Year 3, Day 62: Jeremiah 9

The Weeping Prophet

It is passages like the opening of Jeremiah 9 that give Jeremiah the nickname of the “Weeping Prophet.”  But there is a balance here that I think is important to bring out as we pour over these verses of Jeremiah’s lament.  We can learn leadership from this prophet’s witness.

Jeremiah laments.  He weeps.  He wishes his eyes could be continual fountains of weeping.  Jeremiah is torn apart because of the love He genuinely has for the people of God.

However, the balance to be found is that Jeremiah is repulsed by their idolatry.  He knows their behavior is akin to an adulterer.  He knows the people are treacherous.  Their tongues are wicked.  They go from one evil to the next without any kind of reprieve or repentance.  Neighbors fear one another.  People actively deceive each other.  They intentionally oppress one another for their own personal gain.

Jeremiah wishes for a reality that cannot be.  He weeps because he knows the truth.  The ideal that he desires will not happen.  If a country is so willing to devour one another to get what they want, then they will eventually be devoured themselves.  Jeremiah has good reason to weep.  But he doesn’t just weep.  He weeps with reason.

Judgment

God sees this, too.  God promises judgment.  I was amused by the focus of God’s pity, though.  God pities the mountains and the wilderness, not the people who live in them.  God’s pity is for creation.  Humanity – God’s chosen people – has done this to themselves.  Creation is an innocent victim caught up in the games that people play with one another.

So God will teach those who play games with sin.  He will judge them.  He will bring peace back to the land – even if that peace had to be bought by captivity.

A Moment of Prose Among Poetry

Jeremiah 12-16 leaves the poetry of God’s voice behind as Jeremiah and God engage in dialogue.  Jeremiah wonders who can comprehend what is happening.  I actually take great consolation at this point.  Jeremiah is essentially confessing that while he “gets it” he also doesn’t comprehend it.  He knows what God is doing and why it is happening, but he doesn’t know the answer to it.  Jeremiah sees and desires another reality where the people of God walk hand in hand with God.  He just doesn’t know how to get there from here.

I am consoled by this confession because I likewise often wonder if I know how to get from the present reality to God’s ideal.  I know that God can bring it about.  I have full confidence that God can do what He desires and in a manner of His desiring.  I even have the intelligence to know that perhaps the biggest thing I can do is make sure I get out of the way!  But that still doesn’t mean I know how it is going to happen.  I must merely humble myself – like Jeremiah – and know that I can believe in God’s ideal and trust Him to move me and those around me into that reality.  It is God whose hand is important in movement, not mine.

Before I leave this section of prose, I want to also make a comment on verse 16.  God tells Jeremiah that He will send the sword after them until He has “consumed” them.  I prefer a more literal translation of this word.  Literally, this word means finished, accomplished, or brought to an end.  God says that He will chastise the Hebrew people with the sword until He has finished with them.  There is a rich and dark meaning there that I don’t want to put into words.  But I do want us all to be able to contemplate – and swallow hard after contemplating – the meaning of those words.

A Return to Uncircumcision

As we bring this chapter of Jeremiah to a conclusion we see more and more calls to mourning.  But at the end of this chapter we have another one of these passages that flash brilliantly forward with the wisdom of the New Testament.  I’ve spoken recently about my love of one of my favorite trilogy of verses {Hosea 6:6, Psalm 51:15-17, Joel 2:13}.  But here at the end of Jeremiah we have another passage in like mind.  The time is coming when those who are uncircumcised or circumcised only in the outward appearance will stand in judgment.

God makes it clear as we end this chapter.  God wants a circumcision of the heart.  God wants people who truly desire to obey Him.  God wants people who strive to make His ways their ways.  Yes, such people will fail.  That is why God has made the means of repentance and forgiveness.  But our failure does not mitigate our effort.  God wants people who recognize His grace in this life and who respond to that grace by desiring to be His people.

God doesn’t want platitudes.  He doesn’t want large gatherings of people who can be whipped up into a frenzy that makes no change in who they are in the long run.  God doesn’t want scores of people who can recite mantras and put on a show of righteousness.

God wants genuine contrition of the heart.  He wants us to struggle and wrestle with who we are.  He wants us to know ourselves and know Him.  He wants us to live in that dichotomy.  He wants us to learn to chose Him as we live in that dichotomy.

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