Jeremiah 17:24-26 – Rehearsing Our Eschatology
24 “And it shall be, if you heed Me carefully,” says the Lord, “to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work in it, 25 then shall enter the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. 26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.
On The West Wing's episode "Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc," former professor and now President, and lifelong Latinate, Josiah Bartlett is holding class on the title phrase. His court is measuring when carrying the state of Texas in a presidential election became an impossibility for his campaign, and the logical fallacy floats about. The president punctures it, pointing out that when one thing follows another, it is very easy to assume that the first causes the second. It's hardly ever true, he teaches.
We need the lesson, especially as we behold subtle surrender turned to regal splendor in Jeremiah 17:24-26. The prophet is even given wording that comes down to us with the easily entrapping words if and then. IF you do this, THEN this will happen. We pounce on cause. We wrestle obedience into the role of catalyst for audacious, disproportionate reward. We turn a relationship with God, and rest as a vital part of that relationship, into a recipe. Beware. Just because something follows something doesn't mean that something causes something.
Once we check our tendency to build a man-centered flowchart, the vignette of contrast rather than cause offered here is breathtaking. God calls His people to celebrate the Sabbath by coming into Jerusalem after deliberately shedding the workweek's burdens.
He has seen them laden down with preparation, men made in the image of God for eternal communion with Him instead spring-loaded as machines for productive, countable purpose – and just as sure to break down. He responds to this wrong, at bottom of front to Him robbing Him of the worship He deserves, by rewiring why, by recasting a vision for what His humans were created to do.
His elect are, He shows, destined to enter the gates of Jerusalem as kings and princes. Whatever picture of royalty He places in your heart of hearts probably depends upon the fairytales to which you were exposed as a child, but I'll wager it did not include a king carrying a backpack or any other variety of burden. He has others for that. His title is his by birth, and for the royal race of all royal races, by the new birth. No homework we do at the expense of resting in Christ will prepare us to reign with Him. Christ has done the work.
He is the victor, this time entering the new Jerusalem with pomp that will not dissipate in a week's time. His victory is so complete and unrivaled that He brings us, unburdened, to rule and reign with Him irrespective of the merit we scrambled for or the blood ties we sprang from. In fact, to KEEP us from the almost inveterate idea that we got to this position by the work of our hands carried as our price of admission, Jeremiah 17:26 shows He occupies them otherwise.
His own carry not tokens of the work to come but offerings, responses to the work already done. God's Word to Jeremiah beautifully calls them sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord. He knows our post hoc ergo proctor hoc hearts.
He knows that even with all the splendid detail He provides in this scene that, left to our work-warped imaginations, we will fill in facial expressions of the congregants with tension and obligation. It's what we've known. It's what we are practiced at. It is a dominant part of our earthly profession, so He distinguishes carefully. These goods are extensions of glad heart and glad faces.
Even short of that ultimate gathering by grace, Jeremiah 17:24-26 offers an invitation of revolutionary subtlety and sweetness. Each week, even each moment in the New Testament Christian's pervasive sense of rest in Christ, is an opportunity for reset and renewal.
It is an opportunity while still among the stuff of Earth, the triggers to tension, to renounce their grip and embrace Christ. By what we decide about when, and Who, is our Sabbath, we rehearse in small increments, in the whispers of our hearts, what will one day be shouted from the housetops.
Do we rely on Christ, or not? Do we trust His work to bring about new birth and new purpose, or do we smuggle in and struggle under preoccupation with our own works? Do we, at the last, struggle with residual unbelief's contention that we will be spiritually stillborn, Christ's dictates inapplicable, if only to us, and reliant upon ourselves even when others rest?
On The West Wing's episode "Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc," former professor and now President, and lifelong Latinate, Josiah Bartlett is holding class on the title phrase. His court is measuring when carrying the state of Texas in a presidential election became an impossibility for his campaign, and the logical fallacy floats about. The president punctures it, pointing out that when one thing follows another, it is very easy to assume that the first causes the second. It's hardly ever true, he teaches.
We need the lesson, especially as we behold subtle surrender turned to regal splendor in Jeremiah 17:24-26. The prophet is even given wording that comes down to us with the easily entrapping words if and then. IF you do this, THEN this will happen. We pounce on cause. We wrestle obedience into the role of catalyst for audacious, disproportionate reward. We turn a relationship with God, and rest as a vital part of that relationship, into a recipe. Beware. Just because something follows something doesn't mean that something causes something.
Once we check our tendency to build a man-centered flowchart, the vignette of contrast rather than cause offered here is breathtaking. God calls His people to celebrate the Sabbath by coming into Jerusalem after deliberately shedding the workweek's burdens.
He has seen them laden down with preparation, men made in the image of God for eternal communion with Him instead spring-loaded as machines for productive, countable purpose – and just as sure to break down. He responds to this wrong, at bottom of front to Him robbing Him of the worship He deserves, by rewiring why, by recasting a vision for what His humans were created to do.
His elect are, He shows, destined to enter the gates of Jerusalem as kings and princes. Whatever picture of royalty He places in your heart of hearts probably depends upon the fairytales to which you were exposed as a child, but I'll wager it did not include a king carrying a backpack or any other variety of burden. He has others for that. His title is his by birth, and for the royal race of all royal races, by the new birth. No homework we do at the expense of resting in Christ will prepare us to reign with Him. Christ has done the work.
He is the victor, this time entering the new Jerusalem with pomp that will not dissipate in a week's time. His victory is so complete and unrivaled that He brings us, unburdened, to rule and reign with Him irrespective of the merit we scrambled for or the blood ties we sprang from. In fact, to KEEP us from the almost inveterate idea that we got to this position by the work of our hands carried as our price of admission, Jeremiah 17:26 shows He occupies them otherwise.
His own carry not tokens of the work to come but offerings, responses to the work already done. God's Word to Jeremiah beautifully calls them sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord. He knows our post hoc ergo proctor hoc hearts.
He knows that even with all the splendid detail He provides in this scene that, left to our work-warped imaginations, we will fill in facial expressions of the congregants with tension and obligation. It's what we've known. It's what we are practiced at. It is a dominant part of our earthly profession, so He distinguishes carefully. These goods are extensions of glad heart and glad faces.
Even short of that ultimate gathering by grace, Jeremiah 17:24-26 offers an invitation of revolutionary subtlety and sweetness. Each week, even each moment in the New Testament Christian's pervasive sense of rest in Christ, is an opportunity for reset and renewal.
It is an opportunity while still among the stuff of Earth, the triggers to tension, to renounce their grip and embrace Christ. By what we decide about when, and Who, is our Sabbath, we rehearse in small increments, in the whispers of our hearts, what will one day be shouted from the housetops.
Do we rely on Christ, or not? Do we trust His work to bring about new birth and new purpose, or do we smuggle in and struggle under preoccupation with our own works? Do we, at the last, struggle with residual unbelief's contention that we will be spiritually stillborn, Christ's dictates inapplicable, if only to us, and reliant upon ourselves even when others rest?
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