When the Rabbis Cry

8

Diaspora and Zionism

‘Anti-semitism continues to grow and so do I’

Theodore Herzl

Part One: Not just one diaspora.

In previous chapters we have seen that Jews in the first century lived in communities scattered around the trade routes of the Roman Empire as well as in Galilee and Judea. Those in this ‘commercial diaspora’ were joined by refugees following the destruction of the Temple in AD70 and the final dismantling of Israel after the failed Bar Kochba rebellion in the second century. Hidden with this post-Israel ‘diaspora of judgement’ as we might see it, was another diaspora, a ‘diaspora of persecution’; the scattering of the early believers, which will form the subject of this chapter.

It would be a mistake, even in the light of Jesus’ parable to the tenant-vinedressers, to think that Israel was neatly divided into two parts (old-Israel heading for judgement and new-Israel-in Christ) and that God was dealing with each part separately.

Each half is intimately affected by the other. Jeremiah was caught up in the Israel of judgement of his day fleeing as a refugee to Egypt. Spiritually though he remained as a mouthpiece of hope writing to the exiles in Babylon to believe that God, even though He had acted in judgement, had not, and would not, abandon His people. In fact the exile was to form a prelude to a new covenant to be accomplished after seventy years exile in Babylon.

Daniel, reading Jeremiah’s prophecy as the seventy years of exile drew to a close, responds by praying for this restoration.

Judgement and mercy appear to be inseparable. The consequence of judgement - the exile to Babylon - becomes the means by which the purposes of God for Israel and the world are kept moving. Jeremiah writes letters to the Jews in Babylon urging them to not lose hope and, in essence ‘to be Israel’ in exile so that, when God decrees, Israel can be replanted.

‘These are the words of the letter sent from Jeremiah…to the priests, the prophets, and all the peoples whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, “Thus says the Lord…build houses…plant gardens…and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it for in its peace you will have peace…after seventy years are completed…(I will) cause you to return to this place for I know the thoughts I have toward you…thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope…’ Jeremiah 29 v 1 – 11. The experience of the early church in Jerusalem, our ‘diaspora of persecution’, was to mirror Jeremiah’s own experience.

‘At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered (diaspora) throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles…And they that were scattered went everywhere preaching the word…Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Cyrene…’’ Acts 8 v 1; 11 v 19,20 The Israel of the Herods, the Pharisees and the Chief priests now persecuted the church – which, at this time, was entirely comprised of believing Jews. However, even the persecution itself served the faithful purpose of God in enabling this new Israel to take the gospel first to Judea, then to Samaria, then to Jewish communities around the Roman Empire and finally to Cornelius and the gentiles.

This ‘diaspora of persecution’, the scattering of Jewish believers, far from weakening the church was the means by which its explosive growth throughout the first and second centuries was initiated and sustained.

The diaspora of persecution sent the word of God out in all directions.

Jeremiah in a sense represented God to the exiles in his day; the prophet who had prophesied doom and destruction to Israel did not abandon the people in their suffering but confidently declared the faithfulness of God to His covenant and therefore that Israel would be replanted. So too with the disciples caught up in the persecution of the church; they were not filled with despair but were aflame with the gospel of the kingdom, declaring that a new era had begun; the promised new covenant had been ratified through the visitation of God to Israel in His Son and the sacrifice of the Messiah as the lamb of God, and the resurrection.

‘some went to...Greeks telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus’

The book of Acts shows Paul repeatedly taking the gospel of the kingdom to the Jewish communities of the diaspora situated around the Mediterranean before going to the Gentiles whenever the message was finally rejected by the Jews. The end result was a network of churches springing up throughout the Roman Empire in which Jewish and Gentile believers discovering their one-ship in Christ.

By the time the New Testament was complete the Roman-Herodian Israel to whom Jesus pronounced judgement and destruction had fallen and the Israel of the Messiah was fulfilling the calling of Israel to be the light to the Gentiles.