Hear
Jeremiah: You are my Comforter in sorrow,
My heart is faint within me.
Listen to the cry of my people
from a land far away:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King no longer there?”
The LORD: “Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?”
The People: “The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”
Jeremiah: Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.
From Jeremiah 18:1-8, 9:1 NIV
God is asking why in anguish--and the people do not hear and do not answer. The Lord’s questioning cry is left hanging.
“Why? Why? Why have they aroused my anger?”
“What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?” (Isaiah 5:4).
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?” (Isaiah 5:4).
The people are asking why in anguish--”Why is the harvest gone and we are not saved? Why hasn’t he come? Is the Lord not in Zion? Has he left?” Nor do they hear the Lord’s answer in all fifty-two chapters of Jeremiah’s book.
Two conversations, speaking past each other.
The prophet, torn in the middle, hearing both. The prophet, the living voice of God speaking the heart of God into the people’s blindness and deafness. They had turned their hearts to the darkness, and had consequently become blind. Deaf. There is a horror that gripped Jeremiah, that grips us, when heaven and earth talk past each other. When the gut-pit cries of earth are never launched heavenward and heaven’s answers are unheard.
Today, this word rips poignantly across the centuries on two accounts. One, we live in a culture that is asking in anguish many whys, but who have turned their hearts to the muffling darkness. Two, it is a question that slips into our Christian circles as well: does God hear us, and can we hear him?
Where Jeremiah was unable to bridge--steps in Jesus.
Jesus, who wept with all the horror and with as many tears of Jeremiah over Jerusalem and the people who had sealed ears: “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41).
To our world, Jesus is the translated message from heaven to earth. Jesus, the message of life to a world, who is actively at work plundering the darkness and opening ears (Col. 1:13-14; 1 Thess. 1:5).
To the fearful children of God, Jesus gives his Spirit, where God, very God, communicates himself and his answer, who opens our spiritual language box to hear the words of God.
Do not be afraid our world is lost. Jesus is the greater prophet still at work, who hears the pain and sees the joy of salvation.
Do not be afraid he will not speak. He spoke, even to deaf Israel. He still speaks.
Do not be afraid you will not hear. He has given you his own ears and his own heart in the Spirit, to hear the words of God. God himself is your translator of God through God--from the Father, to the Son through the Spirit.
What a conversation--where God descends to wrap it in himself. We are heard, and can hear in God.
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