Jeremiah 33:

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Dana Montgomery
5 years ago
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1 Jeremiah 33: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: The Lord is our righteousness. 1

2 The Days Are Surely Coming I moved my office last month. Again. It s my sixth year in the church and my fifth office space. I didn t move far. I m still in the same room on the fourth floor. I simply moved from one cubicle to another. But it s a better location. I now have a corner cubicle, which offers a bit more privacy. The better location is a perk of seniority. I ve now been serving this church longer than most of the other pastors. At the end of this month, after three more pastors finish their terms, I will have been serving this church longer than any other associate pastor. My gosh, that is hard to believe! Aside from more privacy, the other benefit to my new space is that I once again have a window. From my desk I can look out on to the park across the street. Right now the view is not that impressive. It s December. Aside from a few leaves that stubbornly cling to their trees, most of the leaves have fallen. Although winter won t officially begin for another three weeks, the naked branches serve as a reminder that winter is surely coming. If we ve turned the calendar to December, that can mean only one thing: Christmas will soon be upon us. But in many homes and retail stores throughout America, the rush to begin celebrating Christmas began immediately after the last Thanksgiving pie was eaten. The dirty dishes were still in the sink when many Americans rushed to the stores to begin the Christmas shopping frenzy (excuse me, season ). I have friends who put up Christmas trees in their homes the day after Thanksgiving. But why wait until Thanksgiving? Retail stores have had their shelves stocked with Christmas merchandise since the day after Halloween! Americans, with their voracious consumer culture, have turned the twelve days of Christmas (which, by the way, begin, not end, on Christmas Day) into a month-long orgy of Christmas lights on homes, Christmas songs on the radio, and Christmas sales that begin before children have finished eating their Halloween candy. 2

3 That s why I like the fact that Christmas in South Korea is more low-key. Christmas hasn t fully caught on here. Sure, in the more touristy areas you ll see Christmas lights, and the department stores will have Christmas displays, but there s not the same frenetic energy around Christmas here that we have in America. The concept of the Christmas season doesn t exist in South Korea, so there s no rush to begin it. Christmas is coming, but there s no need to rush it. Christmas will arrive in its own good time. So let s not think about Christmas just yet. Besides, we haven t even finished celebrating the new year! Wait! What? Uh...Pastor John, you ve got it backwards. New Year s Day comes after Christmas. How could we celebrate New Year s when it s not yet even Christmas? With all due respect, no, I don t have it backwards. In fact, according to my calendar, today is New Year s Day. Don t worry. I haven t lost my mind (not all of it). You see, in the church we keep time differently. According to the secular calendar, today is December 2, but according to the church calendar, today is the first day of the season of Advent, and Advent marks the start of the church year. In the church, time is not marked by the name of a month but by the life of Jesus Christ. Our understanding of time begins with the anticipation of his arrival. Strictly speaking, Advent refers to the four Sundays before Christmas Day [SLIDE], but the word itself comes from the Latin word adventus, which means arrival. In the church, time doesn t simply march on from winter to spring to summer to fall. The years don t accumulate one after another without rhyme or reason. In the church, time has a purpose. Time is oriented toward a goal, and that goal is the arrival of Jesus Christ. 3

4 This will not be the first time that Jesus has arrived among us. Advent moves us in two directions at once. Advent teaches us to look back and remember Jesus first arrival, as a child born to peasants living in an insignificant village in a remote part of a foreign empire. But it also teaches us to look ahead and anticipate Jesus second arrival, when he will return to fulfill God s plan of salvation for the world, when he will establish his kingdom of justice and righteousness for all eternity. The days are surely coming. That phrase [SLIDE], the days are surely coming, is a refrain that s found throughout the book of Jeremiah. It s not found anywhere else in the Old Testament, and yet it occurs eleven times in Jeremiah. More on that in a moment. Jeremiah is a book full of prophecies of judgment against the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of the once united monarchy. After Solomon s death [SLIDE], the monarchy split into two separate kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Two hundred years later (722 BC) the northern kingdom was destroyed, swallowed by the Assyrian Empire. One hundred years after that comes the prophet Jeremiah. He is from Judah, from a town just outside of Jerusalem. Jeremiah can be a challenging book to read and understand. For one, it s long. After Isaiah, Jeremiah is the second-longest prophetic book, at fifty-two chapters. Fitting for such a long book, it covers a lengthy period of time, about forty years, from 627 BC to at least 587 BC. Yet the story is not told chronologically. For instance, in chapter 29, Jeremiah writes to the exiles. Jerusalem has been conquered and the people led into exile. Yet the story of the fall of Jerusalem isn t told until much later, in chapter 39. And then it s repeated again in the final chapter. The fall of Jerusalem is retold all over again. This patched-together nature of the book suggests that it wasn t written at one time but over a number of years and perhaps assembled later by an editor. 4

5 The tone of Jeremiah is often bleak. Much of the book is filled with prophecies of judgment. The prophet lived during a tumultuous time in Judah s history. Babylon was growing in strength, posing a threat to Judah s independence, and even its existence. Judah s last righteous king, Josiah, was killed in battle in 609 BC. After Josiah, Judah s leaders were weak. The fact that they chose not to listen to God s word spoken through Jeremiah only hastened their own and the nation s demise. And yet, amid the bleakness, amid all the prophecies of judgment against Judah, there stand out moments of surprising grace. These prophecies of hope promise restoration and renewal to the people. They suggest that God s word of judgment, while severe, is not the final word. After God speaks judgment against Judah, God later speaks a word of grace. These prophecies of hope are often introduced by the phrase, The days are surely coming. I mentioned that the phrase occurs eleven times throughout the book. Yet only two of those eleven times is it used to proclaim judgment against Judah. The other nine times the prophet employs the phrase to pronounce God s grace upon his faithless people. The phrase occurs five times in the span of just four chapters, from chapters 30 to 33 [SLIDE]. Martin Luther referred to this section of Jeremiah as the Book of Comfort. Amid an often relentless tone of impending judgment, the Book of Comfort promises a brighter future for the nation: For the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord (Jer. 30:3). The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals (Jer. 31:27). 5

6 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer. 31:31). The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate (Jer. 31:38). The last occurrence of this phrase in Jeremiah comes from today s passage: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer. 33:14). That begs the question, what was the promise that God made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah? We have to go back to 2 Samuel 7 to find it. That s where David is at last settled on the throne, having defeated his enemies. He has also brought together the northern and southern tribes to create one united kingdom. With David settled in his own house, he determines to build a house for the Lord. The ark of the covenant, the chest containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, sits in a tabernacle, basically a portable tent. David wants to build a permanent dwelling, a house for the Lord. David wants to honor the Lord by building him a house. But God has other ideas. Speaking through the prophet Nathan, God declares that he will make a house of David. Now, God is not planning to turn David to stone. God is making a pun, a play on the word house (suggesting that God does indeed have a sense of humor). In Hebrew, the word for house can refer both to a building and the people who live in the building. Therefore David s house is not just his street address but his household, in particular, his descendants all the future generations that will follow 6

7 in his name. Speaking through the prophet Nathan, God promises David: Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever (2 Sam. 7:16). That s quite a promise. It sounds great. David s house and kingdom will be established forever. The problem is, that s not what happens. After all, we re reading from Jeremiah, which tells of the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel fell in 722 BC, while the southern kingdom of Judah was spared. But Judah s day of reckoning was only delayed. Judah s end came in 587 BC when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, first robbing it of all its gold and other valuables. The book of Jeremiah ends with Zedekiah, Judah s last king, being taken captive. His sons are executed before his eyes, and then his eyes are gouged out. He is then led in chains to Babylon. Thus ends the nation of Judah, and thus ends the line of David. An heir of David would never again sit on the throne of an independent Jewish nation. The family tree of David was cut off. Its branches were not only bare but barren utterly without life. Yet it is then, in the midst of exile, a time of death and despair, that the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah. It compels him to say something supremely outrageous, given the circumstances [SLIDE]. The days are surely coming, says the Lord through his prophet. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David (Jer. 33:15). In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety (Jer. 33:16). What an absurd promise to make! Think of the situation. The nation has been conquered and the temple destroyed. The people live as exiles in a foreign land, a land to which they have been led as captives [SLIDE]. Judah has been cut down. She is nothing more than a lifeless stump. 7

8 Yet God promises that from this lifeless family tree will spring up a righteous Branch [SLIDE]. The line of kings from David s family tree may be dead, but God is in the resurrection business. Resurrection is God s way of bringing life from death and hope from despair. Through this righteous Branch God will resurrect the hope of Judah, and not only Judah but the hope of all the world. Your hope. My hope. Our hope. For we were all all of us wanderers in exile. We were all exiled, not in a foreign land; we were exiled in sin and death. We had no home. We were captives to these alien forces of sin and death. We were strangers to one another and estranged from God. Our condition was just as hopeless as that of the exiles in Babylon. But in Jesus Christ, God has raised a righteous Branch. Through his life, death, and resurrection we, strangers and exiles, have been grafted on to God s family tree. His death has brought us life. Not only life in the hereafter in heaven but life right here and now. The days are surely coming. Indeed, today we witness a concrete sign of the days to come. Today we gather around the Lord s Table. This is a table unlike any other. This is not a family dinner table for members only. This is not a banquet table with special guests seated in places of honor. At the Lord s Table there are no insiders and outsiders. All are invited to this table. There are no barriers, no boundaries. There is no rank or hierarchy as the world understands them. Honor is reserved for those willing to serve. The highest are those who have most humbled themselves. The days are surely coming, and at this table, as we approach with open hands to partake of the bread and the wine, we receive a foretaste of those days to come. We are fed with the grace of Jesus Christ. We sink our teeth into his hope, a hope that 8

9 sustains us through even the most desperate times. We take his risen life into our bodies. We are nourished in faith, in love, and in hope, not only for ourselves but for one another. Having been fed with his hope we can then embody that hope to the world. We can keep it in our hearts, declare it with our mouths, offer it with our hands, and transport it with our feet. The hope of Jesus Christ is a defiant hope. It is hope amid exile. In the midst of death, it is the hope of resurrection. It is a hope in which we can be certain because it is grounded in the God who has kept his promise, to Israel and to all the world. It is hope that has a name, the Lord is our righteousness, and a face, that of God s own Son. It is hope for yesterday, for today, and for the days to come for the days are surely coming. 9

International Sunday School Lesson Study Notes. Lesson Text: Jeremiah 30:1-3, Lesson Title: A Vision of the Future.

International Sunday School Lesson Study Notes Lesson Text: Jeremiah 30:1-3, 18-22 Lesson Title: A Vision of the Future Introduction Jeremiah was called by God as a prophet when he was quiet young, possibly