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Imagine the headline “God wants to destroy the church!” Most of us would be up in arms. If I preached that in some churches, I would doubt whether they would let me finish. Yet this is the message which Jeremiah is asked to preach. He stands before the people of Israel and tells them that if they want to be a part of God’s future, if they want to be in the place of God’s blessing, they have to leave the Promised Land behind (Jer 24). In other words, to know the blessing of God, they would have to let go of a blessing they had already been given. They would have to leave behind the Promised Land, leave behind the temple, leave behind the palace where memories of David and Solomon crossed their minds every time they saw the palace. They would not only leave behind the place where the stories of the heroes of faith were lived, they would need to embrace something which would generally be regarded as the antithesis of everything that they stood for as the people of God - submission to the rulers of Babylon, where they would be taken in exile. Jeremiah was not a popular man for preaching this message. They wanted to kill him. But… Jeremiah was convinced that the people had held so tightly to the blessing which God had given them in the past, they had crushed its meaning. It was like the manna served in the desert – if it was held on to for too long, it would turn rancid. The only way to experience the fresh manna was to let go of the one already held.
Posted by gary at March 18, 2006 10:06 PM
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