Jeremiah: Not for All Audiences

Last week, I told Janelle that I want to launch an intra-marriage campaign to name one of our future sons “Jeremiah,” after the weeping prophet himself.

In preparation to launch an all-out offensive, I went through and re-read Jeremiah and Lamentations this week, and let me tell you, the campaign is on.

Don’t get me wrong, though, Jeremiah’s life and the events that took place in Jerusalem at that time have to encapsulate one of the ugliest stories ever told.

Put it this way, Hollywood is never going to make a movie out of it, and if they ever did, I’d be the last to see it.

I really wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

Fast-forward all the way to Lamentations, which basically functioned in the same way that a presidential visit to declare a state of emergency does today.

Here’s Jeremiah, surveying the damage that he’s spent his whole ministry predicting, and borne constant persecution to that end.

The word “Lamentations”, of course, means weeping or wailing, and that’s what Jeremiah does plenty of as he sees what has become of God’s chosen people.

All along, he’s been speaking the Word of the Lord that instead of fighting against Babylon, the people need to surrender and go along with the program, and all along, they’ve resisted the Word of God and listened to false prophets declaring “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. (Jer. 6:14).

It’s a simple Word that he’s declared all along. Two options

A. Surrender to Babylon and keep your life as a price of war
B. Resist Babylon/flee to Egypt, and die of sword, pestilence or famine

Israel goes with Option B—kinda like we Sons of Adam are always going with option B—and God has carried out his promise for disaster, and as we come up to Lamentations, it’s just at the time when Jerusalem is surrounded by Babylon and basically starved to death until they surrender.

That’s why you see absolutely tear-jerking, gut-wrenching literal statements like these in Lamentations:

“Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt this? Should women eat the fruit of their womb,  the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lam. 2:20)

“Even the jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness. The tong of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.” (Lam. 4:3-4)       

“The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they have become their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.” (Lam. 4:10)

How in the wide world is Jeremiah going to handle this?

No wonder he’s the weeping prophet.

"For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for my comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.” (Lam. 1:16)       

“My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.” (Lam. 2:11)        

“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees; my eye causes me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.” (Lam. 3:49-51)

Is there any hope for God’s people?

Will the comforter from Lam. 1:16 ever come?

Will the Lord from heaven look down and see from Lam. 3:49?

Oh yes, there is hope. And the hope of Jeremiah is eternally tethered to both the steadfast love and the sovereignty of God.

It’s not enough if all we know about God is that he has a love that is steadfast. There’s no comfort for Jeremiah or the daughter of his people in a handcuffed lover.

On the other side of the coin, there’s no hope in a sovereign King who’s out to get you. In fact, there’s no more hopeless situation than to be God’s opponent—which we all are without Christ.

Just at the height of Jeremiah’s weeping comes some of the most staggering worship we could ever imagine or experience:

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.” (Lam. 3:21-24)

Is there hope? Oh yes, there is hope. God’s steadfast love is absolutely unconquerable.

It’s unconquerable enough to sustain Jeremiah in a situation that defies the imagination or even description.

But God’s love is shown to be even more unconquerable than that at the Cross.

For Israel, there was judgment:

“We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.” (Lam. 3:42)

God was not about to let the idolatry of his people—the adultery of his wife—slide past the scales of justice. That’s why Jerusalem was besieged.

But at the Cross, Jesus endured the entirety of God’s wrath for his people. That’s why he says, “It is finished.” What is finished? God’s forgiveness of his people’s transgressions.

And what about hope? For Jeremiah, there was God’s never-ending love shown all down through Israel’s history, but on this side of the Cross, it’s the resurrection that secures our hope in his promise.

In the resurrection, God showed that he’s not only powerful, but that he’s for us.

To the believer in Jesus, God’s not a handcuffed lover, and he’s not a “bear lying in wait for me.”

The Good News is that the sovereign King is for me.

To Know You is to Love You

As always, the King is right.

B.B. King, that is.

In one of his signature songs, B.B. unwittingly makes a radically Gospel-centered connection: "To know you is to love you."

I say radically Gospel-centered because I'm starting to detect in my own heart that I artificially disconnect the concept of knowing a person from that of loving a person.

What has pointed out the artificial disconnect in my heart is a statement in Jeremiah 9:24.

Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, the one charged to deliver horribly sad news of the up-coming capture and slaughter of a people who will utterly reject his prophecy and persecute him all the way until the point when its gates are overrun by its foretold oppressors.

In the midst of this wave of bad news, there comes an incredible "Thus says the Lord."

Thus says the Lord, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me..."

Knowing a person in the Old Testament was an inseparable concept from that of loving a person.

Three times in Genesis 4 alone, the expression for knowing is used as a figure of speech for sexual intimacy, and when God hears the outcry of his people in Exodus 2, the text says, "God saw the people of Israel--and God knew."

God knew. That is, God cared. We know that he cared because then he acted.

The more I've thought and mulled over the text in Jeremiah, the more I've started to realize how true it is that we can only really love people that we really know.

With respect to our relationship with the Lord, there's no loving Him without knowing Him. Not just knowing things about Him, either, but actually knowing--and caring about--what makes Him tic.

That's why the text in Jeremiah continues like it does:

"but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord."

What makes the Lord tic? In what things does He delight? Well, steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth.

Once we know that He really delights in these things, it becomes a litmus test for us on whether or not we actually love Him. Do we love the things that He loves? Because if not, then we don't love Him.

It takes a miracle of God's grace--God coming down and rescuing us by the death of His Son--to make us care about the things that delight Him. Sheer will-power won't get it done and self-improvement won't go far enough.

That's what I mean by radically Gospel-centered.

And what about this idea of knowing-loving as it relates to our love for others?

Jesus said that the world is going to know who his disciples are because of their love for each other, and we only really love the people who we really know.

That's shocking, I know, but bear with me.

Of course, there's a general love that we can have for everybody in the world--the kind that makes us want to join hands with everyone around the world and sing Kumbaya, but surely that's not what Jesus is calling us to as His disciples.

It's really not a radical call at all to invite you to want to generally love everyone everywhere.

Where the call gets radical is where it relates to people that we actually interact with and don't neccesarily--how should I say this?--like to be around.

A couple of guys that I interact with on a regular basis fit into this category. I feel like, instead of wanting to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with them, I'm constantly holding myself back from decking them (either physically or verbally).

So, what's the call for me, as Jesus' disciple?

It's first, to remember the Gospel. Remember that God knows me, He sees me, and in Christ He approves of me and loves me with a love that defys expression or overstatement.

Then, I'm called to actually care about the dude who I'm trying not to knock out. By actually caring, I mean trying to know him well enough to know what makes him tic.

• Why is he constantly chattering about nothing in particular?
• Why does he return my attempt at a conversation into an opportunity to slam others?
• Why does he go out of his way to be a general bonehead?

As a follower of Jesus, I want to be easily identified by my love. I want to actually care about people. I want to be willing to get uncomfortable and love others with the same type of love that God has shown me in the Cross.

God, give me the stregnth to pursue a knowledge of You that will cause me to delight in what you delight in. Give me the patience to love others with a Gospel-centered love.