I will never forget one (of many) moment at the time of the 911 attack. A celebrity concert aired on TV featured Bruce Springsteen performing My City of Ruins. That moment is the closest I have ever come.... and I'm quite a ways from New York City..... to understanding what the destruction of home would feel like.
I remember one other moment, when there was a tornado in northern Iowa, Parkersburg, maybe (?) and the the camera panned the town and there was nothing standing....nothing taller than the TV van. Utter ruin.
There is one large lesson to be learned from the book of Jeremiah. We do not want to pay for our sins. The anger of God, his holy wrath, is every bit as large and unknowable as his love and grace. We get a picture of what paying for your sin looks like in Jeremiah, and it is a grim picture. "How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!" Jeremiah begins his Lament. My City of Ruins.
We have heard many times that Israel and Judah were exiled because they turned to other gods. That is not a stand alone thing. In the first place, it isn't like they went from the Baptist church to the Presbyterian church. They abandoned God and went looking somewhere else, in a breach of faith that God consistently refers to as prostitution. The difference between worshiping God and worshiping, e.g. Molech.... was like the difference between earth and Jupiter. Like the difference between earth and a black hole. The difference was, in a word big. I'll just throw out one concept; child sacrifice.
What I had not thought of much before is how deserting God and following Molech, etc. changed the entire character of the nation. Even nominal followers of God would think about morality and kindness and honesty... We may think of those as basic human virtues but I think they are instead basic godly values. Man is depraved, and in Jerusalem before it's destruction we see what that really means.
I'll see if I can skim the book for the character of the city in this post-God worshiping state.
5:1 "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem.... if you can find one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city."
:7 adultery and prostitution
: 26-28 wicked men, set traps for unsuspecting, full of deceit,
do not plead the case of the fatherless,
do not defend the rights of the poor.
7:5 oppress the alien, the fatherless, the widow.
shed innocent blood
8:19-- things related to the law, such as the Sabbath. Such as the year of Jubilee.
34:8 One of the last straws was when the last king, Zedekiah, responded to a word from Jeremiah to free all the Hebrew slaves. Hebrew slaves were to against the law; their own people! But immediately the king and officials changed their minds, taking back the very slaves they had just freed, making them their slaves again.
Is that enough? Without going into the details of the Caananite and Egyptian religious practices, is that enough? This is the nation who was chosen to be a representation of God to the world around them.
I started to count how many times God says, just in the book of Jeremiah, "Return to me and I will return to you!" and this is even after he has given them up for destruction. At any point, God would have blessed them in their repentance, but there was none.
So here's the end. We left the narrative last week after King Jehoida was taken to Egypt , where he died, and Jehoiakin became king.
In the third year of Johoiakin, Daniel and over 3,000 Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon. [Daniel 1:1] Then King Jehoiakin rebelled against Nebuchadnezzer and was himself taken to Babylon and either was killed or died there.
His son, Joachin became the 18 year old king of what was left of Judah... mostly just the city of Jerusalem. He was king for 3 months. The Babylonians laid siege to the city. Then Nebuchadnezzer himself came to the city, and Jehoiachin surrendered.
This is where I think we can begin to see how difficult Jeremiah's message was. What king wants to hear that God's will for their life is to surrender to the conqueror...especially a king with a national memory of having God on their side?
Think about this, though. Josiah had three sons and a grandson who were made king. Jehoiachin was the only one who lived through the judgement of the nation. It still kind of sticks in our craw, doesn't it? What kind of a king surrenders? Well... the kind who lives.
Here's a word from those fascinating genealogies of 1 Chronicles. The sons of David are listed in chapter 3. Verse 15says the sons of Josiah were Jehoida, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. Of the sons of .... oops.... Jehoida and Zedekiah didn't have any surviving sons..... Looks like it was a good thing Jehoiachin surrendered.
Now look at his geneology, as the chapter continues... "The decendants of Jehoiachin the captive:" his son Shealtiel, his son Pedaiah, his son Zerubbabel..... [who was the political leader after the return.] And they are going to return. God has decided to judge Judah: he's going to destroy Judah, but God always preserves a remnant.to fulfill his promise to Abraham. As much as anything else, Jeremiah's very unpopular message was about the people of God continuing as a people, something God had promised they were going to do.
We have to remember two things about the kings of Judah. One: the kings of Judah were the descendants of David. Two: the kings of Judah were the ancestors of Jesus.
So as we reach the end of the book of Jeremiah we begin to hear more of his message of surrender... a very unpopular message. But the message is not really about surrender, it's about survival.
Zedekiah, the last king of Israel, is as wishy-washy as they come. Remember he abolished Jewish slavery only to reinstate it. [Then again, he became king at 21.] He really wants to have it both ways.
Jeremiah chapter 21 is right up there in the list of saddest chapters in the Bible. Zedekiah sent the Temple official [one of Jeremiah's most hateful enemies] and the priest, asking Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord for them. This was about 30 years into Jeremiah's ministry.... but I guess there was a chance he would say something different this time. Nebuchadnezzer was attacking the city. "Maybe," King Zedekiah asked, "the Lord will perform wonders for us as in times past so that he will withdraw from us." This king who refused to obey God, held out some hope God would deliver him.
Isn't that sad? We just looked at King Hezekiah's deliverance... the Assyrian king withdrew from the city and angels killed 180,000 of his soldiers. Israel's history, when God was protecting them, was full of stories like that. I think Zedekiah saw there was no hope without God. Unfortunately, this time there was no hope at all. Except surrender.
"I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in the city will die by the sword, famine, or plague. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians will escape with his life." [21:9] That was an unpopular message.
There is so much intrigue just involving Jeremiah during Zedekiah's reign, it could be a whole book. In stocks. In prison. In a cistern of mud. Starving. Provided with bread every day. We would call them 10 years from Hell. God only called it obedience. Jeremiah was obedient to the very end.
So this is the end. An 18 month siege. Severe famine; people eating their own children. When the Babylonians broke through the wall, King Zedekiah and his army abandoned the city and the people, trying to escape. We feel justifiably happy they did not escape. Everything removable from the palaces and temple was removed and taken to Babylon. All the religious leaders were executed; that doesn't make us very sad either. Most of the remaining population of the city was killed. 745 were chained together and marched off, the last of the exiles to Babylon. The very poorest remnant of the city was just left in Jerusalem, probably those who wouldn't survive the march.
Jeremiah had previously sent a couple of letters to the Jews exiled to Babylon. We are so familiar with these verses from the 29th chapter of Jeremiah: "I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity." The destruction of Judah was a horrible chapter in a much longer story. God gave vent to his wrath on a sinful people; yet he mercifully preserved the lineage that would bring us final deliverance from that wrath.
There's a little more to this story, and then the miraculous return to the land under Cyrus, then another falling away, then 400 "silent years" and then the Messiah. Then we are grafted into the story.
The man, Jeremiah, has his own part in the story. He was the prophet of God who for maybe 40 years declared destruction. He spoke the truth during that difficult time no matter what it cost him....and it cost him much. He had his times when he questioned God, but he knew God, knew what God was doing and what the mega plan was. He was the voice of God during the most disastrous time in his nation's history, but his voice was always strong and true.
Yet, even this life is the story of God. At the beginning of his ministry, back when Josiah was king...maybe when Jeremiah was the privileged teen-aged son of the High Priest, God called him and made him a promise. "Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar, a bronze wall to stand against the whole land--- against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but not overcome you, for I am with you."
No comments:
Post a Comment