December 2nd:
December 2, 2012
Potsdam and WS
Text: Jeremiah 33: 14-16
Read: W&S #2
To Do Justice
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.
[pause]
There is no better way to begin Advent
than with these words:
Even though the words were spoken some 600 years before the birth of Christ
When we sing about "long expected" Jesus
We mean "long" expected
And here let me make you a promise
In talking about Jeremiah's words,
I promise that I will not exceed one minute for each of those years
Just think of it: The days are surely coming
Not might come! Not may come!
But surely will come!
This language is Jeremiah's way of saying
"No matter how discouraged you are;
No matter how difficult your troubles are
No matter how often you have strayed from God
There is no question, you can and you still should rely on God
Jeremiah used that same certainty language a couple of chapters earlier
when he proclaimed that
"The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant ... and I will write it on their hearts."
And now he uses it again
This time what Jeremiah says will be surely coming
Are the days when God will fulfill God's promise.
By raising up a righteous branch for David
God's relationship with humankind
has been through a series of covenants or promises
The early one with Abraham
Where God promised him numerous descendents
Then the one with Moses
"I will be your God and you will be my people"
With the caveat: "if you obey my commandments"
And lastly the one with David
"Your descendents will sit on the throne forever"
But again with a caveat:
"I will, however, punish them for their transgressions"
In both the new covenant text and this morning's text
God, through Jeremiah,
Promises something new to fulfill one of the old promises
When Jeremiah tells us that the new covenant is surely coming
He uses language from the Mosaic covenant
"I will be their God and they will be my people."
In today's scripture Jeremiah announces the raising up of a new leader
This refers us to God's covenant with David.
"Your heirs will sit on the throne forever."
In both examples,
We are given the message that God keeps God's promises.
That message was important for the people of Judah to hear.
For the people had been behaving in ways that demonstrated that they
Had remembered and arrogantly relied on the promises
But having conveniently ignored or forgotten the caveats,
Thought that God had let them down
At the time Jeremiah spoke
things were not good in Judah,
In fact, it was a time when things were going badly for the people of Judah
And they had been going badly for quite some time.
In fact, they had been going badly
At least since Solomon's death about three centuries before
Following Solomon's reign
Both of the two kingdoms into which Israel had split had experienced a series of lousy kings
Arrogant, power hungry, selfish, and corrupt
Some gained power by assassinating their predecessors
Most strayed a long ways from what God wanted from them
They taxed, they fought, they conscripted
Almost none were concerned about the ordinary people
And if all that sounds familiar, it should
For it wasn't long ago that
we heard the people demanding a human king
we heard Samuel warn them about the dangers of such a king
warning of the very same dangers that they had now encountered.
And we heard the people ignore those warnings
Just as they ignored the caveats to the covenants
But it wasn't just the kings who ignored God
Many of the people also turned from God
They worshipped idols
They focused on money and power
The wealthy ignored the needs of the poor and outcast
Jeremiah challenged, chastised, and scolded
those lousy kings
and Jeremiah challenged, chastised, and scolded
the people of Judah
He challenged them for their lack of justice and righteousness
"Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness
And his upper rooms by injustice
Who makes his neighbors work for nothing
And does not give them their wages." [22:13]
But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart
They have turned aside and gone away
They do not say in their hearts
"Let us fear the Lord our God [5: 23-24a]
They know no limits in deeds of wickedness
They do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan to make it proper
And they do not defend the rights of the needy [5: 26b - 28]
One of the reasons that they needed to hear the message that God was steadfast in keeping promises
Was that even amongst the indictments that he presented against them.
God through Jeremiah was presenting them with hope
There was a second reason as well
And that was because God wanted to make it clear
That God expects justice not selfishness
Righteousness not cheating and taking advantage of
Sharing and caring not greed and indifference to the needy
And so God pointed out that
in fulfilling the promise to David
the one raised up would execute justice and righteousness
The third reason for this message was that they would need it during the exile punishment God was about to impose
For God knew that in exile the kings and the people would not look to their own culpability
God knew that instead,
their discouragement would lead them to question
Whether God had broken the promises
Or whether God was too weak to do anything to protect them
And God did keep the promise in our text.
Six hundred years later
God sent his son as the righteous branch for David
That son came to teach and show us
That executing justice and righteousness involves
Being faithful to God
Being fair to others
Being humble rather than haughty
Knowing that we can rely on God,
we today eagerly begin our preparations
to celebrate the birth
of the one who did surely come to fulfill God's promise.
But as we prepare we should do so in a way that makes sure that
We don't so focus on the celebration
That we forget what is being celebrated
And find ourselves ignoring the justice and righteousness
That he was raised up to execute.