Sometimes Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.” His message is one that promises judgment and devastation upon Judah and the surrounding nations for their entrenched wickedness. Even so, his vision still offers glimpses of hope.
25: The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah (that was the first year of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon), 2 which the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 3 For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.
29: For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile...
Jeremiah’s vision sees the restoration of Israel/Judah but he also envisions a day when the Lord’s ultimate goal of Shalom will be accomplished.
31: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,[w] says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Charlotte’s Living in The Story blog for this week ponders Mark 3. Consider how our human cycles of compassion and apathy, of righteousness and self-righteousness continue. The Christian Hope looks back to Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant, is grounded in Christ’s enactment of the new covenant and looks forward to its final fulfillment and completion.
https://livinginthestory.com/2017/10/righteous-anger/
