Our Suffering Saviour

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Journey along with me today. Let’s begin by imagining for a moment that you wear the shoes of Jeremiah the prophet, beginning with God’s call for him in Jeremiah 1.

You are Jeremiah. Unexpectedly, God spoke to you and told you that He has known you since before your birth, and that He has called you to be a prophet! You’re surprised, shocked, apprehensive, and maybe even a bit afraid. And besides, you’re so young and you are not a gifted speaker. But God spoke, reassuring you that He will be with you and you need not fear. Then again, later, God spoke to you again, assuring you and encouraging you with powerful words of strength and might. God will make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land! They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for the Lord is with you to deliver you.

What an incredible and holy calling! God will strengthen and provide for you, give you the words you need, and protect you from the nations you are sent out to preach to.

Then, God sends you out to proclaim judgment upon the nations, who are committed to idolatry and self-centered lifestyles. You are sent to proclaim destruction and desolation, drought and death, condemnation and justice. On one occasion, God sends you to a crazy place near a valley where children have been sacrificed to pagan gods (Jeremiah 19-20) Yeesh. To these people, you proclaim that God has said that He is going to bring disaster upon their city and their towns.

How do you think the people will respond? With repentance? With sorrow? With a broken and contrite heart? Nah. Instead, the priest has you beaten and flogged and thrown into the stocks to be humiliated and mocked by your captors.

Huh. So this is what you get for obeying God and proclaiming the Words that He has given you.

This brings us to Sunday’s reading, where we hear Jeremiah cry out to God, “o Lord, you have deceived me!” God, you called me to be a prophet! You called me a fortified city with iron pillars and bronze walls! You said that the nations would not prevail against me! Where is my defense now? What’s the plan here for delivering me? You have deceived me. Jeremiah has been coined “the weeping prophet”. For forty years, Jeremiah prophesied to an unrepentant nation. What a difficult, heartbreaking call to receive.

Although we do not all have the call to be a prophet, and none of us has the same call that Jeremiah had, each of us has been called by Christ to be His follower. Even though the call we have to follow Christ is different than Jeremiah’s call, in a lot of ways, it bears a striking resemblance. Jesus warns the disciples in Matthew of all kinds of persecution and rejection, including men who will send them over to be flogged. And it is here that we hear one of the scariest Scriptures in the whole Bible. “Brother will deliver brother over to death, the father his child, and children will rise against parents and put them to death, and you will be hated by all for name’s sake.”

Members of your own family will reject the Gospel and will reject you because you bear it. Our own families will be torn apart by Jesus. This divisive Word of God.

Do you feel deceived? This is no ‘prosperity gospel’. This is no watered-down “follow Jesus and your life will get so much better!” This is the reality of what it is to be a follower of Christ. This is the divisiveness of the Gospel, which is joy and life for those who are in Christ, but is offensive and bitter for those who reject him.

So I’ve got some big questions for you to ponder. Why follow Jesus? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to say, “To hell with that! (pun intended) I’m gonna live my life how I want!” Wouldn’t it be so much easier to avoid discomfort, mocking, strained conversations, and division in your family? Why bother?

When Jeremiah wanted to stop speaking God’s name, the Word burned like fire within his bones. 

Even in the midst of his lament, he proclaimed, “Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.”

God has spoken truth and life to us. God promised to protect Jeremiah and give him the words he needed. Likewise, Jesus told the disciples that when they are brought into the courts and dragged before governors and kings, they need not worry about what they should say. “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Jesus Christ suffered ultimately as the Word of God. The suffering of the saints points to Christ, our Suffering Saviour, who was rejected, mocked, beaten, flogged, humiliated, hung upon a cross, and died the most terrible of deaths. They hated Him. They hated the Word. And they killed Him for it. It brought division and persecution, and it still does today.

But Christ rose from the dead victorious to conquer death. The world has no power over those who are in Christ. They can mock, torture, and even kill, but their killing has no power, for they can only kill the body, but not the soul.

The Holy Spirit burns within us, bringing truth and life and forgiveness, delivering to us Christ, comforting us, supplying all that we need, and reminding us of the promises that we have in Christ Jesus, our Suffering Saviour, who goes before us, behind us, and with us in all trials and tribulations. 

God has revealed Truth to us in His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. It is a beautiful and difficult and wonderful and sorrowful journey to be a follower of Christ. But my oh my, is it ever good. We hope and trust in the coming of the Kingdom of God, where Christ will rule in fullness, and all persecution, division, suffering, and pain will be erased, and we will live and dwell with Christ forever in our resurrected bodies. What an incredible promise of hope and life!

Is your brain turning? May God open our hearts and minds to hear His Word and understand it as we wrestle with the difficult truths of the Gospel, while at the same time being comforted and renewed through this powerful, holy Word of grace, life, love, and mercy. Join us for worship this Sunday with your thoughts, questions, fears, joys, and worries, as we dig into the text deeper and are fed through this Word, strengthened in faith, comforted in truth, and equipped for the journey.

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