Jeremiah 26:3 – The Great Perhaps
3 Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings.’ Jeremiah 26:3, New King James Version
Simon Bolívar's last words were reported to be, "I go to seek to be Great Perhaps."
At first, in character, I bristled. Why reduce the promises of Scripture to such fuzziness, especially when about to cross the threshold into Eternity? Why not take up the Savior's costly emphasis with among His last, painful breaths as He promises the former thief and mocker on the cross beside Him, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise."
But in Jeremiah 26:3, there's that word again, at least as rendered in English by the new King James version. This time, tantalizingly, it comes from God Himself. Look where He puts the perhaps. Not, perhaps the promises of Scripture are true. Not, perhaps biblical faith is something more solid than Marx's panacea of the masses. The perhaps is in His own breast. Perhaps, God challenges and invites at once, in spite of all I did to prepare you, Jeremiah, to be rejected, I will empower some to respond to the Gospel.
Perhaps, incorporating Thomas Watson's masterly metaphorical conception of Psalm 33:5, "the vial of wrath drops, but the fountain of mercy runs." Perhaps the very interim He Who instantly spoke light into existence takes to position His man and His woman, for that dull dirt to re-acclimate and to speak according to His command in the most unpromising settings, perhaps this very engineered inefficiency will be time He uses to make new hearts.
Perhaps His perhaps blows on the graying coals of our faith even before we report for such duty. Perhaps we like Jeremiah have set our faces like flint, Scripturally enough anticipating rejection and protecting ourselves, lest we be guilty of downcast souls amid the privilege of His service. Perhaps, though, the stoicism of flint faces has worked its way inward. Perhaps our eyes are squinted, less likely to take in the full spectrum of His range of possibilities.
Perhaps our hearts are less supple, less likely to lay themselves out in intercession for the people from whom His election has called us, and back among whom He has placed us. Our very kinship with them, after all, the sharing of the same heritage, the same space, the same political predicament, has made their repeated rejection all the more personal.
His perhaps, then, speaks life over us and our actions in this day with no less authority than that with which Christ spoke to Lazarus. Our expectations need be unbound as surely as his limbs. Perhaps is spoken to us as surely as life was imparted by His Word to Tabitha. Our faith need be fed with at urgent a priority as the little girl's body brought to life.
Does the likelihood of outnumbered battle cast itself upon this day with no specific promise, no resonant, individual call to the fullness of life like Lazarus and Tabitha heard? Take, then, the faith of Jonathan who had not even seen the Savior yet as your perhaps. Though bred humanly speaking to King Saul's pessimistic penchant, God nevertheless protected in him a contagious, assertive faith.
As he looked at the opposing host and invited his armor-bearer to be used of God with a plucky perspective that God can deliver by few as well as by many, so let us engage our embedded perhaps. Let us reawaken the sense of possibility with which we were born, and reborn to new life.
Simon Bolívar's last words were reported to be, "I go to seek to be Great Perhaps."
At first, in character, I bristled. Why reduce the promises of Scripture to such fuzziness, especially when about to cross the threshold into Eternity? Why not take up the Savior's costly emphasis with among His last, painful breaths as He promises the former thief and mocker on the cross beside Him, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise."
But in Jeremiah 26:3, there's that word again, at least as rendered in English by the new King James version. This time, tantalizingly, it comes from God Himself. Look where He puts the perhaps. Not, perhaps the promises of Scripture are true. Not, perhaps biblical faith is something more solid than Marx's panacea of the masses. The perhaps is in His own breast. Perhaps, God challenges and invites at once, in spite of all I did to prepare you, Jeremiah, to be rejected, I will empower some to respond to the Gospel.
Perhaps, incorporating Thomas Watson's masterly metaphorical conception of Psalm 33:5, "the vial of wrath drops, but the fountain of mercy runs." Perhaps the very interim He Who instantly spoke light into existence takes to position His man and His woman, for that dull dirt to re-acclimate and to speak according to His command in the most unpromising settings, perhaps this very engineered inefficiency will be time He uses to make new hearts.
Perhaps His perhaps blows on the graying coals of our faith even before we report for such duty. Perhaps we like Jeremiah have set our faces like flint, Scripturally enough anticipating rejection and protecting ourselves, lest we be guilty of downcast souls amid the privilege of His service. Perhaps, though, the stoicism of flint faces has worked its way inward. Perhaps our eyes are squinted, less likely to take in the full spectrum of His range of possibilities.
Perhaps our hearts are less supple, less likely to lay themselves out in intercession for the people from whom His election has called us, and back among whom He has placed us. Our very kinship with them, after all, the sharing of the same heritage, the same space, the same political predicament, has made their repeated rejection all the more personal.
His perhaps, then, speaks life over us and our actions in this day with no less authority than that with which Christ spoke to Lazarus. Our expectations need be unbound as surely as his limbs. Perhaps is spoken to us as surely as life was imparted by His Word to Tabitha. Our faith need be fed with at urgent a priority as the little girl's body brought to life.
Does the likelihood of outnumbered battle cast itself upon this day with no specific promise, no resonant, individual call to the fullness of life like Lazarus and Tabitha heard? Take, then, the faith of Jonathan who had not even seen the Savior yet as your perhaps. Though bred humanly speaking to King Saul's pessimistic penchant, God nevertheless protected in him a contagious, assertive faith.
As he looked at the opposing host and invited his armor-bearer to be used of God with a plucky perspective that God can deliver by few as well as by many, so let us engage our embedded perhaps. Let us reawaken the sense of possibility with which we were born, and reborn to new life.
That powerfully evoking word "Perhaps," stirs that fear of God like stoking the embers of a fire necessary to bring awe and wonder again in the roaring flames rather than just be satisfied with enough warmth to cook my morning meal. Sometimes I need the perhaps to pull me out of academic endeavors and remind me of the very real implications of eternity and God and everything beyond this land we'r are travelling through.
ReplyDeleteAmen! May they cook your morning meal, and, as you enjoy it, remind you of that feast to come. Perhaps someone you encounter today may join you because God uses your efforts.
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