The Dream Is Still Alive part 3 (by Bill Senyard on 12/16/12)

 

Lookout Mountain Community Church, Evergreen, CO
Sermon Text
Dr. Bill H. Senyard

The Dream is Still Alive part 3

Lookout Mountain Community Church

Dec 16, 2012

Advent 3- The Prophetic Imaginings of Jeremiah

Remember Advent is from the Latin ad-venio, meaning “to come.”  This Ad-venio came once a long time ago, but it re-embodied over and over again.  Hopefully we will perceive the ad-venio this morning.

 

Prophetic Imagination- 6^th ct exilic prophet Jeremiah.

He is writing to a people in the throes of destruction, death, shame, guilt.  They had been caught red handed by God, unfaithful, spiritual prostitutes he calls them.  God had been infinitely patient and sent warning after warning.  But the people would not see, would not listen, would not repent.  So the armies of Babylon destroyed the land, slaughtered most of the residents and carried the educated to Babylon.

 

In Babylon, most likely, the disenfranchised, homeless and orphaned people were prophesied over with these words. Use your prophetic imaginations.

“At that time,” declares the LORD, “I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be my people.” 2 This is what the LORD says: “The people who survive the sword will find favor in the desert; I will come to give rest to Israel.” 3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

 

4 I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful. 5 Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. 6 There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, ‘Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.’”

 

…12 They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD — the grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. 13 Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. 14 I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,” declares the LORD

 

…21 “Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, O Virgin Israel, return to your towns. 22 How long will you wander, O unfaithful daughter? (Jer 31:1-22 NIV)

 

Q: So using your prophetic imaginations, what event is the prophet speaking of?  Is he speaking of the exiles return to the land under Ezra and Nehemiah?  Hardly likely.  No such joy upon their return.  No peace—not really.  They came back to an insignificant Persian occupied satrap, run by Persians.  Taxes were sky high, very little economic activity.  After the Persians, came the Greeks.  After the Greeks, there was a hundred years of self-rule under the Maccabees, very corrupt, very unimpressive.  Then came the Romans and Herod.  Hardly much to dance for joy about.

 

Q: Look again at vv. 21-22.  Use your prophetic imaginations again.  How could Israel be both an unfaithful daughter and a virgin?

 

“The LORD will create a new thing on earth — a woman will surround a man.”

 

What do you think he imagines a woman surrounding a man?

 

Maybe it would be clearer to translate it “a girl surrounding a strong man (gever) who is at the peak of his strength?”

 

Wouldn’t this fit a poet’s image of Mary’s pregnancy?  Never happened before.  This was different.  It was greatly delayed from the exiles return to the land.  But it fits the event.

 

This ad-venio if you can see it marks the beginning of something unimaginable.  This is the last days.  This is the good news in these last days that we proclaim.  It starts with the birth of Jesus and His life, and His death and resurrection, the ascension and of course the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Just listen with new ears, perceive.

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.  33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.  34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”  (Jer 31:31-34 NIV)

 

So when did this happen?  Since its proclamation over an exiled guilty people, estranged from the God of promise–when might we imagine that this was fulfilled, or at least begun to be fulfilled.?  I would strongly suggest that it began to roll out in that stark manger in Bethlehem some 500 years or more after it was uttered by Jeremiah.  The Ad-venio was indeed a fulfillment of a great promise for all who will come.  But it took humble, open, prophetic imagination to see it.  The leaders and religious leaders were  way too blinded by their stuff, by their day-to-day official duties to see this promise begin to be fulfilled.  They were so caught up in their religion and duties (those things that they had to do, or maybe were hoping would to earn God’s approval and blessings) that they missed the promise.  They missed the free gift of God’s blessings to God’s unfaithful daughter (not his faithful daughter—that did not exist).  They were too busy trying to become faithful daughter and missed the joy of God’s transformation, the new expression of the new covenant for the unfaithful ones, the beginning of the restoration of the long lost relationship with God—accomplished unilaterally by God, new fruitfulness, and emotional restoration at last.

 

Ah but remember the story.  The shepherds didn’t miss it.  Its unlikely that they would capture the attention of God—but they did.  The new covenant includes the most unlikely of candidates—the unclean (by the way, in the very same way that the old covenant included sinners).  The ambassadors from the Gentile nations of the East didn’t miss the invitation.  This was a watershed moment.  At last, the exiles have been returned to the relationship with God.  The event was a stark invitation, a wedding proposal to the nations.  All of this is ad-venio.  At the feet of Jesus, unfaithful daughters are made into virgins again.  See. Come.