Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. We've spent the last five weeks on this podcast,

talking about the biblical theme of exile.

The exile of the Judeans to Babylon in 586 BC. It's what all of us woke up thinking about

this morning.

So this week we're going to bring it all together, we're going to finish this conversation.

Imagine being away from home for a long time, maybe your soldier and ex-pat or just

some sort of wanderer.

And many years have gone by and you think back to the good things that made home what

it was.

You begin to get this nostalgia for home that grows and grows.

Now imagine after all this time, decades have passed and you get to go back home.

To arrive and you find as great as home is, it's not as wonderful as you'll remember.

The story of exile in the Bible is of God's people coming back to the land, promised

to them, but the way that it's ruled and the way that they live on it is now.

This is our home, but it's not being run like our home, it's not being run by the values

of God's kingdom.

The ancient Israelites were stuck in Babylon, homesick for the good old days of King David

and King Solomon and when they got to go back home, they found it was nothing like they

had remembered.

But they held on to their nostalgia as a taste for something good yet to come.

Like them were homesick too, we have a nostalgia for things, we haven't even fully experienced.

Our desire is, well, a desire for home.

...