re doing, as we read and sing once again of ‘Israel’ and ‘Jerusalem’ in our worship.
First, a word on names. The ‘Israelites’ is the name given to the descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel. He had twelve sons, whose descendants became the twelve tribes of Jacob, or Israel.
The kingdom they eventually founded split in two, and the northern kingdom kept the name ‘Israel,’ but the southern kingdom took the name of its largest tribe, Judah. Hence the land around Jerusalem became known as Judea, and from that we get the words Jew, and Judaism.
After the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians, the word ‘Israel’ came to be used interchangeably with ‘Judah.’
Jerusalem is also known as Zion, after Mount Zion, a hill in Jerusalem. But ‘Zion’ tends to mean more than simply a hill, or indeed the area of the city of Jerusalem: it is synonymous with the whole idea of a nation of Israel, and speaks of the promise that God will provide a place for his chosen people, a place for himself to dwell with them.
The name ‘Zionism’ is given to the movement that advocated for a homeland for the Jewish people from the end of the 19th Century, and came into being in 1948.
It asserts that the Jewish people constitute a nation, and have a moral and historical right to the land in Palestine. This is what was promised to them in the Hebrew scriptures: promises repeatedly made, the “everlasting covenant” with Abraham and his descendants, as God’s ‘chosen people.’ It is a national, religious, and ethnic belief.
Undoubtedly the Jewish people were desperately in need of a place of security after the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, and so many persecutions over the millennia. After the Second World War, Western nations gave their support to the creation of a Jewish state, which is the modern Israel we have today.
But in what sense is the modern state of Israel a continuation of the ‘Israel’ of the Bible?
The conviction of the Israelites as God’s chosen people is not in doubt in the Bible. The Bible makes no sense without it. The story of salvation is the story of a specific group of people in a specific place – and God’s ever more specific interaction with them.
But it’s important to remember that the Bible refuses to speak with a single voice, even on foundational subjects such as this. Is the ‘chosen’ status of the Israelites assured and eternal, or is it conditional – and therefore revocable? The Bible has more than one answer.
In Exodus, God says, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” That’s an important ‘if,’ and implies that what was given can be taken away.
In the same way there are different traditions concerning claims to the land that God has given them. In Genesis the land is promised eternally; and part of the ‘drama’ of the book is whether God will grant an heir to carry the promise through the generations. He does, and he says to Isaac, “To you and your descendants I will give all these lands.”
But in Deuteronomy, we hear that holding the land is conditional on adherence to the law. Indeed, the prophetic language we hear so much of in Advent asserts that the land is losable – not least because much of it was written in exile. The land was lost, partly to the Assyrians, and totally to the Babylonians; then after it was recovered, it was lost once again to the Romans.
A lot has changed from the wandering community of the early books of the Bible to now. The state of Israel now is a very strong military power backed by the strongest military power in the world, the United States. It uses its military might to expand its borders. And its government seems to show, at best, indifference to the human rights of Palestinians.
Ultimately, it's impossible simply to draw a direct line between the historical events and promises of the Bible, all the way to the political realities of today.
Because the promise we celebrate as Christians, especially in Advent and Christmas, is that with the coming of Jesus—with his Resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost—the whole world is God’s holy land, no longer just one specific place in the Middle East.
And it’s not just one people or place that is chosen by God, but all people and all places: not taken or subdued by force but brought together under the just and gentle rule of Christ the King.
Jesus is the fulfilment of all God’s promises made throughout the pages of scripture. He is the temple of God’s presence, not a temple made with hands. He is the Messiah in whom Israel’s destiny is fulfilled—this is how the story of the Israel of the Bible is completed.
So, when we hear words like those from the prophet Baruch today—or from Isaiah and others throughout the season—we hear them, in one sense, knowing how the story ends; as the historical hopes of a people whose covenant promises have been fulfilled in Jesus.
But we also hear them as a future hope that we make our own: that God will fulfil the promises of his new covenant; that Christ will come again and will remake and perfect creation. And so these ancient words become ours, as we pray that we may come into our inheritance; to become part of one heavenly ‘Israel,’ and one heavenly ‘Jerusalem’ in which all may live in peace.
The terrible things that the Jewish people have endured over many, many years should compel us to support a safe and peaceful homeland for this persecuted people. But the legacy of anti-Semitism in the West should not blind us to modern political reality and cause us to look the other way when the modern state acts to the detriment of others.
Nor should we think that support for the modern state of Israel is the final outcome of biblical testimony. We are not promised another earthly nation, but a heavenly kingdom; and that is what we cry out for in this holy season. May God bring it to pass. Amen.