Prophesying Against This City

​2nd Sunday in Lent – C                                                                                  LSB #’s 424, 586, 673
Text – Jeremiah 26:11
 
Then the priests & the prophets said to the officials & to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” 
 
PROPHESYING AGAINST THIS CITY
 
 
If you have a driver’s license,  & a car,  you’ve probably run into this situation.   You’re cruising down the road & suddenly you spot a police car  lying in wait,  in case the officer needs to nab someone who’s flying over the speed limit.   What  is your natural reaction   upon seeing the car?  Is it not  slowing down?   You want to avoid the hassle  & the cost  of being pulled over. 
Ultimately,  laws against speeding are not meant to hassle us,  but to encourage safe driving.   That is a blessing to everyone.   Obviously,  there are differing opinions on what constitutes safe driving.   That’s why traffic court exists.     
If we know how to react  at the sight of a police car,  how much more  should we know  how to react  when we see death  lying in wait?      Have you thought about that?    After all,  that’s what the OT reading  is trying to point out – death is lying in wait  for the people of God.   Jeremiah  is simply trying to encourage  safe living.  
When it comes to speeding tickets,   reflexively   we slow down to avoid the hassle.  When it comes to death lying in wait,  we don’t react in the same logical way.   Instead, we suffer from a knee jerk reaction  against repentance.  From God’s perspective,  our refusal to repent is like seeing the police car  & speeding up instead of slowing down. 
Our knee jerk reaction against repentance  just adds sin  upon sin.   And that’s what Jeremiah was facing as he called the leaders & the people of Jerusalem to repentance.   How did you react to the reading from Jeremiah?   Maybe you can’t recall  ever hearing about the city of Shiloh,  Jeremiah’s reference to which  so upset the prophets,  priests & people  that they demand he be killed.   Are you struggling to understand  why it’s relevant to your life?   The Holy Spirit guided Timothy to give us instruction in that regard: “All Scripture is breathed out by God & profitable for teaching,  for reproof,  for correction,  & for training in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV) 
Since God’s Word tells us that it is relevant to people of God, that they may be complete, listen again to the sermon text: “Then the priests & the prophets said to the officials & to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death,  because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.’”  (Jeremiah 26:11 ESV) 
What the prophets,  priests & people were hearing   as rejection & destruction  was actually given by God as an invitation  to life & hope!  It’s similar to speed limits.  They are put in place as an invitation to drive safely & preserve life,  but we often look at them as  an infringement upon our rights.  We make a choice to regard speed limits  as good   or as evil. 
Jeremiah was warning the people of the punishment that was coming  for their refusal to repent & turn from their evil ways.   Death was lying in wait for them & they looked at Jeremiah’s prophesy as rejection & destruction.  However, they also could have heard his warning  as an invitation to turn back to God in order to have their life renewed. 
We know what happened.  Death was lying in wait, & the people refused to slow down.  They chose to add sin upon sin.  They chose death over life,  & in 586 B.C., Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian army.  God will not allow evil & death to remain forever.  He will act to cleanse His people from sin, but that cleansing entails the death of our sinful nature. 
If that which is evil is removed by repentance,  then God does not need to remove it  with His purifying judgment.  When the Holy Spirit calls us to faith in Jesus, He gives us the means to rid ourselves of sin.  It’s the gift of a repentant heart.  It’s a heart that turns back to God when it realizes  it has chosen death over life.  We practice this on Sunday mornings when we confess our sins & receive God’s forgiveness.  You probably don’t think of it in these terms,  but during confession & absolution,  you are actually rejecting the death that comes with sin  & you are accepting the life that our Father in heaven is renewing  within you. 
It may sound like splitting hairs, but instead of dying with sin,  in Baptism we die to sin, we die to our old sinful nature & we put on the new  saintly nature.  We are living out our baptism every time we do confession & absolution.  St. Paul wrote about that in Romans 6:
“We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death,  in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,  we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”  (6:4-5 ESV) 
When we see death lying in wait for us,  it is always wise to heed the Holy Spirit’s warning.   That’s what the OT reading is about, & it is very relevant to our lives even 2600 years later.   As we think of the people who were suffering the pain of loss in Jeremiah’s day,  it is wise to “slow down” & consider our own sinfulness,  & our own desperate need for salvation. 
When we realize these things, we should not delay repentance, any more than we should blow past the highway patrol at ninety miles an hour  & hope the officer doesn’t notice.  It’s not healthy to abuse God’s grace & try His patience.  Rather, we call out to God in confession that we might receive the gift of forgiveness, & true life, every moment  of every day.  
The season of Lent is meant to be a reminder of our need for that life,  a reminder of the need to turn away from the death of our sin.  God desires that everyone be saved & He alone knows the real truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth.  Jesus is the Truth,  & He is the Way to real Life.  What God means as an invitation to that life, however, can be twisted by our sinful nature & then heard as rejection & destruction.  Crass sin needs repentance, but so does casual sin, before we end up in crass sin.  Not that any one sin is worse than another.  All are equal in that they are against the same holy Creator.  But some sins do have more serious earthly effects. 
Paul, in the reading from Philippians, & Jeremiah of the OT reading, were sent among people who had wandered into the danger of crass sin.  These hardened people had rejected & attacked the Word & the messenger.  The Word was sent to draw them into refuge.  Their refusal to hear the Word sent them even further from the safety of Christ’s loving redemption. 
Jeremiah & Jesus offered life.  Many in their audience chose death.  Again & again, Jeremiah tried in vain to move the people back to God & away from the priests who led them astray & into great danger.  These prophets & priests would rather sell their souls, & the souls of their people, than give up what they’d worked so hard to achieve – power & status. 
In order to save, God cannot work to appease the lost.  Instead, He must work to kill their sinful nature.  Yet, even when we kill His Son,  the Father resurrects Him  for us!  It’s in that Son that we have life.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. 
 
 
 
The sower sows;  his reckless love  scatters abroad the goodly seed,  intent alone  that all may have  the wholesome loaves that all men need.    Preach you the Word & plant it home  & never faint;  the Harvest Lord  who gave the sower seed to sow  will watch & tend His planted Word.  Amen.  LSB 586:3, 6.