Love God, Serve People, Make Disciples
As I have said, I have been going through Jeremiah chapter by chapter this year. I have now come to the final chapter. So how does one of greatest and most influential books in the Bible end? With a ringing denunciation of the wicked kings and their ‘high places of Baal’? With a prophecy against godless nations, inscribed with a ‘pen of iron’? Or maybe with an inspiring vision of the remnant of Israel coming back to Zion?
Well… er… no, actually. It ends with an elderly former king tucking into his lunch [chapter 52: 31-34].
King Jehoiachin’s father Jehoiakim had resisted King Nebuchadnezzar and was killed. As a young man of eighteen, after a reign of only three months, Jehoiachin was taken into exile. Not a great start. He survived, but spent the next thirty seven years in a Babylonian prison. As he left, the words of Jeremiah proclaimed that he was being “plucked hence” by God, was being “given into the hand of them whose face thou fearest” [chapter 22: 24-30]. Oh dear. But then, when he was in his mid-fifties, a new king took over and he freed Jehoiachin from prison, gave him fresh clothes, and allowed him to eat bread in the new king’s court for the rest of his life. As an extra, he had a greater seat of honour than the other former kings ho seem to have been with him. One commentator calls this “a bright moment” in a story of darkness and pain: “It is a shaft of sunlight on the darkling plain, and it lift the reader [of Jeremiah] after a long day’s journey through the valley”.
Life can be difficult and painful, but God gives us ordinary moments of happiness and enjoyment. Jehoiachin wasn’t carried back to Jerusalem in triumph to be placed on a golden throne, but he did have some comfortable clothes and nice things to eat. Simple pleasures- God’s merciful gift to him. This year of Covid, and with many other difficult things for people, has helped many people to notice and value ordinary things.
I wonder if the last verses of Jeremiah are God’s subtle way of preparing us for his Messiah, who shared everyday things with everyday people? Christmas is also really about the deep meaning of ordinary things that are not really ‘ordinary’ at all. Yes, the big moments will come; but gratitude for everyday blessings- “every day a portion” [verse 34]- gifts in the midst of less than ideal circumstances- are important for the king of Judah and for us.
Great things can lie hidden among these ordinary things, too. Little did he know it as he munched his ‘daily portion’ of bread, but Jehoiachin [spelled ‘Jeconiah’] made it into the New Testament, and into the first verses- as an ancestor of Joseph, the husband of Mary [Matthew 1:11].
Lord Jesus, you have set us in the midst of a world of loss and pain, and also of moments of joy. By coming among us, you share this with us. Help us to see and thank you for your gifts and promise to us in everything, just as you thanked your Father for all His gifts and promise to you;that we may share in your all of your life: both as you shared bread with those you knew, and as you will “come with the clouds… as the sun shineth in his strength” [Revelation 1: 7 and 16].
Amen
