Maybe Next Year

One of the songs I've recently come to love from Andrew Peterson's new album "Resurrection Letters" is called "Maybe Next Year." The title is borrowed from one of the final statements of the Passover liturgy where the participants look at each other and declare, "next year in Jerusalem!" which is to say, "may we be able to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem next year, as the Law instructs." In the song, Peterson reflects on a trip he took to Jerusalem, and particularly his visit to the Western Wall (wailing wall) of the temple mount, and how meaningful it was to see the Jews gathered there in prayer, and how much more meaningful it was to see that place that has always been central to God's promises of salvation. He then goes on to tie their longing for the temple mount to our longing as Christians for the Jerusalem that is to come.

This morning, a few rows ahead of me on my flight, a Jewish man rose and pulled out a book, and faced the direction that he best could reckon was Jerusalem, and prayed. I have never before seen a Jew at morning prayer. Something about seeing that made me really quite emotional. (Though when I've had this little sleep, EVERYTHING makes me emotional!) There was a passionate reverence just in his posture and movement that was compelling -- never mind his willingness to stand up on a plane and pray in front of hundreds of people, regardless of the weirdness.

My day job is basically thinking about the Jewish faith. I spend a lot of time contemplating the common origins of my faith and theirs. And I'm about to teach a class on New Testamemt Survey: an overview of Judaism fulfilled, a look at God's end game as realised in Jesus the Anointed Priest-King. And more and more I want to ask every Jew I meet (or, apparently, see on an airplane), "why not Jesus?" Because more and more I understand what Paul says at the beginning of Romans 9 that the Jews have everything going for them, that they have the theological home field advantage. What God gave them was exceptionally great, and what they could have is so much greater still. Paul says elsewhere, "If there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it (2 Cor 3:9-10).

And so this has become my "maybe next year." It has become to me a call to the mission of God. Maybe next year they'll see. Maybe next year they'll understand that everything they've ever hoped for is here -- and more. Maybe next year they'll be citizens with us of the New Jerusalem, grafted once more into the people of God.