SPEAKER_00: Down in the dumps today.
SPEAKER_00: Um, kind of fitting for Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, during our midweek series this Lenten season, uh, we've been working our way through the prophet's book of Lamentations.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Lamentations is this series of funeral poems that Jeremiah wrote after basically everything he prophesied for 40 years came devastatingly true.
SPEAKER_00: And and Babylon has reduced Jerusalem to a pile of rubble.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a it's a tough book, to say the least.
SPEAKER_00: But in the very center of it, in chapter three, um, great hope emerges.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's light and and there's relief and there's comfort.
SPEAKER_00: It's those famous words about the steadfast love of the Lord never ceasing and his mercy is never coming to an end, and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then right away in chapter four, it gets really, really heavy again.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that this past Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: And and then the same holds true for the book that bears Jeremiah's name.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, last week we spent some time just reveling in the light and the relief and the comfort of chapters 29 through 32.
SPEAKER_00: In Bible study, we heard Jeremiah's despair-defeating letters that he wrote to the exiles in Babylon that gave incredible hope.
SPEAKER_00: And in worship, we heard about Jeremiah's field of dreams, this bright beacon of hope in a dark and deadly time.
SPEAKER_00: But as we continue on through Jeremiah's book, just as light starts to flicker and shine for us, it suddenly gets snuffed out again.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like when our acolytes extinguish our candles at the end of the service.
SPEAKER_00: Today we've heard the account of what was almost certainly the lowest point of Jeremiah's life and ministry, the prophet's absolute rock bottom.
SPEAKER_00: Today, Jeremiah is truly down in the dumps, both literally and figuratively.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the only one either, right?
SPEAKER_00: We find ourselves down in the dumps from time to time also, in a place where we see no escape, where we see maybe nothing at all except the darkness that seems to envelop us.
SPEAKER_00: But today, Jeremiah shows us that Jesus meets us there.
SPEAKER_00: That he sits with us in the darkness and he lifts us up.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd invite you to take out your Jeremiah packet that you've been hopefully working through these last several weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to page 25 and uh take lots of notes today during the message as we uh go down and then back up again with Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: As we've been talking about a lot this past month, Jeremiah is famously known as the weeping prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen why, too.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah has all sorts of reasons for weeping, not least of which being the news of judgment that he's given to share.
SPEAKER_00: But he also suffers personally in all sorts of ways during his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: God promised it back in the very beginning at Jeremiah's call as a youth.
SPEAKER_00: He said, They will fight against you.
SPEAKER_00: He had said that they shall not prevail against you, but they're gonna fight.
SPEAKER_00: And much of the time it did seem like they were prevailing against him.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 11, the men of Anathoth, which is Jeremiah's small hometown, explicitly threaten Jeremiah's life and actually conspire to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 20, Pashur the priest has Jeremiah beaten and put in the stocks for public humiliation and ridicule.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 26, in response to Jeremiah's temple sermon, the priests and the prophets and the people demand Jeremiah's execution, which he just narrowly escapes.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 36, Jeremiah is banned from entering the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And then King Jehoiakim cuts up and burns the scroll of the word of the Lord that he has written out.
SPEAKER_00: As uh we got a good preview today in our children's message.
SPEAKER_00: Come to Bible study and hear a little bit more about that today, right after our voters' meeting.
SPEAKER_00: But then in chapter 37, Jeremiah is beaten by his enemies and thrown into a dungeon, and he ends up petitioning King Zedekiah for his freedom and is given a lighter sentence, but remains a prisoner.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where he was last week, by the way, when he bought that field from his cousin.
SPEAKER_00: After Jerusalem falls, in chapter 43, we're going to see that Jeremiah is forcibly taken to Egypt against his will and continues to face rejection there.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us would weep if we face just one of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But the worst of them all, I would argue, is chapter 38.
SPEAKER_00: A few officials from Judah's fledgling government essentially accuse Jeremiah of treason.
SPEAKER_00: He's siding with the Babylonians and he's he's harming morale in a city already under siege.
SPEAKER_00: And so they go to King Zedekiah and they say that Jeremiah should die.
SPEAKER_00: And Zedekiah, whose God-ordained vocation as king, is to protect the innocent against violence, does nothing to protect or to save the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: He is a weak-willed, ineffectual ruler in a tenuous position, and he hands Jeremiah over to his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malachih, the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes.
SPEAKER_00: And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah sank in the mud.
SPEAKER_00: Quite a picture.
SPEAKER_00: Cisterns like these in the ancient world were designed to collect and store rainwater.
SPEAKER_00: The opening at the top was just a few feet wide, and then it opened up like a bottle into kind of this bigger chamber down below, going to great depths in a detail that likely indicates that the basic necessities of life were running perilously low in this besieged city.
SPEAKER_00: We're told that this particular cistern in the court of the king had no water in it, just mud.
SPEAKER_00: But don't think clean mud.
SPEAKER_00: Think thick, foul, miry muck, a stagnant, stinking sludge.
SPEAKER_00: It is into this filth that Jeremiah is lowered.
SPEAKER_00: This means that the possibility of disease and infection are high, and the possibility of rest is non existent.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly no possibility of escape.
SPEAKER_00: There are no footholds on the smooth limestone walls that encircle him, no way back up to the small hole of pale light above him.
SPEAKER_00: Down below, Jeremiah is enveloped in dirty sediment and near total darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake, this is no mere torment.
SPEAKER_00: It is an execution.
SPEAKER_00: The clear intent of his enemies is for Jeremiah to die in the cistern of starvation or dehydration, of exposure, infection.
SPEAKER_00: Any or all of these will work.
SPEAKER_00: The pit of despair from the Princess Bride has nothing on this cistern of death.
SPEAKER_00: As Jeremiah sinks in the mud, this is the lowest he's ever been, and that is saying a whole lot.
SPEAKER_00: After being rejected and threatened and beaten and mocked and imprisoned time and time again, Jeremiah is now discarded completely, cast into a pit in the ground, stuck and alone, in the dark with no way out, left there to die.
SPEAKER_00: Next week is Holy Week.
SPEAKER_00: And already today, Jeremiah is preparing us for that journey.
SPEAKER_00: The parallels between Jeremiah here and Jesus there are striking, to say the least.
SPEAKER_00: Like Jeremiah, Jesus is also labeled a traitor and an enemy of the state.
SPEAKER_00: He too is handed over to his enemies by a weak-willed, ineffectual ruler in a tenuous position.
SPEAKER_00: Not King Zedekiah, but Pontius Pilate, too, who does nothing to save Jesus, even though he knows him to be innocent.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah was condemned because he spoke the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is condemned because he is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also discontinuity between the two.
SPEAKER_00: The parallels end when Jesus' life does.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is left to die.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does die.
SPEAKER_00: The death Jeremiah's enemies intended for him is the death Jesus actually suffers at the hands of his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had a deeper descent by far than his prophetic forebear.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered a real death, all the while being the only one who was ever fully and truly innocent.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went all the way down to death in the grave.
SPEAKER_00: As Reed Lessing writes, nothing is as lifeless as a grave, as hopeless as a tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Smell the mildew, the odor of blood, the stench of death.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us the true depth of the problem that faces people like Jeremiah and all who find themselves in a pit.
SPEAKER_00: People like us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we know what it's like to sink down and to be encircled by disease and death.
SPEAKER_00: We know what it's like to be stuck in a deep hole from which we have no hope of rescuing ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: What's the lowest that you have ever been?
SPEAKER_00: What's the deepest, darkest hole you have ever found yourself in?
SPEAKER_00: Where has your situation been the most desperate, the most hopeless, the most perilous?
SPEAKER_00: When did you sink down into the mud?
SPEAKER_00: Was it when you lost something precious?
SPEAKER_00: Something you were supposed to safeguard, but but you gave it away and you can't take it back?
SPEAKER_00: Was it when you were betrayed and abandoned by someone you trusted and thought was a friend?
SPEAKER_00: Did you lose your job?
SPEAKER_00: Your husband or your wife?
SPEAKER_00: Your faith?
SPEAKER_00: What surrounds you and envelops you right now, giving you no rest, no escape?
SPEAKER_00: Is it repetitive habitual sin?
SPEAKER_00: Is it this the same tired arguments with the same person who just doesn't get it, doesn't seem to care?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a situation at work or at home that you see no way out of and that can only get worse?
SPEAKER_00: Our sin leaves us stuck in a pit with no way out whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: Our attempts to climb out will only leave us exhausted and in despair.
SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake, this is no mere torment.
SPEAKER_00: It is an execution.
SPEAKER_00: The clear intent of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature is to bring about death, our eternal death.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a messy situation or an emotional struggle.
SPEAKER_00: We are in mortal danger.
SPEAKER_00: And we must cry out to God with prayers, like Psalm 130, as we've been doing today.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it again.
SPEAKER_00: Will you read these words with me?
SPEAKER_00: Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord, hear my voice.
SPEAKER_00: Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah doesn't record for us whatever prayers he spoke from the depths of his despair down in that cistern.
SPEAKER_00: But he does record the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah had no hope, no hope, no hope left within himself.
SPEAKER_00: But God provided him a rescuer from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: An Ethiopian eunuch named Ebed Melech, a name which means the servant of the king.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes in and he intercedes with the king on Jeremiah's behalf.
SPEAKER_00: And Zedekiah, feckless as always, gives in.
SPEAKER_00: Ebed Melech rescues Jeremiah from deadly peril.
SPEAKER_00: And the means by which he does so demonstrates both his tender compassion and Jeremiah's wretched condition.
SPEAKER_00: He takes old rags and worn-out clothes from a storage room in the palace and instructs Jeremiah to put them under his armpits, the prophet being so weakened by his ordeal that he would lack the strength to support himself on ropes alone, and the ropes would tear into his flesh.
SPEAKER_00: But in this way, they they draw Jeremiah up and safely lift him out of the cistern.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there is some debate among Hebrew scholars, but but many of them contend that the Hebrew name Yermayahu, which we pronounce Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: Many Hebrew scholars would say that that means Yahweh lifts up.
SPEAKER_00: Whether or not this is the correct etymology, Jeremiah once again is lifted up, not just by Ebed Melech, but by Yahweh himself.
SPEAKER_00: Through all his trials and travails, Jeremiah is just like British alternative rock band, Chumbawamba.
SPEAKER_00: You know where I'm going with this?
SPEAKER_00: He gets knocked down, but he gets up again.
SPEAKER_00: They're never gonna keep him down.
SPEAKER_00: Because God had promised that in the beginning, too.
SPEAKER_00: And I behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.
SPEAKER_00: They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you.
SPEAKER_00: But did you know that Jeremiah's greatest deliverance happened not in that cistern, but in an even deeper, darker pit.
SPEAKER_00: It happened when an even more improbable rescue took place.
SPEAKER_00: When one whose death sentence was fully carried out, and who was laid in the deep dark chamber of death from which no return is possible.
SPEAKER_00: And he came out.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went even deeper than Jeremiah, and his return from darkness was far more triumphant.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah was rescued with ropes and rags, but when Jesus rose from the dead, he needed none of that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he left the old worn-out clothing behind, his burial cloths neatly folded and laid in the tomb because he had no use for them anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not simply rescued, he emerged victorious over death and the grave and rescued us.
SPEAKER_00: Unlike Jeremiah, who was helpless to rescue himself, Jesus had the authority to lay down his life and the authority to take it up again.
SPEAKER_00: And take it up again, he did.
SPEAKER_00: And in taking up his life, Jesus drew up and lifted out all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We are all Yermayahu's, those lifted up by Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds kind of like an insult to call somebody that, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: But it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: You are a Yermayahu.
SPEAKER_00: You've been lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah sank in the mud.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was laid in the grave, and on the third day he rose, so that those who are stuck in the pit of sin and death might be lifted out with him.
SPEAKER_00: The lesson of Jeremiah 38, the lesson of Easter, is that God does not leave his servants stuck in the pit.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier we prayed the words of Psalm 130.
SPEAKER_00: How about Psalm 30 also?
SPEAKER_00: Oh Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol.
SPEAKER_00: You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.
SPEAKER_00: How about Psalm 40?
SPEAKER_00: He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
SPEAKER_00: How about Psalm 103?
SPEAKER_00: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: All of this Jesus has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: He has interceded with the King on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: He has rescued you and brought you up.
SPEAKER_00: This is not some generic encouragement today.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a little boost if you're feeling down.
SPEAKER_00: This is life from death.
SPEAKER_00: This is participation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Next week is Palm Sunday, prophesied so clearly by the prophet Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what God says through Zechariah, literally right in the middle of that Palm Sunday text?
SPEAKER_00: He says, As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that! Because of Jesus, we are free.
SPEAKER_00: We are free from our past mistakes, we are free from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And you can bank everything on the fact that on the day of his return, he will come to your grave, draw you up, and lift you out forever.
SPEAKER_00: God does not leave his servants stuck in the pit.
SPEAKER_00: So let us rejoice in the eternal rescue and eternal life that he has brought to us through his son, even now and forever.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.