Promises Fulfilled

Scripture

Jeremiah 3

Jeremiah 33:14–16 NRSV

The days are surely 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 up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Introduction

Happy New Year! This is the beginning of a new liturgical year for the church. Although I am not a lectionary preacher my sermons are planned around the liturgical year. I am in the lectionary for Advent, but the Old Testament readings or better the Hebrew Bible readings for the today, the 3 following Sundays and Christmas Eve. Don’t worry you will hear the classic Christmas story from Luke, but I’ll be preaching from Isaiah.

There is an explanation of Advent in your bulletin this morning. if you haven’t read it, please take your bulletin home and read it. Now, on to Jeremiah.

Background

Let’s talk about prophets for a second because there is some misunderstanding of what they were. Prophets were not primarily seers. That is there main job was not predicting the future. Prophets were called or commissioned by God to bring a specific message to specific people at a specific point in history. “Thus saith the Lord . . . “ You see it here in verse 14 “The days are surely coming says the Lord” The message interpreted the events through which the people were passing in light of the demands and promises of God to the people. So to be able to interpret the prophets one must know the history of the time. Let’s take a brief look at the history surrounding Jeremiah’s times.

Jeremiah was a prophet before and during the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonians. It was an age of crisis. The Assyrian and Egyptian Empires had been defeated by the Babylonians bringing about a new world order in the ANE dominated by the Babylonians. Judah tried to rebel against being a Babylonian vassal state and this brought the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar down on Judah. Israel, the northern Kingdom had already been laid to wast by the Assyrians sometime before. Nebuchadnezzar laid Judah and Jerusalem to waste. Destroying the temple Solomon built carrying the cream of the Judah society off to captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah lived through all of this with the drama of that time reflected in the book. it was a time of agony for Jeremiah and the Jews. The prophets were trying to understand why God seemingly abandoned the covenants made with Abraham, the land, and David, the monarchy. It looked like God was backing out of his promises. But wait, the title of this sermon is promises fulfilled. Hold on we’ll get to that.

Jeremiah was the prophet before and during the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonians. it was an age of crisis. The Assyrian and Egyptian Empires had been defeated by the Babylonians bringing about a new world order in the ANE dominated by the Babylonians. Judah tried to rebel agains being a Babylonian vassal state and this brought the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar down on Judah. He laid Judah and Jerusalem to waste. Destroying the temple Solomon built carrying the cream of the Judah society off to captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah lived through all of this with the drama of that time reflected in the book. it was a time of agony for Jeremiah and the Jews.

Exegesis

Jeremiah was not popular with the Kings of that time and in fact Jeremiah wrote what we are looking at today under house arrest by King Zedekiah as the Babylonians were laying seige and destroying Jerusalem. In earlier chapters Jeremiah has pronounced the judgement of God on Judah that is being carried out by the Babylonians. The judgment comes for several reasons but it is mainly directed at the political and religious leadership, for a number of reasons. Then in chapters 30-33 he begins to see the day of restoration and return. In fact scholars refer to this section chapters 30-33 as the Book of Comfort or the Book of hope.

Jeremiah foresees a time when God will raise up a righteous King from the line of David. In that day the two kingdoms will be reunited, Israel and Judah, under this righteous branch. The promise that God says will be fulfilled is the promise God made in an oracle back in

Jeremiah 23:5–6 NRSV

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

This is a bold promise! God has not abandoned either covenant made with his people! God will right the wrongs of failed leadership and this new Davidic King will practice justice and righteousness. When this happens Jerusalem and the land will be healed and saved! Ezekiel of course sees this as resurrection when he talks about the dry bones coming alive!

Here’s the thing, though, the captives did come back, the Temple was rebuilt, but it didn’t last long because Alexander the Great came calling and once again Judah is a vassal state and that Davidic King never showed up! After Alexander the Great died his generals divided up his empire. Fast forward to Antiochus Epiphanes who tried to literally wipe out the Jewish people. The Maccabees defeated Antiochus of which the celebration of Hannukah is all about which starts today. I tell you this, because it is during this time that Jewish scholars started seeing these scripture about this righteous King as the Messiah to come! And today as Christians we too understand the strand of theology contained in the prophets to be about Jesus Christ, the messiah.

and will right the worngs

Isaiah 11:1–16 NRSV

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a signal for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, the hostility of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be hostile towards Ephraim. But they shall swoop down on the backs of the Philistines in the west, together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put forth their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt; and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching wind; and will split it into seven channels, and make a way to cross on foot; so there shall be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that is left of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Isaiah 11:1-16

Zechariah 3:8 NRSV

Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch.

Zechariah 6:12 NRSV

say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch: for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.

Zecharia

Application

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Well what does this have to do with us today and with Christmas? First, it has nothing at all to do with Christmas. This isn’t about a little baby born in Bethlehem. This is about a full grown, adult, messiah King. Advent isn’t about Christmas, Christmas doesn’t start till Dec.24. Advent is similar to lent in that we are preparing ourselves more for the second arrival of Jesus than the first.

The prophetic literature we will be reading from the next 4 weeks point to the importance of waiting, anticipating, and trusting in a promised future that seems removed from our current circumstance. Look around, doesn’t it seem that the barbarians are at the gate. Politicians that don’t serve anything but themselves to stay in power. A war that won’t end in Afghanistan. GM closing plants and laying off a bunch of people. Russia up to their old tricks. Did you know, for Americans, our average life expectancy has dropped again? Why? Deaths from Suicide and drug overdoses.

From 2016 to 2017, life expectancy in the US ticked down again. The leading causes, once again, are more deaths from drug overdoses and suicides. The estimate of how long a person born in 2017 can expect to live in the United States is 78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2016, a trio of new government reports say. The troubling stats should be "a wake-up call" for the nation, says CDC Director Robert Redfield. Overdose deaths hit a new high last year, topping 70,000, while the suicide rate increased by 3.7%, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics reports.

But God promises us an alternative future, that is here but not yet. Jeremiah is anticipating a time when failed leadership in both politics and religious life leads to us living together in safety, peace, and righteousness.

Jeremiah 33:17–18 NRSV

For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time.

Jeremiah 33:17-

On Christmas Eve we look back to the birth of the Messianic king, the Sunday prior we look forward to the ultimate promises fulfilled when that baby boy all grown up ushers in the reign of God. it is fitting that we celebrate Eucharist today which looks forward to these things!

Scholar Daniel Hawk writes this:

“The vision of the future beyond the contemporary horizon, therefore, calls the people of God to look beyond the present moment with its violence, disintegration, and failed leadership, to the restorative end toward which the Lord is moving.”

here are the promises:

God’s reign is coming

God’s reign is already present in Jesus Christ, the righteous brance

The future is now.

Take hope! God’s promises will be fulfilled! In those days the world will be a new creation and the land will be saved. It will literally be heaven on earth.

Jeremiah has pronounced the judgement of God on Judah being carried out by the Babylonians. Then in chapters 30-33 he begins to see the day of restoration and return.