The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Jeremiah has a nickname, and it’s “the weeping prophet” — and for good reason. Listen again to a very brief but full Old Testament text this morning: “The LORD made it known to me and I knew; then You showed me their deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.’ But, O LORD of hosts, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You have I committed my cause.”
See, by the time we get to Jeremiah 11, Jeremiah was given to see something that he hadn’t noticed before — namely, that his countrymen were planning an assassination. They were going to kill him. They were going to kill him because he preached the Word of God. But it’s even worse than that. If you read chapter 11, you’ll discover that it was at the village of Anathoth. It’s the village men who are plotting against Jeremiah. There’s some pretty noteworthy lessons to be learned in this very short Old Testament reading this morning, and I’ll outline them basically by going one, two, three, and four.
Okay, first: you should know that the village of Anathoth wasn’t your average Old Testament village of the Bible. Anathoth was a special place. It had been set aside by the Lord God for the Levites, that is, the priests, who ultimately, when they grow wise enough and old enough, get transferred into Jerusalem to serve at the temple in Jerusalem. It’s a village filled with men dedicated to the preaching and teaching and right worship of the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. It’s their job to keep the words and the traditions that God gave down through the ages of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Think of Anathoth as a seminary campus. As the prophet Jeremiah preached God’s Word, the men who had been charged and trained as priests of the Lord were now plotting to kill a prophet of the Lord who dared bring to them the uncorrupted and uncompromised Law and Gospel of the promised Messiah.
But it still gets worse. You go back to the very first verse of the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 1:1, that tells us that Anathoth not only was a village of priests, but it was Jeremiah’s hometown. That means that among these conspirators were likely neighbors, friends, and family members who were all getting ready to betray the prophet and murder him. In verses 18 and 19, we learn Jeremiah was unaware. He wasn’t aware. He didn’t notice that the plot was afoot. But then the Lord, he wrote, “made it known to me and I knew.” “I did not know it was against me that they were devising schemes.” The word “schemes” — more literally translated “designs” or “intentions” — that is, it’s first-degree murder. It’s a plot and a conspiracy. And Jeremiah was shocked, and he was dismayed, when he learned that the town as a whole, and maybe even some of his close kin, were in the process of betraying him. Thus, when the conspirators said, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living,” Jeremiah at first had no clue what they were talking about or planning to do. It’s not unlike the experience Jesus had when He went to His hometown, Nazareth, to preach there in the synagogue for the very first time. We know how that turned out. Luke 4:28: “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this” — when they heard Jesus preach. “They got up and they drove Him out of town and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him off the cliff.” Jesus’ response later would be to teach us and His own disciples that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown, among his relatives and members of his own household. It’s just an axiom: where the Word of God is, there will always and naturally be opponents to the pure Word and truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So why the animosity against their kinfolk, Jeremiah? After all, by the time Jeremiah showed up on the historic scene, things had really gotten quite better for the Judeans in general, and for Anathoth in particular. The events recorded in this book took place after Josiah’s reign. King Josiah — Josiah was one of Judah’s good kings. And when he was crowned king, he ushered in a reformation of sorts. He introduced people once again to the one true God, Yahweh Elohim, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He called for them to repent of their former idolatrous ways, and he began restoring both right worship to the temple and rebuilding the temple itself. And the priests of Anathoth would have known about Josiah’s reforms. They would have known what their king was now doing among them. They should have welcomed those changes and welcomed Jeremiah. But in Jeremiah’s day, the reforms of Josiah had begun to slip away, and God raised up a prophet to sound the alarm, to call them back to right worship, to pure doctrine, to reverence and holiness of life. Maybe they didn’t like Josiah’s reforms. Maybe that’s what their animosity was all about. Maybe they didn’t like being called out on their unfaithfulness and their idolatry. Maybe they had made too many friends among the enemy camp, the worshipers of Baal. Maybe they had just had enough, and Jeremiah was the icing on the cake. They simply weren’t going to tolerate it anymore. “Let us destroy this tree with its fruit.” The tree was the prophet himself, and the fruit are his words: his preaching, his teaching, and his writing. Destroy the tree with its fruits, and you destroy the prophet. Destroy the prophet, you destroy the ministry. You destroy the ministry, and put an end to that, you destroy the speaking of God’s Word to God’s people. And that’s happened all over the world, and in particular over the last few decades, all over our own country. No longer are the true words of the Word of God, the Scriptures, held in high regard. They’re regarded now as hate speech and the like. So much for being priests of Yahweh Elohim.
Even though Jeremiah was under tremendous pressure to shut up, to compromise, and to preach a more pleasing message to the religious leaders — to preach specifically, quote, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14) — Jeremiah resists the temptation and continues to speak what the Lord gives him to speak, without compromise, in all boldness and courage.
Second: in the face of death, Jeremiah goes forth like a gentle lamb led to slaughter. He has no escort of armed guards. He doesn’t intimidate people to make them silent so that he can preach. Jeremiah was faced with insurmountable odds, and yet he trusted in the righteousness of the LORD of hosts, who judges, quote, “rightly and righteously,” and He searches the heart and the mind. The Hebrew literally is: He searches the kidneys and the heart — the deepest, innermost parts of each and every man — to see the secret thoughts and emotions of the people. All he has, Jeremiah, is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. But spiritually, the Word of God — the book of Hebrews says — is sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The Word of God is, to a priest, the most devastating weapon of war.
Third: Jeremiah prays for vengeance. Sounds like an unchristian thing to do, but it’s not — especially the way in which Jeremiah requests it. “O LORD of hosts, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them.” He prays to see God’s vengeance. He doesn’t pray for his own vengeance. He understands vengeance against the Gospel isn’t his to dish out. He is to be like a lamb led to slaughter. “Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord.” Paul quotes that in Romans 12:19. While Jeremiah desired vengeance on those who threatened his life, he doesn’t do what they do. He doesn’t think up a scheme to intimidate them. He doesn’t think up a scheme to escape. He doesn’t think of a scheme to get rid of his enemies. Instead, he calls out to the Lord God, and he entrusts his cause to the Lord, who is both the Lamb who will be sacrificed and the Judge who will render the judgments. Despite his own troubles, and what people might think to the contrary, Jeremiah knows that the Lord God is righteous and will judge righteously, which means He will judge in His holiness and in His love. The two go together. It’s a mystery to us, not to God. And that’s what Jeremiah is teaching. He’s teaching that we do not always know the will and the ways of our heavenly Father. He has a hidden will that we can’t see, and that we are not to infringe upon. Sometimes it can look to us — and that’s not the case — that evildoers prosper, good people suffer, evildoers continue in good health, while the faithful are plagued with trials and sicknesses. Even 600 years before Jesus’ birth, Jeremiah the prophet has placed his trust, his confidence, in the final justice that God would furnish in the coming of the promised Messiah. That’s another lesson church folks need to learn and understand these days.
Jeremiah was simply the messenger, the King’s messenger. Messengers represent the King. To strike the messenger down is to strike against the King whom he represents. In fact, that is the principal duty of and office of pastor, preachers, teachers, bishops, and the like — all those who take ordination vows, bound to preach and to teach the Word of God rightly and correctly, uncompromisingly, and to administer the sacraments according to His good and His gracious will. We who stand in pulpits, we are not kings in that sense. We are messengers. And we have been given words to speak and to preach and to teach in the written pages of the Scripture, the pages of the prophets and the apostles. “All Scripture is breathed out by God,” Paul wrote to Timothy, “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” It’s that last part of the list we sometimes are a little uncomfortable to hear.
Next: as the King’s messenger, Jeremiah has a unique privilege of foreshadowing the coming Christ. He may be like a lamb led to slaughter, but he is not the Lamb led to slaughter for the sins of the world. That’s left to the Son of God, the one that God would send in the flesh, in the birth of the Virgin Mary. You hear Jesus say as much in the Gospel lesson this morning. He’s been working miracles. He’s been doing the work. He’s been preaching the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. He had just been transfigured on the mountain before Peter, James, and John. And for them, that looked like a pretty great moment. They thought, “Wow, things are starting to change. Jesus is going to show them now.” But it was temporary, wasn’t it? As Jesus Himself faced, after that mountaintop: priests and Levites, Sadducees and Pharisees, all who sought His own death. He had His own enemies, spiritual descendants of those who plotted against Jeremiah. But these priests were not from the little town of Anathoth. These priests were priests of Jerusalem and of the temple. Jesus was and spoke the Word of God, and they, like their ancestors, did not want to hear it. Most people, including church people today, don’t want to hear God’s Word as it is intended to be spoken and heard. Let’s admit it: when the word of Law is preached to us, we don’t like it much either. We don’t want it to show the depth of our own sin and our own depravity, our own selfishness and self-interest. But the word of the Law is only half the story. The message Jeremiah preached and wrote about: the One who would come, whom God the Father would send into the flesh to die for the sins of the world. He wrote about the prophet — he wrote about the prophet’s Prophet. He wrote about the king — the King’s King. The priest’s Priest. And the Lamb who was slain, who earned us the forgiveness of our sins. The priests of His day wanted to destroy the prophet too. They wanted to cut down the tree of life, Jesus Christ, with all of its fruit. But Jesus goes forth like a gentle lamb to the slaughter, the Passover Lamb for the sins of the world. He could have destroyed His enemies with one word. He could have called down the angels from heaven and wiped out all who opposed Him. Yes, in those moments He remained silent and allowed Himself to be slaughtered on the cross for your sins and for theirs. Jesus suffers His Father’s righteous judgment for sin. In that moment, God’s vengeance was turned away from you and put against His only-begotten Son, Jesus the Christ.
The church would do well to learn the lessons of Jeremiah, for we live in a time when Christianity has lost all of its influence in our culture, and paganism is on the rise. Many have arisen to oppose the Christian faith, claiming it to be utter foolishness, or downright a hateful religion. And the more we cling to our faith, the more we quote the Scripture, the more we live it in our daily life, we find ourselves more and more in a similar situation to both Jeremiah and to our Lord Jesus Himself. The more faithful we are, the more enemies that will rise up against us. And some of them will be members of our own family. The first thing we are to do in the face of such opposition, in face of such enemies, is to hold God’s Word in all of its truth and purity firmly and squarely. We can’t force people to believe or to hear or to listen to us. Instead of trying to force them, though, we can do what we’ve been given to do. That is, we can forgive them their sins. Remember Christ on the cross, as He’s being crucified: “Father, forgive them” — that is, those who crucify Me — “for they know not what they do.” No matter who the opposition is — family, friends, or strangers — we have to admit it hurts, and our first reaction is anger. But we should not seek vengeance in return. Rather, we commend such people to the Lord and ask that He would judge them righteously. That is, that He would look upon them with grace and love. How He does so is completely up to Him, and a part of His hidden will, and according to His great wisdom.
Finally: unlike Jeremiah, we don’t foreshadow the coming of Christ, for He has already come. But God grants us always courage and clarity to point to Jesus. We have this little thing — we get a little nervous from time to time when we’re given an opportunity to confess Christ, or to preach or speak the Gospel. And we want to sort of wiggle it a little bit, give somebody a little out, especially in regard to being a good person and good works. We fudge the Gospel just a bit, so that the good-works-righteousness crowd can wiggle through it, and thus keep peace among us. In regard to your own faith, you will be tempted to believe that God’s work is not busy and active and living in your daily work. You may be tempted to leave the faith so that you can have peace, or cut deals. I know pastors who cut deals with their children not to speak of religion anymore, for the sake of family peace. Changing the Lord’s message might bring peace with others temporarily, but it destroys the peace between you and God. For “he who confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father in heaven,” Jesus says. “But whoever denies Me, I will deny before My Father in heaven” — and all the angels, He says. We must hold fast, like Jeremiah. He was the weeping prophet, but he wasn’t the compromising prophet. It pained him to see so many of his countrymen and his relatives reject Yahweh Elohim for the gods of Baal. St. Paul urges us in 2 Thessalonians 2:15: “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we have passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” God has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. By the waters of Holy Baptism, He has washed you of your sin and made you righteous in His sight. By His Word and Supper, He continues to forgive your sins and to strengthen your faith. His Word still saves, and He graciously places it in our ears and in our mouths. You are the Lord’s, and there is no better news to you than: you are judged, but you are judged to be righteous for Christ’s sake. In the Word of God, you are forgiven all your sins, for He is the Lamb who judges rightly. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.