Jeremiah 29

Groaning

Posted on by Betsy

Romans 8:18-27 (NIV)

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Did you notice that Paul mentioned groaning three times in this short passage? Creation groans in labor pains, we groan in suffering, and the Spirit groans wordlessly within us. There is more groaning here than a teenager being told to go clean his room! But Paul is acknowledging the truth of our reality. 

All of creation groans in a state of declining decay as it waits for the time when Jesus returns and ushers in the New Eden. We weren’t meant for this temporal life. We were designed for fellowship with God in the garden. But after the fall, all of that changed and it has been God’s long range plan, through Jesus, to return us to an Edenlike place of dwelling with him; a place we refer to as heaven. We see Paul looking at this hope. 

I love the fact that Paul said that creation is groaning not in the last throes of death, but in childbirth. Labor pains mean life. Labor pains are a short-term suffering that ends in the beauty of a new creation. This new creation that God will bring will be void of pollution, catastrophic storms, and extreme temperatures. It will be a place where the lion lays down with the lamb, as God intended from the beginning. All creatures great and small will live together in harmony. When we join Paul in his vision, we, too can look past our current pain and suffering of this present earth and anticipate a time when Eden will be restored.

The groaning that occurs through humanity is how we express our exasperation over having to wait for our final “adoption” as children of God who look toward a future redemption of mind, spirit, and body. And see, you thought all your groaning was due to knees that ache, back twinges, and not being able to get off the floor anymore! But really, it’s your soul just groaning for that soon-to-come resurrection body. 

So when Paul used the language of “adoption” to describe the startling, new relationship enjoyed by followers of Jesus, he was speaking to an educated audience. First-century Romans, Jews and Gentiles knew what were the privileges and perks that came with the status of being legally “adopted.” Proclaiming Jesus’ disciples to be true “children of God,” and including them into the scheme of God’s salvation by virtue of a “spirit of adoption,” had real legal realities for Paul’s audience, especially the Gentiles who were previously excluded.

As adoptees, we can anticipate an inheritance as “the glory about to be revealed to us” and “the redemption of our bodies”. Paul writes about our inheritance of the kingdom of God in many of his letters. So yes, we groan through days of disappointment and despair that we experience in the here and now, but our groaning is really toward something yet to come that we can’t even see yet.

Now, let me ask you a question: Have you ever been so distraught and overcome that you didn’t even know how to pray? I have. I have sometime only been able to muster “Help me, help me” as I sigh and groan in my angst. So when Paul wrote “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” we can feel the immediate release of our stress and tension, knowing that the Spirit has taken over our need and our petition. We can come out from the confusion that blots everything out and see clearly that God has a plan.

And God does have a plan.

Are you groaning today? Remember God’s goodness is everlasting, and he has designed a better life for us at the end.

Waiting Patiently by Kathy Schumacher

A Future With Hope

Posted on by Betsy

Batman and Robin decided to go camping. They set up their tent out in the woods and went to sleep. A couple of hours later, Batman woke his faithful friend. “Robin, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.” Robin, who is used to these midnight lessons, replied, “I see millions of stars.” “What does that tell you?” asked Batman. Robin pondered for a minute. “Well, astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, it appears to be about 3:15AM. Theologically, it’s evident that God is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant.”

“Why?” continued Robin. “What does it tell you, Batman?” Batman is silent for a moment, then speaks. “Robin, you’re an idiot. It means somebody stole our tent while we were sleeping.”

How many of you grew up watching the television show “Batman?” Batman began as a comic book, evolved to TV, and is the recent subject of several new movies. This story is first told in a twelve-frame comic strip in 1939 in issue #27 of Detective Comics. Bruce Wayne and his parents were walking home from the theater when an armed robber accosted them. His father stepped in front of his mother and took a bullet. Then the gunman turned the gun on his mother while Bruce watched. The robber ran away, leaving Bruce standing over his dead parents. His guilt and life-long suffering over standing by helplessly while his parents were murdered turns the boy Bruce Wayne into the superhero crime-fighter Batman. He dedicated his life to stopping criminals and defending the weak.

Batman’s life is a statement about how we can use suffering to give us purpose and to make us stronger while we wait on an unknown future that is way off on the horizon. This little story is also a reminder that sometimes you have to get out from under the tent to truly see what is on the horizon.

Jeremiah 29:11 (New Revised Standard Version)

11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet who served God during a time of great discord in Israel. He was called to warn the kingdom of Judah about the coming destruction by the Babylonians. God was allowing this to happen due to Israel’s apostasy. Even with this impending doom, Jeremiah had the ability to see beyond the immediate to the future with hope.

I am reminded of a story one of my pastors told about the first time he took his 6 year old daughter on a cruise ship. As they made their way out to sea, she looked left to right and then right to left and exclaimed, “Oh Daddy! I can see as far as I can look!” Her first view of an unlimited horizon was breathtaking.

So should ours be.

God has prepared an unlimited horizon for us that includes a resurrection body, a new Eden, peace, and fellowship with him. So no matter what troubles you today, look up! See the stars. Watch the horizon. Be encouraged. This life is not all there is.

Get out from under your tent.

Unlimited Horizon by Michelle Robertson

To-Do Lists

Posted on by Betsy

In the year A.D. 403 a 16-year-old Christian boy from Wales was abducted by pirates and taken to Ireland where he was enslaved for five years. Eventually he escaped from this exile and joined a monastery in southern France. There he changed his name to Patrick and intended to live out his life as a monk.

But at the age of 45, God called Patrick to return to Ireland and carry the gospel to his former oppressors. Patrick went and invested the remainder of his life in serving the Irish. During the next 31 years he baptized more than 120,000 people as Christians.

In Ireland they still say of Patrick that “he found Ireland all heathen and he left it all Christian.” The church made him a saint.

While he was in his Irish exile, St. Patrick prayed for his enemies. He prayed for the prosperity of the land where he was trapped. In that exile, St. Patrick evangelized a nation. In his exile, he GOT TO WORK.

Our passage today is a letter to the Hebrew exiles in Babylon written by the prophet Jeremiah, who remained in Jerusalem. They must have been excited to receive a letter from home in their strange and foreign land! I imagine they were hoping to catch up on all the news and maybe receive a word of encouragement about God’s imminent deliverance.

Instead, they got a to-do list.

Jeremiah 29  (New International Version)

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. It said:

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

Wait, come again? We’re stuck here waiting for rescue and you want us to settle down? Build houses? Marry off our children?? 

To the estranged and hopeless diaspora, this letter must have come as quite a shock. Then it gets worse.

 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

So in the midst of their despair, Jeremiah instructs them to pray for their oppressor. To pray for their unwanted city. To pray for the people who are holding them captive. And in thus praying, they would also seek peace.

This abrupt message to the exiles is a good lesson for us today. Our communities live in exiles of their own making based on political divisions that have eroded our oneness. We don’t love our neighbors like we used to, based on the flags they fly and the bumper stickers they sport. Many are estranged from their extended families and even our water cooler chats at work are fraught with danger. What to do?

Build. 

Plan. 

Adapt. 

Pray. 

Seek peace in places that you aren’t expecting to find it.

Get to work!

At the appointed time, the exiles were returned to the comfort of their homes. At the appointed time, we too will be delivered from our political exiles. In the meantime, get to work on evangelizing like Patrick, planning like Jeremiah, and loving like Jesus.

Ospreys at Work by Michelle Robertson

Get to Work

Posted on by Betsy

In the year A.D. 403 a 16-year-old Christian boy from Wales was abducted by pirates and taken to Ireland where he was enslaved for five years. Eventually he escaped from this exile and joined a monastery in southern France. There he changed his name to Patrick and intended to live out his life as a monk.

But at the age of 45, God called Patrick to return to Ireland and carry the gospel to his former oppressors. Patrick went and invested the remainder of his life in serving the Irish. During the next 31 years he baptized more than 120,000 people as Christians.

In Ireland they still say of Patrick that “he found Ireland all heathen and he left it all Christian.” The church made him a saint.

While he was in his Irish exile, St. Patrick prayed for his enemies. He prayed for the prosperity of the land where he was trapped. In that exile, St. Patrick evangelized a nation. In his exile, he GOT TO WORK.

Our passage today is a letter to the Hebrew exiles in Babylon written by the prophet Jeremiah, who remained in Jerusalem. They must have been excited to receive a letter from home in their strange and foreign land! I imagine they were hoping to catch up on all the news and maybe receive a word of encouragement about God’s imminent deliverance.

Instead, they got a to-do list.

Jeremiah 29  (New International Version)

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. It said:

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

Wait, come again? We’re stuck here waiting for rescue and you want us to settle down? Build houses? Marry off our children??

To the estranged and hopeless diaspora, this letter must have come as quite a shock. Then it gets worse.

 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

So in the midst of their despair, Jeremiah instructs them to pray for their oppressor. To pray for their unwanted city. To pray for the people who are holding them captive. And in thus praying, they would also seek peace.

This abrupt message to the exiles is a good lesson for us today. The pandemic has come with an exile of its own. We can’t live life as we normally do. We are estranged from our extended families, we can’t travel, we are stuck in our homes, and we’re about ready to run out of Netflix. What to do?

Build.

Plan.

Adapt.

Pray.

Seek peace in places that you aren’t expecting to find it.

GET TO WORK.

At the appointed time, the exiles were returned to the comfort of their homes. At the appointed time, we too will be delivered from our pandemic exile. In the meantime, get to work on evangelizing like Patrick, planning like Jeremiah, and loving like Jesus.

We are one day closer to the end of this thing. Thanks be to God!

Finding Peace in a Distant Land by Mona Tice