As we make our way through these 3 chapters, keep your Bible open and we will look at the material in smaller pieces. It is at times hard for us to hear a relentless message of judgment, but the Lord has a purpose for the “weight” of Jeremiah’s prophecy…a purpose for us as well as those who originally heard it read.
One of the aspects of my family culture is story-telling. I am not sure where it came from, my folks never did this, but my children grew up hearing about my growing up…sometimes the stories were spot on and sometimes a bit exaggerated for humor sake. Nonetheless, my children have never met Bernie Hecker, or Fat Rudy, Kirk Bunch or Ernie, but I am sure they feel like they have. The problem with a large family is that I can’t remember who I have told the stories to…and so often when I start in, I get a roll of the eyes and a, “Yea, Dad, we know, we have heard it before…a number of times!” But now that I have 30 grandchildren there is a whole group of people who haven’t heard my stories!
On a serious note, we get to Jeremiah and we might think, Yea, Jerry, we have heard it all before. And, in one sense that might be true: Israel has rejected God, broken covenant with him and refuses to repent and come back to the Lord in humility. As a result, they must face God’s wrath, and no, clinging to religious ritual isn’t going to be their comfort, in fact, it only increases their guilt.
Once again we get a flood of rhetorical questions, graphic imagery, fierce accusation and the predictions of invasion. However, there are two themes that run through these chapters, one takes us deeper into the perversity of sin, and perhaps that is not so unexpected. The other, however, is quite unexpected and takes us not only into theological deep water, but relationally strikes us to our core. I am talking about what our text says about Divine grief…not our grief, but what our sin does to God.
First this morning we see the perversity of sin. READ 8:4-9:1
If you read verse 4 and verse 7 back-to-back, you conclude that Israel’s rebellion makes no sense…it seems quite irrational. If you are walking somewhere and you fall down, you get back up, go on your journey and then go home. But Israel seems to be going only in one direction. They fall down, get back up, fall down, get back up, fall down, over and over. The movement is in one direction, deeper and deeper into the mess that is their sin.
But this is exactly what happens when we refuse repentance. It doesn’t get better, or easier, we just continue to slide deeper and deeper into the mess. Sin doesn’t just go away and the consequences, although at times maliciously quiet, do not fade away unfulfilled. We all know this.
Look at verse 6. There is no self-criticism or reflection. When Christians are running away from the Lord and yet remain convinced of their own integrity, then what is seen is a hardness of heart that is frightening.
Look what it says; they are clinging, but to what? They are clinging…to deceit, but here is what is alarming: They are clinging to self-deceit. Being deceived by another is tricky to be sure, but being deceived by yourself…that is a whole new and deeper form of bondage.
As commentator Christopher Wright comments, the Bible, especially the prophets point out that animals have more sense at times than God’s people! Isaiah says that the farmer’s ox and donkey knew where to find a meal better than Israel knew how to find the Lord.
Jeremiah watches the great stork migrations and sees a lesson in the requirements of nature, but God’s own people do not know the law of the Lord. Even Jesus commended the birds as an object lesson in freedom from worry. He also saw more intelligence in chickssnuggling for protection under the mother hen than in the people of Jerusalem who refused to trust in Yahweh.
Let’s be honest. We live in a day, and we are not untouched by this, we live in a day where those who call themselves Christian, do not know, or ignore as unimportant, the basic tenets of discipleship…of what it means to be a person who follows Christ. Obedience is “take it or leave it” as though it is optional and anyone who seeks faithfulness is accused of works righteousness. We participate in shallow and hasty evangelism, if we even think about evangelism.
The church seems to be more consumer driven, taking on the basic principle of the culture, which is entertainment, soft selling salvation at cut-rate prices. The words of the prophet ring true for not only his age, but ours, and not only for their lives, but for each of ours as well.
In 8:8-13 Jeremiah turns to excoriate the leadership. We have seen that over and over again, so let me say just one thing about that. God says the leaders don’t know Me and they, the leaders respond with, oh sure we do. And Jeremiah counters with, “you have turned God’s word into a lie, and you have rejected His word.”
The law instructs God’s people on how to live, and keeps repentance at the forefront. But if that is rejected or watered-down then the way of life descends into the abyss…we simply become a law unto ourselves and do whatever we want. And when the ministers are both teaching that such is ok and they are living in such debauchery themselves…well…what are we to do?
As I have said before, it is interesting how behavior changes doctrine. We want to live in our own self-absorbed desires and wants and low and behold if the Bible all of a sudden doesn’t say, what it has always seemed to say! And you can always find a church, a pastor or pastors who will tell you exactly what you want to hear. And then, almost unbelievably, the next rung on the ladder downward; look who gets the blame!
They are messing up their lives and they blame God!
Look at 8:15, “All we wanted was peace…” Then in 19, “Is the Lord not in Zion…is He a God who abandons his people? Why does he not show up like he promised? Verse 20, we are not saved, we have done everything we are supposed to, here it is a reference to the harvest, but God has failed to do his part!
Here is where it gets really interesting. God responds to them, by telling them in verse 19, that He will no longer respond to them, He is not going to listen anymore to their rebellious non-sense. If at this point we were to get the author telling us something about God, we might expect poetry that expresses God’s anger, God’s wrath, his furrowed brow at the rebellion of those to whom He has only shown mercy, grace and love.
But that is not what we get. Instead, we learn that God is provoked, hurt, stung, vexed, offended, but also crushed, wounded, full of sorrow.
God wishes in verse 22 He could call for ointment and doctors to heal their wounds. Look at 9:1, “O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.”
God is dissolving in tears…yes their sin will be their punishment but God is, as one commentator put it, “holding his head in his hands, sobbing through the tears. My people…my poor, poor people…”
Remember when David wept for Absalom and Joab was so angry with King David. “He was rebellious…he rejected you…and you weep for him???” Yes, Joab…Absalom…was my son…I don’t care how rebellious he was, how caught in his own net he was, don’t you get it…He was my son.
When we start talking about the suffering of God, the emotion of God, the hurt and pain that God feels, Christian and theologians get queasy. We don’t want God to seem so…well…so…human.
We are ok, with God reacting to sin and evil with anger but not so much with hurt. But once again, our reticence says more about us, than it does about God or the Bible. We are not called to choose between God’s anger and God’s tears, between his wrath and His broken heart. So…let’s not choose between them. Our sin breaks God’s heart.
Prayer: Gracious Father, I confess that I seldom think about what my sin does to You. Even my repentance needs to be repented of! My self-absorption knows no boundaries. Please forgive me, help me to see just how the rebellion of Your people, how my rebellion grieves Your Divine heart. In seeing the truth of my malevolence, may I be filled with a holy hatred for anything and everything that separates me from You; through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Pie Jesu (Click show more for translation and words)
