The Seventh Sunday after Trinity

Jesse Jacobsen

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Last modified: (Sat Jul 9 22:48:02 2005)

Jeremiah 31:23–25

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “They shall again use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I bring back their captivity: `The LORD bless you, O home of justice, and mountain of holiness!' And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all its cities together, farmers and those going out with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

Of His fullness we have all received

In 1995, Kate Adamson survived a stroke, and now has a career as an inspirational speaker. Right after her stroke, she was paralyzed and declared to be in a persistent vegetative state. That's pretty scary. But even worse, she was fully conscious, able to hear and understand everything around her. She felt severe hunger that she says was more like pain. Slowly, God restored her speech and the use of her limbs.

It reminds me of what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He lived around 600 BC, and through the prophet Daniel, he described an amazing thing that God did to him in fulfillment of a dream he had. “He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.” Afterward, he wrote, “At the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever.” Quite different from Kate Adamson's experience, yet it also shows that God is the source of every good thing we have.

Sometimes we are satisfied, but sometimes we are hungry for something more. We may even hunger as fiercely as Kate Adamson hungered for food. How can we remember at such a time that God provides for us? What can we rely upon to get us through? One thing will help, if we remember it: God's promise to us. Jeremiah was writing for the people of Judah who had been carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar's army. He was writing for people like the prophet Daniel. Life was hard for them. They were severely homesick. But in our text, Jeremiah wrote a promise from God that the captivity will end, and life in Judah will be restored. Their hunger will be filled.

For a lifetime the Jews lived in Babylon, and for that lifetime they were fed spiritually with promises like this one. It might not seem like much, but neither does seven loaves of bread to four thousand hungry people. Yet God can do quite a bit with very little. In Jesus Christ, God promises to satisfy our needs, and to restore us as His people. This is a promise we can trust in our lifetime, though it's usually not easy. Our theme is taken from John Chapter 1: “Of His fullness we have all received.” Part 1: The grace of God's Son is sufficient. Part 2: The restoration of God's people is complete.

The grace of God's Son is sufficient

The captives taken to Babylon had a hard time of it. Their words must have been bitter. They must have thought, from time to time, that God had abandoned them. So these words of Jeremiah meant something special. They sounded unlikely at the time, but as Jeremiah said, “thus saith the LORD.” He said, “They shall again use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I bring back their captivity: `The LORD bless you, O home of justice, and mountain of holiness!' ” This was God's promise to them as they began a new life in captivity.

It might seem cruel to you that God would give such a promise without actually delivering them until many years later. But it wasn't cruel. God had a purpose for His people being in Babylon. It was part of His plan. True, it was sometimes hard for them, but in other ways life was not so bad. True, all they had from God was a promise, but that was part of what God was teaching them. It was the same lesson that Jesus spoke to the apostle Paul after he pleaded in prayer that the thorn in his flesh be removed. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

We have also received the same lesson, haven't we? When we hunger for more, but God has not provided what we want, He has nevertheless provided His Word. He reminds us that our own wants and urges are often wrong, and even sinful. But sinful or not, God will provide us all that we need. So through His Word, God has provided us a Savior from sin, and the promise of deliverance from our present captivity in the fallen world. This is the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. This is the grace of God's Son, and He's teaching us to be satisfied with it.

God's promise through Jeremiah predicted that someday in Judah, it would again be said, “The LORD bless you, O home of justice, and mountain of holiness!” That might have sounded strange to you, but think about what it means. In the United States, we say that there is liberty and justice for all. But is that absolutely true? No, it's an ideal, a noble goal. Maybe there's more liberty and justice than most places, but sometimes injustices happen even here. But God predicted the words “O home of justice.” That prediction was not made for us, but for the the Jews in Babylon. Yet He has provided a home of justice for us too, and after a lifetime of captivity on earth, we will dwell there.

In the same way, Jeremiah wrote the words, “mountain of holiness.” We have holy places here on earth. In a way, ground zero in New York is considered sacred. Cemeteries are considered holy places. Even baseball fields and certain other sports arenas are sacred to some people. But the holy mountain of God is sacred all the time, not because we think of it that way, but because He has made it so. We have no such place on earth. The closest we have is in the sanctuaries of Christian churches where God's Word is taught in its purity and His sacraments are administered according to His will. But even those places are only sanctified because of what happens there from time to time, and when the divine service is no longer observed, the place is no longer sacred. But there is a mountain that God has permanently hallowed, because that's where He reigns over all things. On that holy mountain, the new Jerusalem awaits us, our true and eternal home.

All of this, you see, is what we have through Jesus Christ. God's Son provided the answer to all our woes when He shed His holy blood to redeem us from our sins. Of His fullness we have all received, so that the grace of God's Son is sufficient.

The restoration of God's people is complete

Our text continues with Jeremiah's prophecy about the normal activities that will someday resume in Judah. He wrote, “There shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all its cities together, farmers and those going out with flocks.” What a pleasant thought for the captives in Babylon! One day they or their children will hear the bleating of sheep in Judah, as shepherds in freedom take their flocks out upon the hills around Jerusalem. This promise from God was a great encouragement for His people, that they not give up hope, but trust in Him.

But the Jews in Babylon did not only look forward to some future satisfaction. Even while they lived in Babylon, God was feeding them spiritually, and watching over them as His people. Did they lose heart? Most likely some of them did, from time to time. The Babylonians and the Persians afterward thought they were in control of the Jews, not God. The Jews' way of life was changing, and they had to work hard and risk persecution to keep what they had. Yet in the midst of that, God was already providing for all their needs. In fact, His prophecy through Jeremiah said, “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

This is all enlightening for us, too. We may see many sorrows, and we may endure many hardships. We may have to work hard and risk persecution to keep the Word of God in our hearts and mouths. Our hopes and dreams may be focused ultimately upon our true home in heaven. Yet in the midst of all that, God is already providing for our needs. In fact, our salvation is assured, because Jesus has already done everything.

We can say, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” But we have not only received a promise of future blessings. We also have rich blessings in the here-and-now. We not only have a holy mountain and a new Jerusalem in our future, we already have the sweet waters from that mountain in holy Baptism, which now saves us. We look forward to the eternal wedding feast in paradise, but we also have a blessed taste of it even now in the supper of our Lord's body and blood. We have received of His fullness already, for God has already restored us as His people through the redeeming death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

In a way we already have farmers and those going out with flocks, because every Christian's daily work has been sanctified. You might think sometimes that you only perform worldly tasks, which are not very important in the grand scheme of things. But that's not true. As a Christian, your work is noble, worthwhile, and God considers it a service to Him. When the Gospel of Jesus Christ is added to anything in our lives, the evil is purged away, and what remains is well-pleasing to God. It must be so, because Jesus Himself is well-pleasing to God. But His perfection is now yours and mine, and He dwells within us with the Holy Spirit. So our very lives here on earth as Christians are not truly lives of captivity. We may live in a kind of Babylon, but we have already been redeemed. We are free to be children of God.

So live in the knowledge that your sins are forgiven, and you stand righteous before God in Jesus Christ. Of His fullness we have all received, so that the grace of God's Son is sufficient. So that the restoration of God's people is complete. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.