Jeremiah 27:1-2 – The Chains of a Champion

 1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 “Thus says the Lord to me: ‘Make for yourselves bonds and yokes, and put them on your neck, Jeremiah 27:1-2, New King James Version

In the unforgettable imagery of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Jacob Marley's chains rattle across the floorboards of his former partner Ebenezer Scrooge's consciousness. Indignant at these constraints when compared to the independence and self-satisfaction their banking business would seem to give, Scrooge starts at the incongruity.

Now disillusioned, Marley's spirit is honest. "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard; I girded it of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it."

This smithing, he now knows, is an endeavor of the heart. The chain he now wears visibly is a demonstration of his true love while he was on Earth. "My spirit," He admits, retracing, "never walked beyond our counting-house." He re-doubles, "My spirit never roved beyond the limits of our money-changing hole."

He has more than the metaphor alike with God's command in Jeremiah 27:2. Here, chains invisible are made visible. Here, the limits of freedom pridefullly and reflexively celebrated are exposed. Assumptions are confrontationally made manifest, that they might be examined, and perhaps repented out.

Like Jacob Marley, Jeremiah before him confronts a prosperous and self-assured audience. Because they can't see that to which they are giving their hearts, they assume their affections and limbs are free. They must be shown, as with Scrooge, that their predicament is dire. They must be interrupted with visuals undertaken to get their attention. Otherwise, both the splendor and the sameness of their self-created constraints will assure that they are unchanged.

The same willingness to contend with contented fallacy is extant. Yet, Jeremiah is severing rather than sentenced. He knows freedom better than most of his contemporaries, has some idea that his righteousness is in the coming Christ rather than how much earthly comfort he can accumulate. HIS chains are undertaken not in his own penance, but to get the attention of his peers who have so long ignored his words.

Perhaps they will see in performance what they have ignored in doctrine. Perhaps in the temporary bonds and yokes Jeremiah wears to take off again, they will see the constraints they cannot willingly remove. Even if not, and Jeremiah has been told from beginning of his mission that by and large his countrymen will not listen, Jeremiah now knows what faithfulness to his next calling looks like. He is, by now, an instrument in God's hands. He would not at this stage of his ministry disqualify himself by railing against his countrymen's comfort while he declines to inconvenience his own in order to get their attention.

What about us? What is our business, Christian, in this day Christ bought for us? Do we realize with Jeremiah the willing interloper and intercessor, and with Jacob Marley, mankind is our business, charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence are all our business, as they were Marley's? The dealings of our trade, as he realizes, or the pursuit of our comforts in what we wear, or where we go, or in what we say or don't say, these feelings are but a drop in the water in the comprehensive ocean of our business.

I doubt chains are a wardrobe option in our closets. I doubt Christ who bought the Christian's freedom would have us employee exactly the same visual vignette to get the attention of our contemporaries for His sake. Still, as Scripture says such quotidian details as to what we eat and drink can be done for the glory of God, why not the tone we employ, the words we choose, the word pictures we cumulatively paint as we display faithfully, and sometimes confrontationally, where our hope is?

Understandably, the pull to the party of whatever the culture celebrates is strong, and it can be lonely to seem to be the one person asking penetrating questions as to its worth. The celebrant in Scrooge's day was smug and restrained, yet Dickens saw correctly that he needed to be confronted by any means necessary. The celebrant in Jeremiah's day marked the ascent of a new King,  absorbinghis people's latest hopes, and doubtless saw Jeremiah's pricking of the ephemeral, collective hope bubble as less than welcome.

Better, Jeremiah's life testimony shows, endure man's scorn, and even the constraints of human chastisement Jeremiah has known, for a while than forged chains of indifference to what matters to God. be that, brothers and sisters, the determiner of what freedom we exercise before the world.

All things are lawful for us, yes, but not all things are profitable. More than our indulgence is at stake. We are particularly called no less than Marley to Scrooge. Would we shirk the chains of purposeful restraint if we have a Spirit-led sense that this incongruent life choice may get our quarry's eternal attention?