Year 2, Week 11, Day 4 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 11, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Jeremiah 8.

Today’s reading continues the first segment of the Book of Jeremiah. As Jeremiah’s ministry to Judah unfolds, Jeremiah 8 denounces the leaders of Judah who assured peace when they should have called for repentance: “The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?…because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:9-11). The leaders had turned from the wisdom of the Law in exchange for human gain; and they felt no shame in doing so: “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush” (Jeremiah 8:12). Jeremiah is left to sadly wonder if the LORD would ever restore Judah: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?” (Jeremiah 8:22).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the lament that Jeremiah expresses over the very prophecies of judgment that he proclaims to Judah: “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me. Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land: “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with their foreign idols?” (Jeremiah 8:18-19). Jeremiah faithfully proclaims that Judah has provoked the LORD to anger, but he grieves and does gloat over the troubles that Judah will soon face: “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me” (Jeremiah 8:21). Jeremiah feels unbearable pain and great sadness as he considers Judah.

Today’s reading is not the first occasion from the Book of Jeremiah that we see something of the internal struggle that Jeremiah experienced: “Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ whereas the sword has reached their very life” (Jeremiah 4:10). Publicly, Jeremiah declares what the LORD instructs him to say; but privately, Jeremiah expresses his struggle as he attempts to personally reconcile the peace that the LORD did promise His people with the impending violence that Judah would face. Perhaps Jeremiah’s struggle is also triggered by the LORD’s allowance of the false prophets giving false assurance, when what they really needed was clear calls to escape calamity through repentance. Jeremiah understands yet he struggles to understand. He faithfully proclaims the LORD’s warning, but he acutely feels the devastation that is on the way: “My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent, for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war” (Jeremiah 4:19). And yet this heart-heaviness that Jeremiah feels for what awaits Judah, was a grief that he also known was just: “Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you. This is your doom, and it is bitter; it has reached your very heart” (Jeremiah 4:18). Jeremiah is not accusing the LORD of unfairness, but he does lament what was coming.

As the Book of Jeremiah continues, the private struggle and lament of Jeremiah will continue to be expressed: “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jeremiah 9:1). Jeremiah wishes to escape all that he was observing and confronting: “Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them!” (Jeremiah 9:2). But Jeremiah would not flee, he would remain in place, even to the very day of Jerusalem’s destruction: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!…She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her…For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed” (Jeremiah 1:1a,2,16)

The grief and sorrow that Jeremiah experienced will be experienced as well in the life of Jesus who was predicted to be, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isiah 53:3b). While Jesus gladly said and did all that His Father had for Him, He deeply wept over the judgment that Jerusalem would face: “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). Even as Jesus willingly went to the Cross, He felt the heaviness from the things He would experience in His crucifixion: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe