Have you ever had the burden of bringing terrible news to someone? I don’t mean when you tell someone, “I have good news and bad news, what do you want to hear first?” I am talking about a situation where all the news is bad, and you know that simply hearing the news is going to a foundational and unforgettably painful moment in the life of the one receiving it. I will never forget a moment like that when I was an intern chaplain at a hospital as part of my training to become a pastor. I was called down to the ER where I met an EMT who quickly walked me to a family room. In the 20 to 30 seconds that it took to get there, she told me that the family was hearing from the doctor that their loved one died in the ambulance from a sudden and major heart attack. I had no other info, but she opened the door and in I walked to meet a family whose world was being shaken like a snow globe.
Jeremiah received a call from God to be a prophet in the most difficult time in his people’s history. Not only was Jeremiah given the task of bearing bad news, but his job is to tell them that the destruction to come is their fault. At the church where I grew up there was a very sweet family that was very active at the church. One night after our confirmation program their middle school daughter ran to her father’s minivan as he was pulling up to the church’s door to pick her up. A terrible combination of several small variables meant that she slid under his wheels before he could stop. She sustained life-altering permanent injuries and her fight for healing was matched with his fight to keep the guilt of running over his daughter from destroying his spirit. He did everything he could to avoid what happened, and he would have given his life for his daughter to regain the full use of her legs, but that trauma became a watershed moment for the whole family.
There is a parallel and a stark contrast from Jeremiah’s audience, the people of Judah, who are deliberately killing their children as sacrifices to the fake gods they have made. This behavior is hard for me to fathom, and I can’t imagine the heartbreak of God who created and loves every single person as his own child. Whenever I struggle to accept the wrath of God, I remember that this is the kind of thing he is responding to, and he acts in order to put these things to an end. It can be hard to reconcile God’s anger with the grace we see in Jesus, but can God be gracious and good if he sits idlily while watching infanticide?
Jeremiah is stuck in the middle. He receives terrible news from God, and then must deliver it to the people. The people absolutely shoot the messenger, and he has to bear the brunt of their anger and disdain for God. At this point in the story it seems like things couldn’t get any worse and there is no reason to hope. In times like these it is important to remember that this is the middle of the story, not the end. For those of us who have read Jeremiah we see a glimpse in our reading that others will miss; 18:11 mirrors a famous verse later in the book that is brimming with hope, Jeremiah 29:11. God is always working to make things new—to overcome wickedness with good, and that is the heart behind even the harshest verses in Scripture.
Lord God, What little I know of the wickedness of this world makes me shutter. I know that the full depth of it would crush me, but you know it all, and you bear it all; that is what the cross is all about. Thank you for your patience, your grace, and even the wrath that comes only because the wickedness is so deep. Amen.
Questions for reflections:
- Have you ever had to be the bearer of bad news? Do you feel like you handled it well?
- Have there been times when you avoided a topic because it was too hard or awkward, or because you were worried about someone’s reaction?
- Read ahead to Jeremiah 29:11, and compare it with Jeremiah 18:11. How do you reconcile God’s two opposing plans? What do you think God’s response to be when things have gotten so bad that people are sacrificing their children to idols?