Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Nov 9, 2022 - Vespers

9 Nov 2022 – St. Martin Chemnitz

Text: Jer 22:1-23

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Shortly before the exile of Judah to Babylon, before the destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah pleaded with the people to hear the Word of the Lord and repent.  But by this time, they are so far gone that it is just not going to happen.  And yet, Jeremiah continues to plead, preaching a Law that the people refuse to believe, and prophesying disaster that the people refuse to acknowledge. 

Of course, we Christians are the people of the Gospel.  We want our pastors to speak to us of forgiveness and victory – and indeed they are ours by virtue of Christ Jesus.  But we, like the people of Judah, live in a fallen world, surrounded by amoral unbelievers on every side, and our own sinful flesh inside.  We allow ourselves to be tempted and led to and fro by the devil and his fallen angels.  We desperately need the Word of God – both the Gospel and the Law – even as preached with the severity of Jeremiah.

For the preacher has no choice, dear friends.  If he is to obey the Lord, he must preach the Word, in season and out of season.  If it is his task to preach the Law in its severity, then he must do it.  No Christian pastor would pick this text to preach on, dear friends.  This text was assigned.  It was chosen because our Lord knows that we need to hear it.  We need to hear Jeremiah’s call to repentance, and his warning to those who refuse – for we too are a stiff-necked people, intent on going our own way.

We hearers and preachers both need to hear and ponder this Jeremiad at this time and place: “Do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed.”  Indeed, the little boy who cried wolf did not do himself any favors, but lest we forget, there really are wolves, even amid the phony cries of “oppression,” there are those who oppress others.  We must stand against it.  And we are called to “do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless and the widow.”  We must not allow our riches and our conveniences to become our lords and masters.  We must not allow our understandable cynicism and skepticism rob us of our compassion and humanity.

Moreover, we are warned about forsaking the covenant and worshiping other gods and serving them.  We must not allow our riches and our conveniences to become our lords and masters.  We must not allow sports and entertainment to take precedence over our worship of the true God, for it is easy to compromise a bit here, to hedge a bit there.  And if we indulge ourselves, we run the risk of the kind of divine vengeance that Jeremiah was forced to prophesy to the people of Judah.

But even at this late stage, dear friends, hear the Word of the Lord: “If you will indeed obey this Word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people.  But if you will not obey these words… this house shall become a desolation.”

Our Lord is calling us, dear friends, to thoroughly examine ourselves, to seek forgiveness, and to repent – truly repent of our sins – especially in these dark days.  And even in the darkness of the Law there is the light of the Gospel, the promise of Christ and His mercy – the blessings that come to us when we do confess and seek forgiveness.  For the Lord is merciful.  He hears our prayers.

So let us hear His Word, dear friends.  Let us take the warning to heart.  For even in these dark and despondent days, the Psalmist still declares to us: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel.  He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds…. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love!”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.