YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN– Pastor John Jewell tells about a young boy who at one of their Christmas Eve candlelight services expressed his excitement. Immediately after the benediction, this four-year-old broke out at the top of his lungs with, “Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Jesus is born! Jesus is born! Let’s get going!” It seems the boy’s parents had told the boy he could not open his gifts until after the church service. Waiting was difficult for him, so just as soon as the service was over, he was thrilled he could get on to the things that mattered most to him.
That boy did not understand the true meaning of Christmas, but he certainly caught the excitement of Christmas. Hooray! Jesus is born! Let’s get going!
Our scripture passage is from Jeremiah. Chapter 33 is the fourth and final portion of the so-called Book of Consolation. It is related to the previous chapter by mention of Jeremiah’s captivity (33:1), first mentioned in 32:2. It is the same period of captivity but the second time that God’s word came to him.
Jeremiah is remembered as “the weeping prophet”. He always seemed to be on the unpopular side. His inability to hold his tongue cost him dearly. He was banished for a time from the priesthood. He was physically beaten, and publicly humiliated on more than one occasion for expressing unpopular convictions. He could have just kept quiet and enjoyed a peaceful life, a relatively comfortable life.
You know, he had the soul of a poet. He talked about the blossoming of the almond in early spring, the migratory impulse of the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane. Jeremiah just could not check those red-hot impulses that got him into trouble.
Well, he felt that God was talking to the people through him. When he saw that the people of Israel were living outside of God’s favor, Jeremiah had to say something. He warned them about the consequences of their greed, their disobedience, their disregard for right living.
But the people did not listen. Israel continued to be unfaithful to the laws of the covenant, and had forsaken God by building high altars to Baal. And because they would not listen, his country was now besieged.
And Jerusalem was destroyed by invaders from the North, as Jeremiah prophesied. The inhabitants dismantled their houses, even the palace, to provide defenses against the attacking Babylonians who had raised siege ramps to storm the walls. But these drastic defensive measures did not prevail. Instead, dead bodies filled up these defensive structures. Israel was plundered, and there was famine. Many were taken captive, and were exiled to a foreign land.
However in chapter 33, this lonely, sensitive prophet has some good news. You know, he could have chided them derisively, “I told you so! But you would not listen.” It would be easy for Jeremiah to do that, and he would be justified. But that wasn’t the message the Lord had put into his heart.
The prophet Jeremiah writes in chapter 33: “‘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.’” Jeremiah knew that God would not leave the people of Israel from the consequences of their own bad choices forever.
When we first meet Jeremiah in the first part of this book, he is a preacher of righteousness. But at this time, he speaks words of comfort. Some would say that he had mellowed. Perhaps so, but the situation had also changed. Before, his people needed to be confronted, now they need to be comforted. Before, they needed words of judgment, now they need words of grace. Before, they deserved condemnation, now they need hope.
So instead of offering a word of punishment, Jeremiah offers a word of promise: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth from David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land . . . And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (vss. 14-16)
Like the Hebrew people during the time of Jeremiah, we also ask, “What is the world coming to?” It is a world where there is no end to the fighting in the Middle East, or even here in the Philippines. There is always the bickering of leaders of our government, or even the leaders of our churches. We have shootings going on because of greed, and the perpetrators are still at large. It is a world where bombers disrupt the dialogues for peace; where corporate executives get huge bonuses while the pension plans of ordinary workers go down; where families need filters to screen out offensive spam from internet, or some are now afraid of being defrauded through the internet; where we experience global warming which still many could not accept; where there is destruction of our natural resources; and much more. And for more than a year, we still have this virus raging all around the world, changing almost everything that we do. All these make us wonder what sort of future our children and grandchildren may inherit.
Then the words of Jeremiah bring us these: “The days are coming. The days are coming where there will be justice.” That is the first promise Jeremiah makes about the coming of the Messiah. There will be justice. This world needs more justice, doesn’t it?
We have an innate need for justice. We want to see bad guys punished, and good guys rewarded. There is something built into the very fabric of our being that yearns for justice.
Until the Messiah comes, what is our role in creating justice? Because it is all too easy for us to ignore injustice, even to benefit from it.
Rev. Thomas G. Long writes, “Righteousness is not a sweet virtue that everybody in the world desires. Those who take advantage of others for their own gain do not want the world to be fair and just. Those who benefit from the weakness of others do not want the world to be compassionate. Much money and power are invested in maintaining injustice. If every wage were fair, if every person were honored as a child of God, if every human being were safe from exploitation, many would lose their grip on status, self-gratification, and affluence.”
We all squirm when we hear those words. Prophetic words are meant to challenge us. They are meant to wake us up. Life is not fair.
Nevertheless, the days are coming, says Jeremiah, when the playing fields of this world will be leveled. The days are coming when that which is unfair will be set right. For when the Bible speaks of justice, it is not merely talking about individual justice.
God’s call is for a just society. God’s call is for basic fairness for all people. God’s call is for a new kind of society, where all persons will live in dignity and freedom. That is what justice is all about.
During Advent and Christmas seasons, we need to take those words seriously, and ask ourselves whether we are contributing to a just society, or we are one of those who are contributing to the status quo. The days are coming when there will be justice.
Then Jeremiah also said, “The days are also coming when there will be righteousness.” Justice refers to the state of our society. Righteousness refers to the state of our individual souls.
A Yiddish term for “righteousness” is zaddik. It refers to a saintly person, someone whose character and actions are aligned with the will of God.
Dr. James Qualben tells a story to illustrate the meaning of zaddik. A few years ago, his car’s fuel-injection system was malfunctioning, so he took it to a mechanic who happened to be an orthodox Jewish man. The mechanic listened carefully to the engine, then took apart the fuel injection system, carefully cleaned each individual piece, and put the whole thing back together again. The car worked perfectly now. He closed the hood, and announced with a satisfied smile, “Zaddik!” The fuel injection system and the engine were working precisely as the engineers had created them to work.
It is revealing that the terms “justice” and “righteousness” are so rarely linked. It is that old division in western Christianity between those who advocate a social gospel — the gospel of civil rights, concern for the poor, and social justice — and those who advocate a personal gospel of piety, prayer and high moral conduct.
The days are coming when such a false dichotomy will be forever dispelled. Both justice and righteousness are attributes of God’s reign. They are an essential expression of God’s character. We do not have the luxury of taking our choice. We must have both.
As we go through these Advent and Christmas seasons, remember “The days are coming, says the Lord, when justice and righteousness will prevail.”
It is not enough to think of the peripheral elements of these seasons, like lights, candles, trees, and cookies. We need to think about the very heart of the message — the coming of the Messiah, and with his coming, justice and righteousness, the redemption of society, as well as the redemption of individual souls.
So when we see distress and perplexity, people fainting with fear and foreboding, do not despair. “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:26, 28).
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