Posts tagged ‘Jeremiah’
Grace in the Wilderness
Credit: Angelique Downing from Burst
There are some incredible words the Lord speaks through the prophet Jeremiah:
The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. (Jeremiah 31:2)
These words are written for Israel while Israel is in crisis – when she is being defeated and decimated by the Babylonians who will carry her people into exile. While Israel is at her worst, then, God says to her, “In a place you might least expect it – the wilderness that is your exile – you will find My grace.”
God’s people have a history of finding grace in wilderness. When the Lord led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He led them into the wilderness, where they received grace upon grace. A miracle at the Red Sea. Manna and quail from the heavens. Water to drink from a rock. There was grace there in that wilderness.
When God decided it was time to send a Savior, His coming was announced in where else, but the wilderness:
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’” (Matthew 3:1-3)
The grace of God’s kingdom was being announced in the wilderness.
And when the Savior did arrive, where did He go to begin His public ministry? Into the wilderness, of course:
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 4:1)
While Jesus may have been tempted by the devil, He did not succumb to the devil. He defeated the devil and his temptations so that there may be grace for everyone who does not fare so well under temptation.
I think sometimes we might prefer to find grace in places other than the wilderness. In the lushness of an awesome spiritual experience, perhaps, where we feel the warmth of God’s love surrounding us. Or in the comforts of an abundance of material possessions, perhaps, where we can breezily and easily praise God for the amazing things He has given to us.
God can show us grace through these things, but this does not mean He only shows us grace through these things.
Sometimes, grace comes to us in the wilderness. Like when we feel spiritually cold inside and all we can do is cling to God’s Word. Or when our pocketbooks feel strapped and our savings accounts are depleted all we have is God’s promise of daily bread.
Sometimes, grace comes to us in the wilderness.
This should not surprise us. For God’s grace was most fully expressed on some rough-hewn timbers, cut down from the wilderness of ancient Israel. Grace did not feel good to Jesus. But the grace of the cross is the greatest grace there is.
So, don’t let a time in the wilderness crush you. There is grace there because Jesus is there. If there’s one place He knows, it’s there. And if there’s one person He wants, it’s you.
The Value of Patience
Credit: baycitizen.org
I am not a patient person. I wish I was, but I’m not sure I really have the patience to learn patience.
The other day I had to go to the DMV to get a registration sticker for my truck. I had renewed my registration online some two months earlier, but my registration sticker never came. When I called inquiring about my vehicle registration, they informed me that the sticker must have gotten lost in the mail and that it was my responsibility to drive to a DMV office and purchase a replacement sticker.
So that’s what I did.
When I arrived, I found two lines. One line took care of vehicle registration renewals and the other line took care of everything else. I was hoping I could wait in the registration renewal line, but because I was not renewing my registration and instead getting a replacement sticker, I had to wait in the other line. Did I mention that the other line was longer and moving much slower?
After over an hour waiting in line, I finally got my sticker. It took less than a minute. Needless to say, I walked out with less than a smile on my face.
I am not a patient person. God, however, is patient. The Bible regularly celebrates God’s patience: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8). Rather than getting upset easily and quickly, God’s patient love prevails.
For all of God’s patience, it is important to note that even His patience does not last forever. When Israel rebels against God for centuries in wickedness, God warns: “You have rejected me … You keep on backsliding. So I will reach out and destroy you; I am tired of holding back” (Jeremiah 15:6). God will only tolerate unrepentant sin for so long. Such sin will eventually lead to divine judgment. Thus, although we are called to trust God’s patience, we should not try God’s patience.
I got frustrated because I had to wait an hour to get my vehicle registration sticker at the DMV. God has been waiting thousands of years so more and more people might repent and trust in Him. And if God is can wait that long for us, maybe I can wait a little longer for others.
Holy Week Sorrow and Celebration
Right now in my personal devotions, I am reading through the book of Lamentations, a sorrowful song written by the prophet Jeremiah, which describes Israel’s defeat and exile at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BC. Some of the language Jeremiah uses to describe Israel’s demise is grotesque and gut wrenching:
- The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst. (Lamentations 4:4)
- Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become dry as wood. (Lamentations 4:8)
- The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people. (Lamentations 4:10)
Clearly, this is a tragic, despairing time. Indeed, even for a professional prophet such as Jeremiah, who has seen much sin and tragedy, the despair of the exile seems overwhelming. And Jeremiah places the blame for this despair squarely at the feet of God.
In chapter 3, Jeremiah laments his plight:
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath; He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me He turns His hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; He has broken my bones; He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; He has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer; He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; He has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; He has made me desolate; He bent His bow and set me as a target for His arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes. (Lamentations 3:1-16)
Notice the pronoun Jeremiah employs again and again to describe who is responsible for his misery: “He.” “He” has brought Jeremiah misery, trouble, pain, and despair. It’s “His” fault that Jeremiah’s plight is what it is. Who is this “He”? None other than God, of course. God has afflicted Jeremiah in the most miserable of ways.
And yet, even in his misery, Jeremiah has not lost all hope: “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” (Lamentations 3:21-23). Jeremiah believes that finally, ultimately, God’s steadfast love will prevail. Indeed, it’s interesting the way Jeremiah describes this steadfast love just verses later: “Though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:32-33). Though God does afflict and grieve people because of their sin, Jeremiah says, He does not willingly do so. God’s will is not to pour out His hot wrath, but His steadfast love. The Hebrew word for “willingly” is milibo, a word meaning, “from His heart.” Thus, Jeremiah is saying that from God’s heart does not come affliction. Rather, from God’s heart comes His steadfast love. God’s will is wrapped in love.
Luther describes God’s wrath at sin and God’s will of love by making a distinction between the “alien” and the “proper” work of God:
We must know what is meant by the work of God. It is nothing else but to create righteousness, peace, mercy, truth, patience, kindness, joy, and health, inasmuch as the righteous, truthful, peaceful, kind, joyful, healthy, patient, merciful cannot do otherwise than act according to His nature. Therefore God creates righteous, peaceful, patient, merciful, truthful, kind, joyful, wise, healthy men…But He cannot come to this His proper work unless He undertakes a work that is alien and contrary to Himself…Therefore, since He can make just only those who are not just, He is compelled to perform an alien work in order to make them sinners, before He performs His proper work of justification. Thus He says, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” (AE 51:18-19)
God must judge us before He can justify us, Luther says. His alien and His proper work go hand in hand. Thus, both God’s alien work of judgment and God’s proper work of love are needed in Jeremiah’s life. And both God’s alien work of judgment and God’s proper work of love are needed in our lives too. But lest we forget, through faith in Christ, God’s proper work prevails!
The alien and the proper work of God meet most clearly in the death and resurrection of Christ, which we remember during this Holy Week. Luther explains:
God’s alien work is the suffering of Christ and sufferings in Christ, the crucifixion of the old man and the mortification of Adam. God’s proper work, however, is the resurrection of Christ, justification in the Spirit, and the vivification of the new man, as Romans 4:25 says: “Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification.” (AE 51:19)
God judges His Son on the cross, killing Him for the sins of the world. This was not something He delighted in doing – it was alien to Him – but it was necessary. For Christ’s crucifixion satisfied God’s righteous wrath at sinners…sinners like you and me (cf. Romans 3:25-26). And with God’s wrath satisfied through Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, God could now move to His proper work: Giving to His children His steadfast love which never ceases.
This Holy Week, spend some time meditating on both the alien and the proper work of God. For both are needed. But finally, one prevails! For God’s work does not end in an alien way. Rather, it ends in its proper way. It ends in our salvation through faith in Christ. Praise be to God!
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