Holston Daily Devotional November 23, 2020

Focus Scripture

Devotion

I’m a preacher, a lover of words, a fan of a poetic turn of phrase. I love to linger in well-crafted prose and take in the vapors of lands and ideas in which I do not dwell.

I’m also a child of the sound byte generation. Make the point with a headline, and I’ll read the article. Fail to get to where you’re going in a few minutes, and you’re tl;dr (too long; didn’t read).

So some of these stories we encounter in the Bible can get a bit unwieldy for me. I have to make myself sit in the midst of my own impatience as this world from which I’m two and three millennia separated grinds its sandy texture against my skin and wears callouses with unfamiliar sandal straps. Can we just get to the point already? Where’s the moral? Where’s the punchline?

Example:

In the CEB, Jeremiah 30 gets a headline.

THE SCROLL OF COMFORT: Healing and Restoration for My People

Oh, good. I know exactly where this is going. I can write good words about healing and hope in the midst of a Pandemic and lunging into the exciting dynamics of family Thanksgivings that follow turbulent elections. Yes! I know what to do!

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word: The Lord, the God of Israel, proclaims: Write down in a scroll all the words I have spoken to you. The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will bring back my people Israel and Judah from captivity, says the Lord. I will bring them home to the land that I gave to their ancestors, and they will possess it. Here are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:

The Lord proclaims:
I hear screams of panic and terror;
no one is safe.

Yup. And here is where we draw out the image. We’re going to talk about how bad it is for Jerusalem/Judah/Israel and how God is going to wreak great vengeance on the nations and rescue the Holy City.

Ask and see:
Can men bear children?
Then why do I see every man
bent over in pain, as if he’s in labor?
Why have all turned pale?

Wait, what? The specifically gendered imagery in the prophets usually focuses on Jerusalem’s faithlessness as YHWHs bride, getting to know the nations around in ways that shame her. This is… ugh, this is really uncomfortable. Can we change the channel? Where are we going with this?

That day is awful, beyond words.
A time of unspeakable pain
for my people Jacob.

Well, yeah, I’d say so. Men don’t typically have a great capacity for pain. Awful, beyond words, unspeakable… maybe this is a good little verse to hand out to spouses seeing their partners through childbirth. Unspeakable is probably a good descriptor and a good guide. Shut up and just be with her. You’ve got nothing helpful to say right now.

But maybe that’s off the point.

But they will be delivered from it.

Great word choice from the CEB translators. Thanks for that. But good, we’re on our way away from that imagery and into the hope bit.

At that time, I will break the yoke off their necks and remove their shackles. Foreigners will no longer enslave them, declares the Lord of heavenly forces. They will serve the Lord their God and the king whom I will raise up for them from David’s family.

See, I told you. Moving into hope. Watch where he goes now:

So don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob,
declares the Lord,
Don’t lose hope, Israel.
I will deliver you from faraway places
and your children from the land of their exile.
My people Jacob will again be safe and sound,
with no one harassing them.
I am with you and will rescue you,
declares the Lord.
I will put an end to all the nations
where I have scattered you.
But I won’t put an end to you.
I won’t let you remain unpunished:
I will discipline you as you deserve.

Hang on; I thought we were moving into the hope part. We’re shifting the genres all around. We’re mixing our metaphors. Shove it into reverse like that, and you’re going to drop the whole engine out of the car!

This is what the Lord says:
Your injury is incurable;
your illness is grave.

Hmm. This resonates with our pandemic-ridden society right now; that’s for sure. We’re no closer to a cure for COVID-19 than we are to a way to coerce my kids to clean their rooms.

No one comes to your aid;
no one attends to your wound;
your disease is incurable.

Okay, “incurable” again. No one will help Israel. He’s abandoned to his devices and to the natural consequence of his actions. What else?

All your lovers disregard you;
they write you off as a lost cause,
because I have dealt harshly with you
as an enemy would,
because your guilt is great
and your sins are many.
Why cry out for relief from your pain?
Your wound is incurable.
I have done these things to you,
because your guilt is great
and your sins are many.

Incurable. Again. Why cry out for relief? This is a little weird. It’s not like God to leave Israel without any sense of hope. And those sins are usually mentioned in the midst of their occurrence, and those are specifically with the lovers he refers to, those other nations with whom Israel and Judah have made alliances and from whom they’ve learned idolatrous practices. Now Israel is abandoned by them, and still God isn’t relenting? This seems off.

Yet all who ravage you will be ravaged;
all who oppress you will go into exile.
Those who rob you will be robbed,
and all who plunder you will be plundered.
I will restore your health,
and I will heal your wounds,
declares the Lord,
because you were labeled an outcast,
“Zion, the lost cause.”

Oh! Those pronouns are important. “Incurable” is how we describe Israel’s wounds and disease and injury from the perspective of Israel and Judah and all the nations; from anyone’s perspective, really.

But God isn’t just anyone.

God leaves Judah to the consequence of unfaithfulness, but when the consequence runs its course, God is there to heal, to restore, to rescue, to welcome back.

Zion is not a lost cause. Even when things are the most dire, the most bleak, there is a way through.

But sometimes, the process of going through gets really ugly.

Hold on. God will heal and restore and welcome as only God can. Just hold on. Stay faithful to the Healer.

It took a while to get there, but that’s fair. It takes a while to get through grief and pain and injury, and sometimes the way there is so twisted and impossible to navigate it seems we’ll never get there. But keep moving. Keep taking the steps God’s Spirit is offering. You’ll get there. We’ll get there.

God is faithful.