In 2008 we went to China to watch the Olympics. Our two children were 10 and 8 and it really was a once-in-a-lifetime family holiday. When we first visited the main stadium – the ‘Bird’s Nest’ – I remember thinking, ‘It’s like a temple!’ At the Olympics, the flame, the oath, the hymn, the opening ceremony provide ritual and cult which are simply not present in other athletics events. The Olympics exalt health, maybe beauty, certainly human achievement. Where’s the line between celebrating achievement, and idolising it?
In the time of the prophets, it was easy to spot when people were following other gods. People had idols at home. They had shrines in high places. They might put up an Asherah pole. Today, our ‘gods’ don’t look like gods. But they’re still there. Science and technology, money, a charismatic leader, material possessions, an expensive car, success and achievement, health, beauty, recognition are all things which – for some people – are ‘gods.’ They give them time and money; put their trust in them; approach them with almost religious veneration.
Today we move from Isaiah to Jeremiah. By number of words Jeremiah is the longest book in the Bible. If you took all of Paul’s letters, from Romans to Philemon, you would only just have more words than Jeremiah. Jeremiah had the unenviable task of prophesying Jerusalem’s destruction not long before it happened. The answer to ‘Why God judged?’ is unmistakeable in Jeremiah. God tells Jeremiah at the beginning, and he tells him consistently all the way through.
In Jeremiah chapter 1 God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet and he tells him why he is calling him to that task:
And I will declare my judgements against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshipped the works of their own hands (1:16).
This is the only charge God mentions when he calls Jeremiah. Without doubt there was injustice and shedding of innocent blood in Jerusalem. People even sacrificed their own children. But this is the charge God consistently makes, all through Jeremiah. Let’s have one more example:
And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law…’ 16:10-11.
Look at 5:19 and 22:8-9 if you want other examples – and there are plenty more. The people of Jeremiah’s day seem surprised, shocked even! Surely, they had not been guilty of terrible sins? But it was not necessary for them to be guilty of crimes against humanity for God’s judgement to fall on them.
The sins that brought God’s wrath on his people in 587 or 586 B.C. are not very different to the sins we see in the world today. By and large, people have abandoned God and turned to other gods. If such sins were sufficient for God’s judgement to fall on the Israelites of Jeremiah’s day, we should assume they are sufficient for God’s judgement to fall on the world today.
Poor old Jeremiah. It wasn’t a nice message to give. But initially, there was a way out for the people of Jeremiah’s day. It was repentance.
Have a good day!
Simon
