272. Gather Us Home
Ezekiel 11:17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.
God promises the Jews that He will gather and assemble His people from the foreign lands and give them the land of Israel. Once again, the exile will end and the return home will happen. The Lord gave His people the land once, rescuing them from Egypt, but then He scattered them again to Assyria and Babylon because of Sin. He promises to gather them again and give them the land again.
We, too, as God’s created human beings were once in the Land where God dwells, the Garden of Eden, the Paradise of God, in the time and space where we were in communion with and connection to God. This is the Home with God where we belong. Every person in the world and in history knows somehow down deep within that there is an ideal life of perfect peace and abiding joy. Everyone has a vague remembrance that he or she was once in Adam in a perfect paradise. Once there was a time and place without death, sin, suffering, trouble, or any evil. We just know innately that once there was such a life. Many, many cultures throughout the world remember and tell mythical stories of such a place and time.
But as we are in Adam in Paradise, so we are in Adam when we sinned and brought death into our world and were banished from Eden. We yearn to go back to our heavenly home and fill the God-shaped vacuum in the soul. And just as we “remember” heaven, so also we have a hope of going to our future heavenly place. All people have eternity in the heart, a yearning for life without death, a hope for an afterlife, or a hope for another life than this one.
The Good News is that the Lord God fills this hope with reality, He promises us a return to the Land, and He gives eternal life. God gathers us out of this world of Exile (symbolized as Egypt and Babylon) and gives us the Land we long for by forgiving our sins because of Christ. He promises to save and bless and bring us Home. The Exile will be over. The World will end. And God has a New Land ready for us.