We’ve been working through the “flashback” of Jeremiah’s relationship with the Israelite kings following Josiah. This is his 40th year of ministry and he has virtually nothing to – show for it – other than faithfulness. If he were to come back to his home church to report on his results he would be a big disappointment. His message has never changed but not one king – other than Josiah – has paid any attention to him.
Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s been negative attention because every one of them have wanted him to just go away. The last time he had a good relationship with a king was Josiah. He even did the eulogy at his funeral. But since then he has been a constant adversary with no success in turning the hearts of the kings or the people.
Of course, that was implied in his call at the start. God doesn’t say he will be successful. In fact, God says, “Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and 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 will not overcome you…” In other words, his life has been one of standing against everyone. One man against the whole nation.
Who could have predicted one young man who protested he did not know how to speak and was only a child could have stood against so many for so long…with no success? In fact, Jeremiah had now become a traitor and was in prison to keep him from demoralizing the people and encouraging them to surrender to Babylon. He was, in effect, an enemy of the State. What a calling!
I was at a conference in New York and while there I was thinking about the words of 30:12: “Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you.” It was a conference for young philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and wealthy families from around the world who were working out of the best intentions to fix the world. They were looking for “common ground” where our beliefs and prejudices would evaporate and we would all collaborate for global harmony. We could solve every problem if we could just go upstream far enough to the original roots of the issues. They all believed it was just a matter of more money, more justice, better systems, less corruption and stronger networks of idealistic young people that would move the world to a more progressive vision of the future. Everything is possible. Whatever man can imagine he can do. It’s not just because I am older or cynical that I know they will soon discover this is not true. It is not true because Jeremiah and Scripture have a better understanding of the nature – and the broken nature – of man than they do. Our wound is incurable and our injury beyond healing. Our world is fallen and our idealism will not fix it. In fact, we will not see this world “fixed” until Christ comes again and delivers all of us from our exile. Only then will we see what we hope for now.
It will only be when there is a new covenant. Look at 31:31: “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
It’s not a new external set of rules. It is not a replacement of the Ten Commandments and all the laws that went with it. It is not something on the outside to which we look for guidance. It is something inside us. It is an internal change. It is the difference between a pacemaker and a new heart. We will not need external rules and laws to control us because we will all know God “from the least of them to the greatest.” In 32:39 Jeremiah writes, “I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them.”
How does that happen? We don’t understand it until we read further. “In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.”
The Lord Our Righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness and it is not righteousness that we earn. We read this again in Romans, don’t we? We are declared righteous through Christ and it is his righteousness we have been given. “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
God through Jeremiah was not speaking only of the return to Jerusalem but our return to God through the righteousness of Christ. We do not conquer sin. We die to sin and are reborn. We are not reformed. We are made new. We die with Christ and are raised with him. Too often we think of becoming a Christian as a way to an improved life. It’s not. It’s an exchanged life. It’s giving up our life and taking on the life of Christ. Oswald Chambers puts it this way: “Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal.” It is not WWJD. It is what is the life of Christ living through me?
Imagine I have a favorite shirt that has become ragged, full of wholes and worn. I go to Dillard’s and ask them if they can make it look better without changing the “nature” of the shirt. I still want it to feel like my favorite shirt. I just want it fixed up. They tell me it is time to get a new shirt and I resist it. I would have to take off this one to put that one on! Exactly. That’s what Paul is saying. We cannot improve this life. We have to take it off and put on the new life of Christ. Too often we seem to make people think church is the dry cleaners where we come to get our old natures cleaned up – but not exchanged. It’s like Home Depot where we go to get materials for improvement but not giving up the old house. Christ is not interested in improvement. He wants to exchange our life for his. A new covenant – a new heart – a new mind – not a new set of rules. We are still unsure about giving up this one, aren’t we?
So, God says to us as He said to Israel. “He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and starts to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – the Lord Almighty is his name. Only if these decrees vanish from my sight, declares the Lord, will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me. Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done.”
Imagine a scene like this. You are in a poker game with God. You have a stack of two chips and a bad hand. You hear him say, “I’m all in. I’m putting everything I have on this hand.” You look at his stack and it is infinite in size. It is all of creation. All time. All the universe. All love. All the sands on all the beaches of the worlds. Everything. “I’m all in”, he says again. “I’m putting everything, all of this you see, on this hand.” Isn’t it odd that we still think he is bluffing? We still don’t believe. We still don’t trust him, do we?
Think of it another way. You are a loan officer at the bank and you ask God what He has for collateral. He points to the same infinite assets that you cannot even imagine. Billions of trillions. What are we thinking? “I need to see one more document of assets before trusting you.” It’s silly, isn’t it? But that’s what we are doing when God says He loves us and wants us to have an exchanged life. We cannot believe in the covenant of everlasting love He offers because we still think it’s a contractual relationship with hidden clauses. I believed for many years that God was going to trick me. He was bluffing. He wasn’t all in. He said “enduring love” but didn’t mean it. I came to a point where I knew the most important question in my life (and yours) is “Do I believe God loves me with an enduring love or do I believe His love is conditional?” Do I believe God’s new covenant is permanent and He can be trusted. How you answer that question will determine the direction of your life. It will be either an exchanged life or a frustrating attempt to live an improved life.
Finally, let’s look at Jeremiah’s purchase of the land from his cousin. As you know, when a man had a piece of property he needed to be “redeemed” or sell he went first to a relative who became the “redeemer” who kept the property within the family. The redeemer had the first option on the land but he also had the obligation to buy the property. It was both a right and a duty. His cousin Hanamel comes to him and asks him to buy the property. It was not exactly the best time to buy land. The Babylonians were up to the gates of Jerusalem and the land was within their control. The whole nation was about to be exiled and property was essentially worthless. There are a number of ways to read this story. The first is as an investment on Jeremiah’s part. After all he had inside knowledge. He knew Israel would be returning (in 70 years) and that there would again be “fields bought for silver…in the territory of Benjamin…because I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.” It was obviously undervalued and the purchase price was low. It was a fire sale on Hanamel’s part.
The location was great – just two miles from Jerusalem. When Israel returns, Jerusalem will be expanding and the value will only increase. It was a perfect asset for a trust for grandchildren. However, an even better investment would have been investing in one of the exiles – not a field. Many of the exiles became wealthy men while in exile. How do we know this? Nehemiah tells us that the heads of many families contributed tons (literally) of silver and gold to the re-building of the city when they returned. However, I don’t think Jeremiah was looking for a business investment.
I don’t think it was just a show of confidence to make people feel better. After all, his whole life had been spent telling them they were going to be conquered and carried away. Everything they owned would end up in the hands of other people. I doubt his buying a field from a desperate relative would inspire confidence in people about to be carried away as captives or killed. As well, they would never live to see the benefit and part of their corruption was their inability to see past the immediate even though God says, “Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” But what is that hope to people who will not live to see it or doubt it is true? It is why amateur investors almost always sell at the bottom of the decline in the market. They panic and lose hope for any recovery. It was a run on the bank in Jerusalem.
So, for Jeremiah, it is not just an investment or a glimmer of hope for the future. It is just as much about integrity in a time of crisis and a statement about God’s commitment to His covenant. Jeremiah had every reason and excuse not to fulfill his obligation to his family. No one could have blamed him for refusing to buy a worthless piece of property from prison. But, he did it with witnesses just to confirm how serious he was. In the same way, God had every excuse to back out of His covenant with Israel but he doesn’t.
What will people say about Jeremiah in 70 years when they open the sealed jar and discover the deed to the property? They might say he was a fool who bought a field, died in Egypt and never realized the value of his belief in the return of the people and the restoration of the fortunes of the people. They might say he made a useless gesture to inspire people who had stopped believing in their future. They might even say he was an astute investor who took advantage of a panic to pick up a piece of valuable property.
But more than all of these I think they will say he did what was right when he didn’t have to. He did what was expected of him in the worst of times. Even when it was not convenient or profitable or even sensible. In the same way, our legacy may be what we did in hard times. Did we find an excuse to protect ourselves or suspend the rules or did we trust God and fulfill our commitment? Those are the people we remember, don’t we? What Atticus Finch said to Scout in “To Kill A Mockingbird” is true: “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
Those are the people who inspire us and challenge us to do what is right – even against all odds.