Jeremiah’s prophecy of the “days that are surely coming” came
when (thanks to Cyrus the Great) the Jewish captives in Babylon “returned unto
Zion with singing” even though the “everlasting joy upon their heads” (Isaiah
35) had a shelf life that was not long lived. And truth to be told their return
was not nearly as easy as the prophecy imagined. So what do we do with the prophetic
word that is incomplete or unfulfilled? Theologians talk about the “now and the
not yet” by which they mean to say anticipating the future fulfilled promise in
the here and now has some effect on the way one lives in the present. President
Snow (The Hunger Games) said it this way. “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than
fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.” That’s
what the “days are surely coming” are all about. Hope. A lot of hope that love
will win out and that all the ways that neighbors are wicked towards each other
will be forgiven and forgotten by God and neighbors alike. And if our hope in God’s
imagined future is dangerous enough the now will begin to look more like the
not yet well before the not yet becomes the forever now.
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