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9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
- Jeremiah 1:9-10
One of my dad’s favorite books of the Bible was Jeremiah. Whenever I would call him for advice, one pastor to another, he’d frequently invite me to read the book of Jeremiah again. Jeremiah was a young man called by God to prophecy to Israel as the nation faced its end. We might think things in America are bad with our divisions over race and party and COVID. Yet all of this pales compared to Israel’s situation in the days of Jeremiah. Assyria had already carried off the northern tribes and now Babylon was the new power to fear, casting its greedy eyes upon Jerusalem. Jeremiah 1 is God’s call and ordination of Jeremiah to be a prophet in those dark times. Jeremiah isn’t thrilled about his calling. He would be the one to pronounce bad news, and judgment to Israel. His words would be wildly unpopular. In fact Jeremiah would be ignored, threatened, tossed into a cistern (and more) for the prophecies he would give. Yet Jeremiah would learn that the word from God overrules the bearer of the word from God. He testifies later in the book that when he tried to keep God’s word within him, bundled up, he felt like he was about to burst aflame! He couldn’t keep it in even when he tried. God’s word changes the course of history and cannot be resisted by prophet or king. And God’s word can be hard and dangerous. Notice the six verbs found in verse 10: ‘pluck up’, ‘break down’, ‘destroy’, ‘overthrow’, ‘build’, ‘plant.’ The first four are negative, and the last two are positive. These verbs describe God’s way with nations. The negative verbs assert that no government, social structure, defense scheme or political policy can save a community when it is under God’s judgment. The two positive verbs assert that God can also create newness even out of nothing, out of chaos and despair. When it comes to human history, God alone has the ability to bring endings and new beginnings. The entire book of Jeremiah is about the ending of an era in Jerusalem and the promise of a new Jerusalem, all brought about by God’s word. In the gospel of John, Jesus clears the temple of money changers and famously proclaimed, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up again in three days.” Jesus was speaking about the temple and religious establishment of Israel, but he was obviously also talking about his own death and resurrection. In order for Jesus to do a new thing, the old needed to die. For Jeremiah and Jesus the same truth rules: the Lord takes away and the Lord gives, blessed be the name of the Lord.
What a blessing to remember in these days of ‘new normal.’ There is so much about our life that is lost, that we miss, and might not come back. It is good to know that even as we mourn and lament the loss of the ‘old normal’ we loved, God might be ‘overthrowing’ it or ‘breaking it down’ so that He can ‘build’ or ‘plant’ something new, something better. ~ Pastor Joel