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This is what the Lord says: “Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, ‘Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son. “Hear the word of the Lord, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’ (Jeremiah 31:7-10)

This word of Jeremiah is for exiles, a people scattered.  They will not always be on the outside of their hope, looking in.  One day they will possess it.

Through this text, there is good news.  All those broken, marginalized, scattered, cast out will be gathered up by the Lord.  The blind, the lame, and women carrying the hope of pregnancy will be among the throng.  This word of hope keeps company with the prayers of the psalms, like in its psalm twenty-three-esque picture of the good shepherd leading his people home beside streams of water.  Or like in psalm 121, God’s people will not stumble for the Lord watches over them in their going and coming.  The people are coming home to their inheritance, and all God’s promises are being made true in their return. 

But they aren’t there yet.  Just as we aren’t.  This word is a future promise.  It’s a good one, but it isn’t here yet.  That’s why this is an advent text.  It holds in common the tension of our faith: future hope and present prayer.

The people are given this word of future hope.  It is theirs to guard and keep with their very life and for their very life.  It is a sure promise from God: they will return from exile and from their time of being scattered to the ends of the earth.  Even the nations are told about these promises of God.  So sure is the promise that God invites the accountability of witnesses.  It is a public proclamation of the King: let all who hear it believe: God will gather up his scattered flock like a good shepherd. 

In the meantime, however, the people are also commanded to pray.  Through songs of joy and petitions of praise, their prayers are to arise: “Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.”  This is their faithful act of worship until the day the Lord accomplishes what he has promised.  They are to hold the hope and petition in praise.

What an odd thing, a praise-petition.  “Lord, save your people” doesn’t sound much like praise.  But it is, because it’s grounded in a God and a promise so sure it can be believed as if accomplished.  There is joy in the hoping, even as there remains the deep tension of desiring.

So it is with us in advent.  We joyfully hope in the things we cannot see and have not received.  We prayerfully praise out our petition “come, Lord Jesus come.”  Save all your people, now scattered.  Your restless church.  Our wayward children of your covenant promises.  All those broken, marginalized, scattered, and cast out.  Gather us all, we expectantly, painfully, and joyfully pray.