Jeremiah and Hope

I love the Bible’s presentation of life’s realities. It starts with Genesis: God creates a beautiful world, but within a page there is lying and deception… then a jealous man kills his brother… Before Genesis ends there’s greed, rape, incest, prostitution, deception and exploitation…

…Even the Jesus story starts with a teenage unmarried mother, homeless refugees and innocent children being slaughtered…

God’s beauty, love, mercy, justice and truth… is presented alongside life’s suffering, mess, sadness, loneliness and pain.

The prophet Jeremiah warned that unless his nation changed its ways, it would be destroyed. Throughout his life Jeremiah stood alone, preaching an unpopular message of inevitable consequences… specifically Jerusalem’s destruction …

Jeremiah’s story still rings true today… presenting God and truth to an antagonistic, apathetic audience… a virtuous example of faith, courage, patience and determination… good people suffering constant frustration, loneliness, persecution and discouragement

Today I’ve read Lamentations. Jeremiah presented his unpopular message for forty years. His warnings weren’t heeded; Jerusalem was destroyed. Lamentations is a poem of tears, flowing from Jeremiah’s broken heart. It’s a funeral song:

My eyes fail from weeping,
    I am in torment within;
my heart is poured out on the ground
    because my people are destroyed,
because children and infants faint
    in the streets of the city. (2:11)

And yet… in the middle of Jeremiah’s tears and grief he presents a great statement of faith and hope:

I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed. I remember it all – oh, how well I remember – the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there’s one thing I remember, and remembering keep a grip on hope: God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. (3:19-22 Message)

Musing… Friends who’ve recently known trouble and utter lostness… who’ve tasted ashes and swallowed poison… who’ve hit rock bottom. My prayer is that they will keep a grip on hope, and encounter God’s merciful and loyal love that never runs out or dries up.