Advent 1
Jer
23:5-8
12/3/2017
We lament that things are really
bad. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We see a world where Christianity no longer
dominates the culture as it once did. We
know that in a half century the sexual ethos of our culture has been turned
completely upside down to the detriment of marriage and family. Our nation and culture are now divided in
obvious fractures, and it is hard to imagine how they will ever be
repaired. The political situation seems
to be one of perpetual grid lock with constant war in social media. Islam threatens Europe
and spawns conflict within itself and against the West.
Yet in doing so we forget that many
people at many times in history have thought the exact same thing. I certainly don’t want to minimize the
significance of the things I have just listed.
They do matter and they are problems.
But we tend to focus on the problems and think that somehow our time is
unique because of them.
The people living in Judah at the
beginning of the sixth century B.C. probably wouldn’t have had that much
sympathy for us – certainly not the ones who wished to be faithful to Yahweh. By any definition, things were really bad
during the time in which the prophet Jeremiah lived.
When it came to living as God’
people, the nation was just going through the motions. In the eighth century B.C. Yahweh had
dramatically delivered Jerusalem from the besieging Assyrian army – the same
army that conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and had taken the people
into exile. However because of this, the
people of Judah
were now treating the temple as if was some kind of magic charm – a guarantee
of safety no matter what they did.
Yahweh said through Jeremiah, “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to
Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand
before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are
delivered!'--only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which
is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself
have seen it, declares the LORD.”
The prophets and priests
were misleading the people. Yahweh declared: “The priests did not say, 'Where
is the LORD?' Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds
transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things
that do not profit.”
The prophets were telling
the people that everything was fine when it was not. Jeremiah wrote, "Ah, Lord GOD, behold,
the prophets say to them, 'You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have
famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.'" And the LORD
said to me: ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them,
nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying
vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.’”
But you didn’t need to be
religiously sensitive to recognize these were bad times. The Babylonians had arisen as the new
superpower of the Near Eastern world. Judah was caught between the Babylonians and Egypt as they
vied against each other for control. Judah became a vassal of the Babylonians when
they defeated the Egyptians, and in 605 B.C. the Babylonians took a small exile
of elite Judahites – including Daniel – to Babylon.
The Babylonians and
Egyptians then fought to a draw, and Judah seized the opportunity to
rebel. But in 597 B.C. the Babylonians
captured Jerusalem and took King Jehoiachin
along with other important Judahites – including the prophet Ezekiel – into
exile in Babylon. Now the scoundrel Zedekiah was king. He was
looking to Egypt for help as he plotted another revolt against the Babylonians.
Jeremiah announced that
Yahweh’s judgment was coming against the nation’s sin. The temple was no
protection when the people weren’t living in faith. He was going to use the Babylonians to
destroy the temple and take the rest of the people into exile.
Just prior to our text,
Yahweh had spoken condemnation against the leaders who had misled the
people. Jeremiah wrote, “‘Woe to the
shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the LORD. Therefore
thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my
people: ‘You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have
not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds,’
declares the LORD.”
But then he went on to
offer comfort and hope. Yahweh promised
that he would gather the remnant of the people from the lands where they had
been scattered. He would give them
shepherds – leaders – who would care for them.
And next in our text we hear: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the
LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as
king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be
saved, and Israel
will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD
is our righteousness.'”
Yahweh promised to raise
up a king from David’s line who would bring safety to his people and righteous
rule – just actions that were true to God’s will. He would bring about a restoration of the
people that would be an action so dramatic that it would eclipse the exodus
from slavery in Egypt. We hear: “Therefore, behold, the days are
coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives
who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but 'As the LORD
lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and
out of all the countries where he had driven them.’”
During Advent we are preparing to celebrate how God began
to fulfill this promise. As a start, he used King Cyrus and the Persians to
allow the exiles to return home. But
this was just the beginning and pointed to something bigger. In the first century A.D. he raised up a
righteous Branch for David. Jesus
Christ, the incarnate Son of God, descended from David and was born in his city
of Bethlehem.
He is “the Lord our righteousness.” God acted in him to put all things right as
he died for us on the cross and rose from the dead. Though without sin, he received God’s wrath
in our place. In a great exchange, Jesus
Christ received the judgment for our sin, and we received his
righteousness. Through baptism and faith
in Christ, you are now righteous in God’s eyes – you have been justified and
have the status of saints.
This is wonderful news.
But we need to be careful, because there is always the temptation to
fall into the trap that ensnared Judah. Jesus Christ can become a kind of magic charm
that we think keeps us safe no matter what we do. We can use the forgiveness we have in Christ
as an excuse to sin – after all, we have forgiveness in Jesus! Yet this is not how faith lives. Instead, faith struggles against temptation
and seeks to live according to God’s will.
And when we fail to do this, we confess this sin in genuine repentance.
As we look at Scripture, we find that the fulfillment of
God’s promises often takes place in stages.
He acts in ways that bring deliverance.
Yet this action is not yet the whole salvation he has promised. It is something that begins and points forward
to its completion. That is how it was
with the return to the land after exile.
The people of Judah
were allowed to return. But it was not yet the complete return and restoration God
had described.
It is the same with Jesus Christ, the righteous Branch
from the line of David in our text. The
word “Advent” means “coming” or “arrival.”
During Advent we prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ as he
was born in Bethlehem. But this arrival was not the final one. Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the
dead. He won forgiveness and salvation for us. But then he ascended into
heaven. And we do not yet dwell
securely. We still live in a fallen
world and experience its hardships of suffering and death. We still struggle with the old Adam within
us.
The preparation to celebrate Jesus’ coming at Christmas
reminds us that this was only his first coming. And so Advent also points us forward to Jesus
Christ’s second coming. It points
us to the Last Day when he will return in glory and bring every single promise
to complete and total fulfillment.
Today’s text teaches us to think in this way. We hear: “Therefore,
behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say,
‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of
Egypt,’
but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of
Israel
out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven
them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”
For Judah and God’s Old
Testament people, Yahweh’s great saving action was the exodus from Egypt. But Jeremiah says what God is going to do
will eclipse this in a way so that when they refer to God they will instead
focus on this final restoration. The same can be said for us.
Right now, we focus on the
forgiveness that we have because of God’s saving action in the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is
correct – after all this has given us righteous standing before God and the
assurance of eternal life with him! Yet
this will pale in comparison with the consummation of his saving work that the
Lord Jesus will bring on the Last Day.
In our resurrection and in the renewal of creation he will make
everything “very good” once again. Sin,
temptation, suffering and death will be something that is not even remembered
anymore – much less still present in our lives. This is the hope that we have
because of our Lord’s death and resurrection as we look towards his second
coming.
