Jeremiah looks at the city of God, devastated and destitute,
empty of people, and is completely heartbroken.
They have made alliances for protection and have been let down by those they
trusted. They were never meant to have
such alliances, the Lord was their protection, they already had a covenant with
a strong partner. How horrible would it
be to see a foreign nation defile and despoil the temple, enter the holy place
and the holy of holies, the place only the high priest went and then only once
a year in great fear and after much preparation and hallowing himself. The invaders walk straight in and nothing
happens to them, God has left His temple, it is no more than another building
in the city. We cannot imagine such
things. Even pictures of cities bombed
and devastated in World War II, cathedrals like Coventry and others destroyed
by enemy bombs, fail to convey what Jeremiah would have witnessed and
felt. The Lord has abandoned His people
not in fear but in wrath.
Jesus pronounces judgment on the fig tree as a symbol of
God's judgment on the nation. He knew it
wasn't the season for figs but the tree was green and leafy, looking good, but
appearances can be deceiving. The temple
may have been crowded but not for the right reason. There were so many sellers of sacrificial
animals there and moneychangers that there was no place for the Gentiles, the
"nations" for whom the temple was to be a house of prayer, to come
and hear those who would teach. It had
become a club, closed to outsiders when they were to be a kingdom of priests, a
holy nation, a model for the Gentiles. Sometimes
we can be very active in religious activities and forget that we are also to be
a kingdom of priests who make Him known to the world. Are we simply busy or are we proclaiming the
kingdom?
Mostly we pray that God would keep us from harm and pain, don’t
we? We pray that His blessing and protection
would keep us insulated from anything that would cause us pain of any
sort. Yet we celebrate the One who came
and suffered physically and emotionally as our King. Jesus didn't come to stand aloof from the
world and reveal that a righteous life is one in which you can enjoy safety. He actually proves and teaches the
opposite. We live in a world broken by
sin, where nothing makes sense, the math isn't reliable nor the logic
bullet-proof. We live in a world of pain
because of sin and Paul says we share abundantly in Christ's suffering that we
may share abundantly in His comfort and that so that we, like Him, can comfort
others who will, by virtue of being human, suffer also. In that work, we share the Gospel. Let us trust only in Him that we may always
find comfort when we need it.
No comments:
Post a Comment