I love the raw beauty of this passage. It isn't a passage about how wonderful life is or how beautiful it is that God blesses us with much abundance. It is about being in exile, being sent far away from those you love and the land you call home and living in a place not of your choosing instead.
What makes it so beautiful is what God tells the people of exile. God tells them, 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. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare....
This is perhaps my favorite scripture in all of the biblical canon. Even though you have been sent to exile, says God, go on and live your lives. Build houses, plant gardens, marry and have children... and seek the welfare of the city where you have been sent into exile... if that city does well, you will do well.
So many times today we get into a "poor me" mentality. I didn't get exactly what I wanted, so I will pout and make life miserable for those around me. We all have done it or been subject to it from time to time. This scripture suggests that no matter what sort of exiles we have had imposed on us or we have imposed upon ourselves, the best thing we can do is to choose abundant life instead, in all its forms.
Build, plant, grow, produce.
In the Disney movie, Mulan, she exiles herself away from her family and into the army. She doesn't want to be what girls are supposed to be and runs away from that life. This scripture isn't saying that we should subject ourselves to lives that are harmful or unfulfilling, but it does suggest that sometimes life gives us lemons and the best we can hope to do is create as much lemonade as we can and share it with others, rather than running away from or denying that a present reality exists.. Sometimes we don't get what we want, or think we want, for a long, long time. The exile in this passage of Jeremiah lasts seventy years. But there is a time when God fulfills God's promises.
Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all” is a line from Mulan that suggests we have to walk through the rain to get to the rainbow. It suggests that once we have lived through whatever exiles get sent our way, our blooming moment, our God fulfilled promises, are blessings to be praised and to be shared. And it implies that we have to be in it for the long haul or we might not get the chance to bloom at all.
Thoughts? Comments? Email me or comment below.
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