In Exile with Israel

by Boaz Michael, FFOZ

As the world turns against Israel, followers of Yeshua are getting a taste of the suffering of exile.

It has been more than three months since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7. For about a week, Israel had the sympathy and consolation of the nations. But as many of us feared, this goodwill has evaporated.

Maybe you’ve felt it. Maybe you feel self-conscious about your support for Israel. Conversations about Israel might devolve into arguments that alienate you from friends or colleagues. You might feel marginalized in your communities. You might even fear becoming a victim of anti-Semitic violence if you are too vocal or open about your stance.

Perhaps not only your support and defense of Israel but also the religious perspectives that biblically align you with Israel and the Jewish people have brought a sense of isolation, loneliness, otherness, and foreignness. Your faith values and disciplines might make you feel alienated, at times embarrassed, estranged, like a weird anomaly, alienated, the other—alone.

Well, welcome to the club.

Welcome to galut. Welcome to exile.

The Jewish people have thousands of years of experience dealing with the suffering of exile. I’d say we’re used to it, but the truth is, you never really get used to it. Having a sense of security, a sense of belonging, a sense of control over your own destiny—these are basic psychological needs, and they are constantly under threat in exile. However, the Jewish people are resilient, and God’s help and provision have sustained our communities in exile since the first century.

But many followers of Yeshua who support Israel are getting a taste of exile for the first time. The rejection, scorn, and abuse that the nations have heaped on the Jewish people since ancient times is now falling on anyone who believes that Jewish people should have a land in which they can live in peace and security.

You might be discouraged by diminishing support for Israel around the world. It might seem as if the world is taking a step backward, away from redemption. But this is not the case. In fact, the followers of Yeshua have always been in exile along with the Jewish people. At certain times and in certain places, they have had some measure of prosperity, peace, and security. But the kingdom of Yeshua is fundamentally incompatible with the powers of this present age. We are all citizens of a better kingdom, and the fact that this spiritual, or potential, or proleptic reality is now breaking into the present age is a sign that the kingdom is near.

Furthermore, the suffering of Yeshua’s disciples, along with the Jewish people, is a sign of connection, affiliation, and allegiance to Yeshua himself, who suffers along with his people and, in some sense, lives among them and all of us in exile.

Many followers of Yeshua who support Israel are getting a taste of exile for the first time.

Because of your connection to the Jewish Messiah, you understand more deeply what it means to suffer alongside the Jewish people. Your faith in Yeshua the Messiah brings persecution not simply because you believe he is the Messiah but because of what this belief communicates. This belief in the messiahship of Yeshua proclaims loudly and proudly that you stand with the King of Israel and that you place your trust in the redemption plan of God, in which Israel holds a central place.

The enemy hates this. He hates the flourishing of Israel, and he will attack anyone who supports Israel through their attachment to the Jewish Messiah.

Israel has always been the battlefield between those who are of the kingdom of God and those who support the kingdom of darkness.

The call of discipleship to the Jewish King can come at a steep price. We are not called to a discipleship of belief; we are called to a discipleship of obedience. This means that a disciple is not known simply by his belief that Yeshua is the Messiah but by his obedience to the Messiah, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer—a righteous Gentile disciple of Yeshua who died along with the Jewish people in the concentration camps—said so eloquently:

Jesus must therefore make it clear beyond all doubt that the ‘must’ of suffering applies to his disciples no less than to himself. Just as Christ is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord’s suffering and rejection and crucifixion. (The Cost of Discipleship)

As disciples of Yeshua, we have chosen our side. We stand with Israel, and we stand with the God of Israel, and this means we will be persecuted in one way or another. We should expect this as servants of Yeshua. Just as he suffered, we, too, should expect to suffer. Just as he endured those sufferings and was glorified through them, we, too, should be prepared to suffer alongside him and be glorified with him when we come out of this long exile of separation from God’s presence and enter the Messianic Kingdom.

Then, we will all experience the fullness of God through our Messiah when he rules and reigns from his throne in Jerusalem.