It’s November 4, the day after Election Day, and nothing is settled. All the tension which preceded the election is unresolved as we wait for more votes to counted in a handful of states. For those who care deeply about the results, it feels impossible to relax. And whatever the outcome, it seems as if unrest, rather than rest, is likely.
As we read together the last portion of Jeremiah, chapters 37 to 52, we encounter a time of great unrest in Judah. In the first, prose section, we find the narrative of Jeremiah’s dealings with the people of Jerusalem and their last king, Zedekiah, during the conquest and occupation by Babylon. Jeremiah himself was bounced around in various sorts of imprisonment, including being dropped into the mud at the bottom of a cistern. No rest for that prophet.
Zedekiah and the well-to-do of Jerusalem measure their options, including an escape to Egypt, but Jeremiah prophesies that there is no true refuge for them. Even when Zedekiah attempts escape and is captured, and it seems the city might enjoy a brief respite under a Babylonian appointed governor, rest is short-lived. A scheming noble court official assassinates that governor, bringing down the wrath of Babylon and causing the rest of the nobility to flee to Egypt after all, dragging Jeremiah with them. Jeremiah correctly prophesies that the Babylonians will show up there in Egypt as well. There’s no rest for anyone in those first months of the Babylonian conquest and Jewish exile.
The remainder of Jeremiah after those narratives is mostly a collection of poetic oracles against various nations, making it clear that Judah is merely one of a number of nations to be judged by Babylonian conquest. There is no rest even in surrounding countries. Then there is a long oracle against Babylon itself. God declares that it, in turn, would be judged and conquered. At that time, approximately 70 years from Babylon’s first incursions in to Judah, Jews in Babylon will be able to return and seek rest at home once again.
In the small passage I’ve selected from the start of that oracle against Babylon, the beginning of chapter 50, page 297 in Prophets in the Immerse series we are reading, Jeremiah uses the familiar image of sheep, lost sheep, to describe the plight of the exiles. Up until then, they could not find their way home, but ultimately God will bring them back.
I’m taking the sermon title and theme from a taunt in verse 7 which Jeremiah puts on the lips of the Babylonians toward Judah,
We did nothing wrong in attacking them,
for they sinned against the Lord,
their true place of rest,
and the hope of their ancestors.
It’s a word to all God’s people in all tumultuous, restless times. We must not sin against the Lord by forgetting where our true rest is, what our real hope is, received from those who have gone before us. If biblical history makes anything clear, it is that all the governments of this world will be judged and found wanting and ultimately brought down. If we try to rest in one of those human power structures, we are bound to be disappointed. Our true place of rest is the Lord. Let’s haul our sheepish selves back to His pastures.