The second in a series of studies from the Book of Jeremiah
By Keith Bassham
Jeremiah 33
12 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.
13 In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the Lord.
14 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
16 In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.
If you are a member of a church following the lectionary, last year on the first Sunday in December, Jeremiah 33:14-16 would have been the Old Testament text read, and likely it would have been the text for the sermon that Sunday morning. I doubt most readers of the Tribune are familiar with the lectionary, but much of Christendom uses it as a guide for Bible reading, preaching, teaching, and worship. Designed around the Christian year and a three-year cycle, it aids worshippers by providing a somewhat uniform approach to the Bible across denominational lines. It is systematic and non-denominational, but it is not evil, I assure you. In fact, I find it ironic that we who consider ourselves the most Bible-oriented churches probably have less scripture text read on any given Sunday than the liturgical churches who use the lectionary.
That being said, sometimes I don’t get the sense of a connection of a particular text (the lectionary provides a text from the Old Testament, a Psalm, a text from an Epistle, and one from a Gospel) with the day in question. The Jeremiah text, however, is obviously appropriate for what the lectionary designates First Sunday of Advent (the days leading up to Christmas). You cannot miss the significance of the shepherd and the flocks, or the “Branch of righteousness” springing up in David, or the “good thing” God promised to His people, or the future salvation of Judah and Jerusalem with all that would entail: righteous governance, good will, security, peace — all pointers to Christmas themes indeed.
The arrival of the Savior among us is the opening theme of the New Testament, of course, but we often forget that the Christmas story was Israel’s story first. Granted, a preacher will generally use Old Testament texts to show how the birth of Jesus was prophesied, or perhaps draw attention to types and foreshadows. However, a better way of finding and reading Christmas texts will show the Old Testament and the New coming together to make one continuous story of God at work in the world.
The great New Testament letter writer gives us a demonstration in Romans, the first chapter:
1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
2 (which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
3 concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
4 and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
5 by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:
6 among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ.
One thing we learn from these words is that the coming, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a continuation of a story that began in the Old Testament. The same truth is given in Hebrews 1:1-2:
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.
Even in 1 Corinthians 15:1 and following, which is where many Bible students and preachers go to get a capsule definition of the gospel, there the formula goes like this: “Jesus died according to the scriptures, was buried, and rose the third day according to the scriptures.” And when Paul refers to the Scriptures in his epistles, he must be referring to the Old Testament Scriptures since the New Testament (certainly the Corinthian letter itself) was still in process at the time.
And all of this, Paul says in Romans 1:1-2, is the gospel (literally, good tidings — you will want to remember that) of God that He had promised.
Promised to whom? We all know the story of the creation of Adam, and we know how sin entered the world, and we are aware of the consequences. We know of the murders, the evils, the idolatry, to the point that at one time God destroyed all but just a bit of creation in the flood. And even after that, sin and its curse continued to reign. And then, God takes a man and designates him to be the father of a new kind of humanity — a nation of people that in some way will absorb the curse of sin and provide a blessing in its place. The exact details are not spelled out at first, but it involves a set of promises to the nation that will culminate in sin being destroyed and a restoration of the world the way God intended it — and those details are unraveled as the Old Testament proceeds.
God told Abraham that beginning with him as the patriarch, He would make a great nation. This nation of people, we learn later, would be instructed in God’s way, and they would show the world holiness and devotion. In return, God was to exalt them and bless them, and they would be entrusted with the treasure of salvation, and that nation who was to follow after their father Abraham was known as Israel.
But Israel failed. Not once but many times. Instead of being a light to the world, they themselves became increasingly sinful and idolatrous, and often forgot the God who made them. Examples of their sin and rebellion and faithlessness are listed time and again throughout the books of Moses. Things get better occasionally under kings like David and Solomon, but even those years are not picture perfect. And now, roughly 900 years after God had miraculously brought them out of Egypt into the Promised Land, they were hardly any different from the world around them.
This is the situation in which Israel and Jeremiah find themselves. From the second chapter of his prophecy:
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
3 Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord.
4 Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:
5 Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
6 Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.
8 The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.
To bring you up to date, for about 100 years before these words were spoken, the empire in charge of this part of the world was Assyria. Israel, as a nation, had years before split politically just after Solomon, and the northern tribes had already been taken out by Assyria, leaving Judah (including the small tribe of Benjamin), alone as the only remnant of the once great nation of Israel. In the meantime, as all empires do, given time, Assyria was beginning to weaken and to crumble. Egypt was waiting for its chance to move in from the west, and the Babylonians were doing the same in the east. Judah was caught in the crossfire. You would think the situation would cause the population to turn to God, and in fact that did happen early in Jeremiah’s life under King Josiah, but it was mostly superficial. In time, even those reforms were a memory. People in Judah were worshiping the gods of the other nations, killing their children in horrible human sacrifices, and giving themselves over to all forms of sexual sin.
Remember, these are the people with the Law of God, the promises in their history, Abraham as their father, blessed above all the people of the earth. And into this situation, God places his hand on a man named Jeremiah, to whom God gives a difficult message, much of which is recorded in the book bearing his name. The first part of that message is not surprising — the people are evil, and they should repent. The next part is surprising, (to us, at least, and probably to his countrymen) — whether they repent or not, the nation is doomed, and Jeremiah says they should just get used to living in Babylon (see Jeremiah 29:4-7). Get on with life, he says, and raise your families and work your farms — you will be there a while.
They were, Jeremiah maintains, living on the edge of an abyss, ready for a final plunge. And what is the response? Should we expect the prophet’s countrymen to turn as the pagans did in Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah? Hardly. Some denied the reality before their eyes. Others cried out for Jeremiah’s execution. Not a soul could believe it. Until it actually began.
The destruction came in stages, a succession of upheavals with some brief respites here and there. This is all documented in Jeremiah and the historical records in the Bible. Finally, when we arrive at Jeremiah 33, the stage is set, and the end is near. There is some big-time political jockeying between Egypt and Babylon (Assyria was already a memory) with Judah in the middle, but there could only be one big dog in that part of the world. As Jeremiah 33 opens, the prophet is in prison, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar are advancing on Jerusalem, and soon, according to the early verses in the chapter, corpses will fill the streets, fields will be bereft of flocks, the fields will be left unattended, filled with weeds and brush, and desolation is the only word that comes to the mind. Any hope of a future is gone.
And then — hope! Right there in the text. In the midst of the desolation, God declares, “I will perform that good thing which I have promised!” And shepherds and flocks, lots of them, will cover the land. “Flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them.” That’s one sign that God is at work performing what He had promised. But there is more.
An heir to the throne of David, a Branch of righteousness will grow out of what looked to be a dead stump. A descendant of David will come and with him will come Justice. Righteousness. Deliverance. Salvation. Safety for those taken out and far away from the abyss where their sin had taken them. And maybe even some political and geographical rethink about what it means to the people of God.
Looking at Christmas through the eyes of Jeremiah the prophet, or through the lens of the Old Testament, helps to explain something about Christmas music. I have always felt the best Christmas music, at least in my judgment, is found in those songs that are full of the longing and expectation of the prophets of the Old Testament. Mind you, we non-liturgical types have lost a great many of them, trading them in for “hymns” filled with dubious facts or sentimentality — songs about three kings and a baby that seems not to cry come to mind.
Anyway, there are some Christmas hymns still around reflecting Jeremiah’s thinking. I’m thinking of “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel,” or “Come thou long expected Jesus,” or “Nations that long in darkness walked.”
Actually, the first Christmas hymns we see in the New Testament reflect these Old Testament themes as they reflect what was happening in and around Judah 2,000 years ago.
Take the song of Mary in Luke 1, sung just after meeting Elisabeth who was carrying in her womb John the Baptist. Her song does not sound much like the more popular Christmas songs. It turns out God has little interest in making just anyone’s day “merry and bright,” but He does show mercy to those who fear Him, Mary sings. What follows is praise for God who turns circumstances upside down, makes things right, and fulfills all his promises to Israel — much as Jeremiah 33 indicates. And, remember that this song is sung in reference to the child Mary carries in her body, the one we know as Jesus, that is, Jesus as the fulfillment of the promise of God.
A little later in Luke’s text, Zacharias, the husband of Elizabeth and father of the newborn John, confirms Mary’s words when he sings a Christmas song after God loosens his tongue in Luke 1:
68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,
69 and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
70 as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
71 that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
72 to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
73 the oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
74 that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
Here we have quite a package from the Old Testament: God has visited the earth; He redeems His people; He has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of David — may we pause here for a moment and see what is in this box Zacharias is opening for us?
The David reference is not mysterious. We saw it in Jeremiah 33: a Branch of righteousness is to come from David’s lineage. However, when Zachariah sings of a horn of salvation coming from David’s house, he is using a metaphor not familiar to our western ears. It is a familiar term in the Old Testament, however, and one that comes up in prophetic texts. It is a symbol of power and authority, and the picture is not a horn for blowing, but one for fighting and protecting, as in the animal world.
And then notice the tense Zacharias is using. John is a newborn, and the coming of Jesus in the stable is months off, and yet Zacharias speaks of the visiting and redeeming as already accomplished. Finally, he connects the entire event with the prophets (as in Jeremiah 33) and the promise of God to Abraham (I can’t think of Abraham’s name coming up in any Christmas music I’ve ever heard), which is the point Paul made in Romans 1.
Funny thing, isn’t it, to see so much about Israel around Christmas time? But we’re not quite through yet.
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
28 then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
30 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
31 which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
32 a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
Simeon, the text says, was anticipating the “consolation of Israel.” This is another way of saying Messiah, and it is typical Old Testament language. Rabbis would sometimes refer to the promised Messiah by name as Menachem, or Comforter, and the idea is not far from that used by Jesus when he promised “another comforter” in his Upper Room discourse in John, chapters 14 through 16. At any rate, what we are looking at in Simeon’s song is his declaration that he was holding in his arms the fulfilled promise of God: salvation for Israel, certainly, but also salvation for the entire world.
When you combine the elements of the songs of Mary, Zacharias, and Simeon, you have a better understanding of what took place among the shepherds in the fields just outside Bethlehem and the exchange between them and the angels in Luke 2:
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And the final phrase given by the angelic multitude is the announcement — peace on earth and good will among men — an echo of Jeremiah 33 and the promise of peace and safety. The coming of Jesus was and is the hope of Israel, and the hope of the entire world.
Today millions still find themselves living on the edge of an abyss — spiritually, emotionally, economically, politically — and there is little hope the present world can offer since we continue to be the children of Adam. Let those of us who are also children of God join with Jeremiah, Mary, Zacharias, Simeon, Paul, the shepherds, and the angels this Christmas season, and anticipate a day when Messiah fully reigns over the cosmos. And until that day comes, let us make a place for Him in our hearts and lives so we can change the bits of the world entrusted to each of us.