December 2nd:
December 2, 2012 Potsdam and WS Text: Jeremiah 33: 14-16 Read: W&S #2 To Do Justice The days are surely coming says the Lord When I will fulfill the promise I made To the house of Israel and the house of Judah. [pause] There is no better way to begin Advent than with these words: Even though the words were spoken some 600 years before the birth of Christ When we sing about "long expected" Jesus We mean "long" expected And here let me make you a promise In talking about Jeremiah's words, I promise that I will not exceed one minute for each of those years Just think of it: The days are surely coming Not might come! Not may come! But surely will come! This language is Jeremiah's way of saying "No matter how discouraged you are; No matter how difficult your troubles are No matter how often you have strayed from God There is no question, you can and you still should rely on God Jeremiah used that same certainty language a couple of chapters earlier when he proclaimed that "The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant ... and I will write it on their hearts." And now he uses it again This time what Jeremiah says will be surely coming Are the days when God will fulfill God's promise. By raising up a righteous branch for David God's relationship with humankind has been through a series of covenants or promises The early one with Abraham Where God promised him numerous descendents Then the one with Moses "I will be your God and you will be my people" With the caveat: "if you obey my commandments" And lastly the one with David "Your descendents will sit on the throne forever" But again with a caveat: "I will, however, punish them for their transgressions" In both the new covenant text and this morning's text God, through Jeremiah, Promises something new to fulfill one of the old promises When Jeremiah tells us that the new covenant is surely coming He uses language from the Mosaic covenant "I will be their God and they will be my people." In today's scripture Jeremiah announces the raising up of a new leader This refers us to God's covenant with David. "Your heirs will sit on the throne forever." In both examples, We are given the message that God keeps God's promises. That message was important for the people of Judah to hear. For the people had been behaving in ways that demonstrated that they Had remembered and arrogantly relied on the promises But having conveniently ignored or forgotten the caveats, Thought that God had let them down At the time Jeremiah spoke things were not good in Judah, In fact, it was a time when things were going badly for the people of Judah And they had been going badly for quite some time. In fact, they had been going badly At least since Solomon's death about three centuries before Following Solomon's reign Both of the two kingdoms into which Israel had split had experienced a series of lousy kings Arrogant, power hungry, selfish, and corrupt Some gained power by assassinating their predecessors Most strayed a long ways from what God wanted from them They taxed, they fought, they conscripted Almost none were concerned about the ordinary people And if all that sounds familiar, it should For it wasn't long ago that we heard the people demanding a human king we heard Samuel warn them about the dangers of such a king warning of the very same dangers that they had now encountered. And we heard the people ignore those warnings Just as they ignored the caveats to the covenants But it wasn't just the kings who ignored God Many of the people also turned from God They worshipped idols They focused on money and power The wealthy ignored the needs of the poor and outcast Jeremiah challenged, chastised, and scolded those lousy kings and Jeremiah challenged, chastised, and scolded the people of Judah He challenged them for their lack of justice and righteousness "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness And his upper rooms by injustice Who makes his neighbors work for nothing And does not give them their wages." [22:13] But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart They have turned aside and gone away They do not say in their hearts "Let us fear the Lord our God [5: 23-24a] They know no limits in deeds of wickedness They do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan to make it proper And they do not defend the rights of the needy [5: 26b - 28] One of the reasons that they needed to hear the message that God was steadfast in keeping promises Was that even amongst the indictments that he presented against them. God through Jeremiah was presenting them with hope There was a second reason as well And that was because God wanted to make it clear That God expects justice not selfishness Righteousness not cheating and taking advantage of Sharing and caring not greed and indifference to the needy And so God pointed out that in fulfilling the promise to David the one raised up would execute justice and righteousness The third reason for this message was that they would need it during the exile punishment God was about to impose For God knew that in exile the kings and the people would not look to their own culpability God knew that instead, their discouragement would lead them to question Whether God had broken the promises Or whether God was too weak to do anything to protect them And God did keep the promise in our text. Six hundred years later God sent his son as the righteous branch for David That son came to teach and show us That executing justice and righteousness involves Being faithful to God Being fair to others Being humble rather than haughty Knowing that we can rely on God, we today eagerly begin our preparations to celebrate the birth of the one who did surely come to fulfill God's promise. But as we prepare we should do so in a way that makes sure that We don't so focus on the celebration That we forget what is being celebrated And find ourselves ignoring the justice and righteousness That he was raised up to execute.