Traveling through the Bible now brings us to a book that is as challenging as it is insightful both to ancient audiences as well as today, the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived and preached during rough political times in Judah (southern Israel). There were alliances being formed with pagan nations which was against God’s commandments for His people. This was done to ward off threats from other pagan nations that threatened to invade Israel because rather than trust in God as the king and the people were supposed to, they began to trust in military alliances, kings, their own power. God had saved Israel from slavery in Egypt and had crafted a covenant, an agreement, with them where He would be their God and they would be His people. In essence, God and Israel had entered into a marriage. Yet, whereas God was the committed husband, Israel was the unfaithful wife and the biblical text uses language to convey as such. 

Jeremiah was chosen by God to attempt to change all of that. He prophesied to the people, urging them not to trust in military power, divine human kingship, or even their own religion, for all of these had become corrupt but to trust in God, the incorruptible. The military was not all-powerful, the kings of Judah had forsaken the Lord, and even the priesthood of the Temple was not reflecting God, yet He was still in control and could be trusted. What has always saddened me about Jeremiah’s story is that he spent nearly his whole life preaching to a people who would not listen to him! The only reason I can find for why he continued to do so is because he wanted to be faithful to God, who’s eyes were the only eyes that mattered. Despite Jeremiah’s best efforts, Judah was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC, the people were killed or enslaved, and the Temple was leveled to the ground. All hope seemed lost, and yet Jeremiah gave the people hope. He said that in the future there would be a “new covenant”, not like the one that came before it, but one that looked more like the agreement God had with Abraham, through faith. God would take His law and write it not on stone tablets, but on the human heart, meaning that through the Holy Spirit applying Christ’s sacrifice and grace to our hearts, our entire human nature would be changed so that we would want to obey God and delight in doing His will. One further point about Jeremiah ought to be stressed: He wrote to the exiles in Babylon he gave them advice that may have seemed strange at first. On the one hand, some Jews wanted to rebel against their invaders in which case they could face death. On the other hand, they could just forsake their culture, religion, and God and just blend in and become Babylonians. Jeremiah suggests a third option: go into exile and wherever you are, be faithful to God so that you will show others what it means to be in a relationship with Him, to be a special people and work for the good of wherever city you end up. 

This is our situation as Christians today. Yes, the temptation is always there to trust in other worldly powers for salvation, yet we must remain faithful to trust in the One who has always been faithful to us. Whereas Jeremiah could only look forward to this new covenant, we as Christians can joyfully look back in history to the moment when that covenant was created, signed, sealed, and applied to us: the cross and resurrection of Jesus. At the Last Supper, it was this covenant which guaranteed our “forgiveness of sins” which freed us to be in a relationship with God. Part of that relationship is to take the final point of Jeremiah to heart. We Christians are to be “in the world, but not of the world”. We cannot forsake and abandon our faith, but we also should not “bunker down” and not be in the world. We can shine Jesus’ light anywhere we go, our workplaces, families, friends, social gatherings, everywhere! We must remember Christ and maintain our integrity, but not be afraid to “put ourselves out there”. We should be befriending those who are not Christians for how else can they experience the gospel unless they see it in our lives? We are God’s people in Jesus Christ and this broken world is our “Babylon” for we have dual-citizenship, one here and one in God’s kingdom and we are to live out the later while we live in the former. For this is how we will be salt and light, purifying and illuminating the world so as to show them Jesus Christ, our true priest and King.

Your Brother,

Craig