Scripture Reading Jeremiah 33:14-16
“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.
“‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from
David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’
Here ends this reading of the Word of God
for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen
When I lived at my last house, the
side of our yard was covered in trees.
In the 1960s, before the house was built, our neighborhood was a family
farm and the land was kept clear of trees. But, when the houses went in, the neighbors
all let the trees grow up between the yards.
We could only see our Western neighbor’s houses in the dead of
winter. Otherwise, the view looked onto
a forest, albeit a very slender forest.
Every once in a while, members of the church’s property
committee would decide they needed to remove trees – they were dying – they
were too big – they were too close to the house or the shed. So, the guys and gals would come over and
have a tree cutting party. But, the
volunteers were amateurs and didn’t have stump removal equipment. The trees would come down, but the stumps
would remain.
Often, the stumps looked dead. Eerie
and dead. But, given a little time, something magical would happen. The dead
stump would start t0 sprout. Trees that
seemed totally dead before they were cut down still had life left in them. New growth would appear. And, if given the right nurture and time,
those stumps could grow into new trees.
When Jeremiah wrote and spoke his
prophesies to the people of Israel, or to the former people of Israel, they
felt like a dead tree stump. They were living in exile as strangers in a
strange land. Their cities and communities were destroyed by the Babylonians
and they were transplanted against their will to Babylon. In Babylon, educated and formerly grand
people were forced to live as slaves and wait on others. They were heartbroken.
But, things weren’t over yet. And,
with God things are never over even when you feel defeated. God is with us to
support us and care for us no matter what.
Jeremiah’s words to the exiled Jewish
people were that God will fulfill the promises God made to the people of Israel
and Judah. Out of a tree stump, a
severed tree, God was going to send out a sprout. Even though the royal line of David seemed
like it had been ended by the Babylonians, a baby descended from the family of
David was going to be born – we know that baby was Jesus. And, Jesus was going to restore God’s
covenant promises to the people of Israel and extend God’s reach to all of the
people of the world. Everyone on earth
is now welcomed to follow Jesus and believe in God. Everyone on earth is now God’s beloved child.
This prophesy that Jesus was coming to
the land of Israel – that the messiah was coming – was repeated to the Jewish
people by many prophets. The hope of the coming messiah guided the Jewish
people as they lived in exile and when they returned. The hope of the coming
messiah guided and sustained the Jewish people as they lived under the rule of
foreign governments like the Greeks and the Romans. The hope of the coming
Messiah reminded Jewish people that God would never forget them or forsake
them.
And, although we live in a
post-resurrection world, the knowledge that we are the children of God and the
followers of Jesus the Christ continues to give us hope. Today we light the
candle of hope to remind us that God fulfills God’s promises. The people of Israel hoped for their Messiah,
and God answered their hopes and prayers by sending Jesus to earth. God hears
our hopes and prayers and promises our world will be transformed. God’s peace is coming. God forgives us and
will guide us to make our world a reflection of the kingdom of God, of heaven
here.
Today, we remember that sometimes we
feel crushed. Sometimes we feel like a dead stump, like nothing is going to go
our way, like we will never recover. Sometimes, we feel our grief is so great
it will never go away. Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed by depression and
paralyzed by anxiety. Sometimes, we feel like the exiles in Babylon, that our
lives will never be restored, that we will not recover what we have lost.
When we feel this despair, we must remember
that out of a dead stump, a shoot will grow. In the middle of our struggles,
God’s Holy Spirit is there. In the times of our lives we feel most alone, God
is with us. And, our hope rests in the Lord. Jesus is the light of the world. The light can shine into the darkest corners
of our lives, into the darkest corners of our souls. God will never leave us or
forsake us. God forgives us no matter how we fail. And, God guides us out of our
struggles and out of the darkness into the light. God restores us and our hopes rest in
God.
Let us not forgive that our hope is in
the Lord. As the Prophet Zephaniah proclaimed:
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
God will take great delight in you;
in God’s love God will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
On this, the
Sunday of Hope, we remember that our God fulfills God’s promises. God is with
us, and our hope rests in God.
Thanks be to God. Amen
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