Message Lesson: Jeremiah 33:14 – 16
“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. “‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’.”
The Message
Brighter Future
Jeremiah 33:14 – 16
Halford E. Luccock shares this story in his book Unfinished Business. “One night at dinner a man, who had spent many summers in Maine, fascinated his companions by telling of his experiences in a little town named Flagstaff. The town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all maintenance and repairs in the whole town just stopped.
The people figured what was the use of mowing a yard or fixing a fence if it were to be covered deep under water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out? So, week by week, day by day the whole town became more rundown and broken, they had lost their spirit to continue. Then he added these words, ‘Where there is no confidence in the future, there is no Hope in the present.’”
This week we will learn from a lesson in the Book of Jeremiah of how the prophet instilled a renewed sense of a Brighter Future for the beleaguered Jewish exiles in Babylonia, a Brighter Future that ultimately manifests itself in the Christmas story that Christians love so well but without a full appreciation for what this lesson can teach us.
In the Book of Jeremiah, the scene is set around 600 BC. The temple of the Lord has stood in Jerusalem for more than 300 years. The nation was known by its’ God’s name and the surrounding nations had heard tales of the wonders Israel’s God had worked for them in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in their own land. He had provided for them, protected them and defeated their enemies for them. Israel’s God was a great God, and His Earthly throne was in Jerusalem.
Yet, as we know, not all of them thoroughly followed God, they did not obey all his commands. They worshiped other gods, perverted justice in the land, and ignored His laws. Every so often, during those time, a king, a descendant of David, would turn the people back toward God, but then other kings would allow the people to slide right back into disobedience. Then finally the people have gone far enough. God had threatened to exile His people from their land if they continued to turn away from Him, and now Jerusalem’s time has come.
To reorient the nation, God used Babylon as His agent of judgment against Israel for their sins of idolatry and rebellion against Him. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, advanced on Jerusalem. The streets of Jerusalem would soon be filled with the corpses of her people. The Babylonians destroy the city, raze the holy temple, and carry hundreds of thousands of Jews away to a foreign land.
But even as the Lord plans Jerusalem’s destruction, He sends his people a prophet to warn, challenge, and comfort them. That prophet is a young man named Jeremiah, but even God’s prophet is not spared pain and tribulation, maybe that was to help him relate to the people. While Jeremiah he is not sent to Babylonia, he is imprisoned by King Zedekiah, the man sent by Nebuchadnezzar the control the remaining Jews in Jerusalem.
The worst had not yet come to Jerusalem, but it seems inevitable. Any reasonable person can see that the city is doomed. Jeremiah’s many prophecies of judgment–prophecies that have landed him in prison–are coming true. Up to this point in the book, chapter 33, Jeremiah’s prophecies have mostly been dark, dire, threatening and gloomy, but suddenly his prophetic outlook changes. In the midst of all this catastrophe, the prophet finally speaks words of promise! Jeremiah offers the people of Israel, a Brighter Future in a new reality.
In the face of devastation, with all evidence to the contrary, Jeremiah insists that God’s promises to uphold and restore Israel are certain and without question. Jeremiah speaks of the restoration not simply of daily life but also as a return of God’s favor, the restoration of the Messianic line. A righteous Branch will sprout from the line of David. For the Jews the news is one of a Brighter Future and an unexpected joy: new life is springing up from what had looked like a dead stump.
For the Jews, those disbursed to other countries as well as those left behind in Judah, these words of a Brighter Future gave them the strength, courage and resolve to turn back to God and to wait for the fulfillment on Jeremiah’s prophecy, a Messiah that will rescue them from the dire fate. A Messiah that we know will arrive in a stable in Bethlehem on the first Christmas morning.
Despite all the terrible things and the injustices that had befallen them, the people of Israel had New Hope.Their God is promising to deliver them from the pain and injustice that they were enduring by sending “a branch of David”, an offshoot of King David’s royal tree, that would come to execute justice and deliver righteousness for God’s people. For more than 500 years the Jews would wait impatiently for the arrival of this branch, but it was a renewed promise of a Brighter Future compelling them to turn back to God with obedience.
Now as Christians we know the story of the Christmas birth and have chosen to accept the coming of the Christ child and the sacrifice that He made on our behalf to pay the blood debt that we owed. Jesus has come, and we have been changed as a result. To rephrase our opening story, “where there is confidence in the future, there is great hope in the present”. For us here today, Hope has already come and is presently with us but there is more work to be done.
The United Methodist Book of Worship, states the following this about Advent: “The season proclaims the comings of the Christ, whose birth we prepare to celebrate once again, who comes continually through the Word and Spirit, and in whose return in final victory we anticipate.”
Did you hear that? The season proclaims the comings, plural comings, of the Christ; whose birth we prepare to celebrate, as well as His return in final victory. Friends we need to understand that Advent is not simply about the physical coming of the Christ child on that Christmas morning, but it is also about the physical return of Christ in the second coming.
In Luke, Jesus is proclaiming a prophetic message concerning a Brighter Future for the world and for Christians alike. He says there will be signs before the final “coming of the Son of man.” Though there will be distress, anxiety, hopelessness, and injustice all of which closely resemble the plights that faced the Jews in the time of Jeremiah. We should not get to far ahead of ourselves as we will go in depth into this next week.
So today as we’ve seen when the Jews were at a lowest point in their faith, God sent Jeremiah not only to refocus them through his criticism of how they were acting and how they needed to reform but to give them the hope and confidence of Brighter Futuredespite their past disobedience.
For us as present-day Christians, we are different than the pre-Christ Jews, we are the fortunate ones because we have the understanding of the original coming of Christ to deliver us from slavery to sin but we too must be prepared to face challenges in our future. Destruction, death, and betrayal are coming, but Jesus is giving us confidence and hope that when we see these things taking place, we will know that the kingdom of God is near and vindication for God’s chosen ones as imminent.
As we move into the Christmas season, let us not get too focused on over-preparing for secular Christmas that we forget God’s vision for the world — a vision where God is in control, a vision that is far broader and more expansive than our thinking can allow. What is at stake is not just another annual secular celebration or even making Christmas memories with friends and family. What is at stake is the coming of the kingdom of heaven and a Brighter Future for all Believers is both already here and yet is still to come.
Hear the Good News my Friends………..
A righteous Branch will spring up from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. “The Lord is our righteousness and our salvation.”
This word of a Brighter Future was spoken to counteract all of the life-sapping, despair-inducing evidence to the contrary. And that is power of Hope. Without hope and faith in the future, the present can look pretty grim. As we anticipate the celebration of the arrival of the king descended from David, we proudly take upon ourselves the name of Jesus, who is our righteousness, our justification.
Jeremiah wanted to assure people who were worried about an uncertain future, to tell them that these times can just as easily result in new life, in a Brighter Future. Since our faith is in our God, a new life and better life exists in the God of all creation. Through Jeremiah today we learn that “Advent Hope is a promise of new life when none is expected”
That is the challenge that is given today to us, as inheritors of Jeremiah’s task. We are called to speak a word of hope and promise into a world often filled with fear and uncertainty, even despair. Especially in this season of Advent, we are to speak words of hope in a Brighter Future as both Jeremiah and Jesus did.
Friends in times such as these, please understand that amid darkness, the overwhelming light from that Great Star over Bethlehem is about to break through. Understand that in despair, Hope can manifest itself. Where there is confidence in the future, there is great hope in the present.
After a long waiting, a branch will sprout. The complete fulfillment of God’s promises has not yet happened, but it is coming. So is Advent hope, as well as a Brighter Future for all of us as we wait obediently for the Master to come. Friends, he is coming soon! Amen.