Jeremiah 14:17-18 – Brokenness Enters a Beauty Pageant.
17 “Therefore you shall say this word to them:
‘Let my eyes flow with tears night and day,
And let them not cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people
Has been broken with a mighty stroke, with a very severe blow.
18
If I go out to the field,
Then behold, those slain with the sword!
And if I enter the city,
Then behold, those sick from famine!
Yes, both prophet and priest go about in a land they do not know.’
Nick Paumgarten in last week's New Yorker examines how sponsors of professional climbers dealt with the fatalities of their athletes. "Death and lifestyle are at odds in the marketplace."
Yet, these are the disparities, this is the dissonance, God chooses to use in instances like Jeremiah 14:17-18. In the previous verses, the focus group from the culture surrounding Jeremiah has telegraphed to him what it expects.
Their anointing of false prophets to tell them all will be well lets him know how to compete for their attention. Use that passion, Jeremiah, to insist on fresh-from-the-Lord economic forecasts that He will bless His people with more and more. Use that vivid imagery, Jeremiah, to tell us what perpetual prosperity will feel, and taste, and smell like.
Instead of ratcheting up the the materialist mantra, though, louder, faster, and more willfully distracting, God foretells that Jeremiah's "commercial" for his message will be entirely different. He is weeping will be, if not persuasive, at least puzzling enough to give the culture pause. The picture of personal acquaintance with the death to come will definitely be, as Paumgarten writes, at odds with the marketplace.
Another message He gives the same prophet in Jeremiah 45:5 bring the application to a point for his original audience and for us. "And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them, for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh." But, he contrasts, in application first to Jeremiah but certainly to us, "I will give you your life as a prize it all places, wherever you go."
Christian, have we fallen in with the materialist race without really realizing we have done so? Genuinely desiring to get the culture's attention about the supremacy of Christ, have we fallen for the lie that we need to be composed enough, charismatic enough, or wealthy enough, in order to earn the loyalty of the eyes in the hearts we seek? God's dictates of Jeremiah's "brand" suggests our authentic engagement will come differently.
Nor is getting attention because we are not as new, not as shiny, not as impressive, unprecedented. Even in their selection of stuff, the people we would persuade betray a residual affection for the quirky, the vintage, and the worn.
David Brooks notes the irony in Bobos in Paradise without realizing the Gospel parallel. "Across the developing world, there are workers busy beating up the goods they have just made it to please American consumers."
Our call, then, is to seek the Lord as Jeremiah does for the faith we present to the world. For those in a season of weeping for relatives and friends forsaking the Treasure of Christ for the world's goods, we might be called to present as we are, with our tears standing out from the chemically aided good cheer of the world.
If, on the other hand, world weariness has become a shtick or even an idol for us, we might be called, as Christ says of the fasting, to anoint our faces so as not to make our personal and temporary gloom our Gospel.
When the Lord Jesus bought us, Christian, He bought all that we are. He bought our hearts to be sure, but He also bought our subsequent facial expressions, and they are not to be manipulated solely according to the reaction we want from the world. He bought, likewise, the imagination buried deep in our hearts, and the words and the timing we employ to convey the images we conjure. We ARE the message, and we are His.
‘Let my eyes flow with tears night and day,
And let them not cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people
Has been broken with a mighty stroke, with a very severe blow.
18
If I go out to the field,
Then behold, those slain with the sword!
And if I enter the city,
Then behold, those sick from famine!
Yes, both prophet and priest go about in a land they do not know.’
Nick Paumgarten in last week's New Yorker examines how sponsors of professional climbers dealt with the fatalities of their athletes. "Death and lifestyle are at odds in the marketplace."
Yet, these are the disparities, this is the dissonance, God chooses to use in instances like Jeremiah 14:17-18. In the previous verses, the focus group from the culture surrounding Jeremiah has telegraphed to him what it expects.
Their anointing of false prophets to tell them all will be well lets him know how to compete for their attention. Use that passion, Jeremiah, to insist on fresh-from-the-Lord economic forecasts that He will bless His people with more and more. Use that vivid imagery, Jeremiah, to tell us what perpetual prosperity will feel, and taste, and smell like.
Instead of ratcheting up the the materialist mantra, though, louder, faster, and more willfully distracting, God foretells that Jeremiah's "commercial" for his message will be entirely different. He is weeping will be, if not persuasive, at least puzzling enough to give the culture pause. The picture of personal acquaintance with the death to come will definitely be, as Paumgarten writes, at odds with the marketplace.
Another message He gives the same prophet in Jeremiah 45:5 bring the application to a point for his original audience and for us. "And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them, for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh." But, he contrasts, in application first to Jeremiah but certainly to us, "I will give you your life as a prize it all places, wherever you go."
Christian, have we fallen in with the materialist race without really realizing we have done so? Genuinely desiring to get the culture's attention about the supremacy of Christ, have we fallen for the lie that we need to be composed enough, charismatic enough, or wealthy enough, in order to earn the loyalty of the eyes in the hearts we seek? God's dictates of Jeremiah's "brand" suggests our authentic engagement will come differently.
Nor is getting attention because we are not as new, not as shiny, not as impressive, unprecedented. Even in their selection of stuff, the people we would persuade betray a residual affection for the quirky, the vintage, and the worn.
David Brooks notes the irony in Bobos in Paradise without realizing the Gospel parallel. "Across the developing world, there are workers busy beating up the goods they have just made it to please American consumers."
Our call, then, is to seek the Lord as Jeremiah does for the faith we present to the world. For those in a season of weeping for relatives and friends forsaking the Treasure of Christ for the world's goods, we might be called to present as we are, with our tears standing out from the chemically aided good cheer of the world.
If, on the other hand, world weariness has become a shtick or even an idol for us, we might be called, as Christ says of the fasting, to anoint our faces so as not to make our personal and temporary gloom our Gospel.
When the Lord Jesus bought us, Christian, He bought all that we are. He bought our hearts to be sure, but He also bought our subsequent facial expressions, and they are not to be manipulated solely according to the reaction we want from the world. He bought, likewise, the imagination buried deep in our hearts, and the words and the timing we employ to convey the images we conjure. We ARE the message, and we are His.
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