Jeremiah 1:1-2:30
I try to imagine what it must have been like for Jeremiah. He just thought of himself as a child; not mature, not fully skilled, not yet made anything of himself, and yet the Sovereign Lord told him that he’d been known since he was a sperm and had from that point on decided that he should be a prophet to the nations. After an initial shudder of disbelief Jeremiah must suddenly have found a smile forming on his mouth and a warm glow spreading across his chest. Jeremiah’s realisation that he mattered, that he was noticed by God, that he had a role to play - well it must have been sensational. And then he read the small print. Jeremiah was going to uproot and tear down nations, he was going to destroy and overthrow as well as build and plant. Jeremiah was to go up to his friends, family, neighbours and leaders and call them defilers and prostitutes and swift she-camels who get seriously busy when it comes to mating time. I imagine Jeremiah knew he wouldn’t get a favourable response to these declarations. I imagine Jeremiah knew the bitter cost these messages would inflict on himself and on his loved ones. I suspect that the smile faded from his lips and something within him sank. Jeremiah is known as the ‘wailing prophet’ and that is little surprise to me. But we mustn’t leave it there. It’s good to recognise that following the word of the Lord is costly and it can cause us to wail but, ultimately, what Jeremiah was saying was good. His nation was going to starve to death, they were facing a crippling, life-destroying drought. They had rejected their spring of living water and had dug some no-good cracked-up broken cisterns that were never going to provide them with what they needed. What Jeremiah was telling them was good, even though it hurt.
Philippians 1:27-2:11
It is the second humbling that is the real challenge. One level of humbling ourselves is bad enough. The second level is what really tests our resolve. Jesus humbled himself once by not clinging onto his equality with God but choosing instead to become a human. This involved a huge sacrifice of his eternal unsurpassable authority. It involved him giving up unbroken intimacy with the Father and the untold riches of the heavenly realms. Jesus had the perfect life but he chose to humble himself and give it up to become a human. That was the first humbling. Then, as a human, he chose not to use his unmatched intellect or his dynamic charisma to build his own career. He chose not to see his unparalleled resources as things for his own benefit. He resisted the urge to use his breath-taking skills to get a wife, a life and free himself from strife. No, he chose to humble himself a second time choosing to die an obscure reject’s death watched by only a handful of people outside of a city where thousands were thinking about something completely different. This second humbling puts my jaw on the floor. This second humbling shows me that my attitude is so very far from being like that of Jesus Christ. Humbling myself once seems bad enough. But twice?? Going beyond just giving stuff up but really choosing to do what is best for others even if they don’t notice it and I get no recognition?? I really want to be able to do it but it just seems so hard. I take comfort from the fact that the Philippians were no better than me and Paul believed they could do it so he would believe I could to. Nothing is impossible with God. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Psalm 115:1-11
“Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” I like that.
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