The tectonic plates of three empires – Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia – were moving and pushing against each other with Israel, as usual, in the middle. It was a time of instability, changes, uncertainty, shifting power, volatility, movement of people across borders, leadership turnover, and threats (real and imagined). In other words, Jeremiah stepped into a world just like ours today.

With Assyria declining after 200+ years of dominance, Babylonia on the rise and Egypt recovering from being conquered by Assyria, the balance of power around Israel was shifting significantly. Empires rise and fall but it is unusual to live in the middle of three empires growing and shrinking all at the same time. Miscalculating can have disastrous consequences.
It’s worth a short side trip to look at Assyria’s rise and fall. What were the elements of its rise to power? First and foremost was its military power and its ability to innovate. Not only did it have overwhelming strength but it devised methods of warfare that were far advanced compared to surrounding countries. Second, it created the first centralized government in history – a genuine innovation – that allowed it to administrate an empire from a capital city. Because part of their military strategy was to not only enslave conquered territories but to move them en masse to other parts of the empire, they were able to destroy their national identity.

Third, they enjoyed enormous economic power from trade and taxation and, fourth, they had (for a time) superior leadership in all these areas. Why did it fall? As always, strengths can become weaknesses. Maintaining borders and many small wars overextended the military – in manpower and financially. A centralized government eventually created an enlarged bureaucracy that was slow, resistant to change and inefficient. Trade was disrupted due to uprisings that became more frequent as military and centralized power became weaker. Finally, leadership was hopelessly divided Josiah, the king of Judah at the time of Jeremiah’s call, took advantage of this moment of decline and re-arrangement to expand the borders of Israel and to reform the nation through a religious revival and return to God. In the 18th year of his reign the Book of the Law was rediscovered in a storeroom in the Temple where it had been lost for decades. We are always surprised at the lack of Biblical knowledge in our country. It was the same in Israel. The Law had been lost and not used in many years. Even the Kings were unfamiliar with it. When Josiah understood what had been found and what it meant he called the people together and recommitted the entire country to the Law and to worship at the Temple.

So, when Jeremiah was called it was a time of optimism and strength. The country was growing. There was a genuine revival and return to God. The overshadow of Assyria was receding. What would the people expect to hear from this new prophet? Encouragement about their new direction? A word of hope? Maybe even a little congratulations on their economic and political situation! Not so. It was too little too late. The entire core of the culture was corrupted…and had been for years. The effects of Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, were permanent and God had judged – even though they had reformed. They did not expect Jeremiah’s message. In fact, they expected just the opposite and were surprised.

“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?’ 11 then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.”

The time of Josiah’s reign was simply the time between the verdict being pronounced and the sentence carried out. The people, on the other hand, took it as a reprieve or a pardon. In fact, it was a 40 year walk from the courtroom to the gallows. When Jeremiah was called people were optimistic about the future of the country. Things were looking up. Not only did they believe in “exceptionalism” but they believed in their being an exception to history.

4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
6 “Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

How do we normally respond to such a statement? For most of us the recognition of a call or an anointing is a moment of celebration. It means great things are going to happen with a person. To be anointed is to be special. To have a call is to have the hand of God on your life. We think of it as the mark of a great destiny, great accomplishment and achievement. Perhaps that is what Jeremiah heard as well? The excitement of being called by God must have stunned him. Only heroes and leaders were called and anointed. It could not be him. He was too young. He could not make great speeches that would move, influence and inspire people. According to the people, this was a time for positive and stirring rhetoric that would draw them into the challenge of new times and possibilities. “Why else would God anoint and call me?” he must have wondered. As well, he was too young to lead. He didn’t have the experience to organize and direct people. “Surely I am too young for such responsibility and position.” Having grown up in a community of priests and being the son of a priest, perhaps he even thought God was calling him to be the successor to Hilkiah – the chief priest.

In verse 8 we get the first hint of what is in God’s mind. “I will rescue you” What could that mean? Why would such a person need rescuing? After all, the calling of a priest is pretty safe and secure. Priests take care of people. They are shepherds of the flock. They have a life of routine where they are loved and cared for. Priests did not like prophets. Prophets stirred up. Priests calmed and kept order.

Finally, in verse 17 the other shoe drops. It is not “cheap grace” he will speak to the people. These are not words that will endear him. They will alienate and put him at risk for the rest of his life. His assignment reminds me of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” On the other hand, “costly grace calls us to follow, and it is costly because it costs a man his life…When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That is the nature of Jeremiah’s call.

At the same time I thought of this, I thought of just the opposite – the illusion of the world’s grace. That’s perhaps best captured in the “religion” of Oprah Winfrey: “You are responsible for your life – the power of God is within you, above you and through you. You control your life.” You make your own life with your own hands – and then you worship it. That is not Jeremiah’s message, is it?

For 42 years following his call he speaks God’s words. He lives through five failed kings, the rise and fall of empires and, at the end, the destruction of Israel and the exile to Babylonia. As his life closes, he is left with a few poor survivors who migrate to Egypt and there he dies – some say he was stoned by his own people. “The world was not worthy of them” as the writer of Hebrews put it. Yet, like others who have been called and anointed by God to sacrifice, he becomes a foreshadowing of God’s final anointed one who suffers, is rejected, mocked and killed by the world.

Let me close with something written by Jeremiah as a reflection on his own life. This is not the young man we met at the beginning of this chapter. This is a man who has discovered what few ever will. God’s call is to come and die but only in that dying is to be found true life.

1 [a]I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.
4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.
7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
10 Like a bear lying in wait,
like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me
and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow
and made me the target for his arrows.
13 He pierced my heart
with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people;
they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs
and given me gall to drink.
16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the LORD.”
19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”