Mar 24, 2020
By Rev. Charles R. Meathrell
Recently, the associate pastor at our church in South Carolina had an emergency and was unable to preach as had been planned. Because I hadn’t prepared a sermon, we found ourselves preparing to enjoy a sermon which would be as much a surprise to me as to them. It’s not all that long ago that a situation like that might have set my teeth on edge—but I’ve certainly learned to trust that the King will be honored whatever. I’ve learned that—happily—I’m not all that important in the process.
I found myself turning to Jeremiah as I often do in my quiet time. Jeremiah is a fantastic antihero for us. We like the Samsons and other mighty men, but often it is the rejected (like, ahem, Jesus) that bring the most important and powerful message. In Jeremiah, we have an unpopular man saying unpopular things. You have guys like Shemaiah taking the chaos of exile as an opportunity to take power in the temple; he proclaimed that the exile would be brief and that they’d return home quickly. Jeremiah was telling them to build houses, get married, and have their children get married. You can imagine, if you put yourself in the position of the frightened and depressed Israelites, that Shemaiah’s message was what they so badly wanted to be true. We all have that in our experience. You would much rather have the words in your ear that comfort your flesh and ease your anxieties. Life is hard, man, and it is too often our own doing.
My favorite part in Jeremiah is chapter 29. People throw around the 11th verse with far too much frivolity—which in some ways can apply to us, too. After all this time of doom and gloom and destruction and punishment, there was, at last, a “but.” (I love this part.) He told them that, even though it was to be a long way off, he would absolutely bring them back. It was never about eternal separation or unforgiveness. It was always about bringing them back. (Zing!)
Then, in the 31st chapter, God says:
Thus says the Lord:
“The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
3 the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
O virgin Israel!
Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines
and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.
5 Again you shall plant vineyards
on the mountains of Samaria;
the planters shall plant
and shall enjoy the fruit.
6 For there shall be a day when watchmen will call
in the hill country of Ephraim:
‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord our God.’ ”1
I so love that after all the horrible ways that Israel/Judah/ the others shamed and rejected God, He was still saying that “I have loved you with an everlasting love” and “I have continued My faithfulness to you.”2 There’s a theme here that gets to me. It’s very much the way I love my own children; so many times, I have said to one or all of them, “I love you too much to allow you to get by with this.” Remember that line: “those whom he loves, he disciplines.”3
All the pain and adversity—going back and back. It came down to His mission to redeem and restore the ones He loves. He has gone to great lengths again and again. He allowed them to wander in the desert. He allowed them to be disciplined in Babylon and Persia.
Then, after ages and ages of the failure/redemption cycle, the surprise climax to the story: Jesus. The Savior who took our discipline. The King and Lord who took on lowly human flesh and died the death of a criminal, though He, Himself was innocent. He was and is the most innocent creature to have ever walked the earth. He died for me. He died for you.
Now what?
There’s a point here about perspective. If you truly know who you are—and you truly know who He is—there must be a response in order. I can speak for myself here. I am a broken man. I struggle every day. I get up and walk into a world full of my every earthly desire and my flesh cries out for that. I also know who He is. He is flawless in every respect. He died to pay a bill He didn’t owe. He saved me from myself.
Therefore I must have a perspective about the world around me that flows from this core idea. I know what I’ve done. I know that Jesus saved me. I must respond to the people around me as a redeemed person, not as a “better” person, just a redeemed one. The addict down the street or the prostitutes in the bad side of town—I’m not better than those people; I just know someone that they don’t. Now what? I’ll tell you. If you know Jesus, you know that it was to those people that He so often gravitated. He went there to love them even though all civilization around them had cast them off. He reached out to the woman at the well and even His own disciples were shocked. She needed that living water as badly as we do.
These people (not just societal outcasts, but everyone who does not know the Savior) have a kind of mortal sickness for which we have the true cure. Now what?—how dare we not share it? Scripture is clear for us: you cannot hate your fellow man and love Jesus at the same time. If you’re going to love them, you’re going to have to go to them. No more of this sitting in our comfortable pews and then going home for the rest of the week.
If you’re going to love Jesus you’re going to need to love His children—all of them: the murderers and the stock brokers and the cops and the Klansmen. You don’t have to love what they do—but you’re going to love them.
You know—when those moments come along and I need to think on my feet, so to speak, I’ve actually learned to trust the Spirit. His message on the day Pastor Martin was suddenly gone was truly not just for the few who were able to make it to church on that Sabbath. It was absolutely for me too. My calling as a pastor is, in small part, to preach to people who already love the King. Far more importantly, though, my calling as a Christian is go out and love each and every one of them with the love of Christ. May it be my honor to do so for the rest of my life.
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1 Jeremiah 31:2-6 ESV
1 Jeremiah 31:3 ESV
1 Hebrews 12:6 ESV
