Healing Rays of Righteousness

What Breaks Our Hearts

The prophet Jeremiah lived during a time of great national tumult and transition. The nation of Judah was experiencing a period of political and social decline much like today. And much like today, both political and religious leaders were hypocritical and deceitful. It seemed no one was concerned about their not living up to their covenant with Yahweh, nor the consequences.

God called Jeremiah to preach to these religious, but sinful people, calling them to repent and return to worshipping and obeying God. At great personal cost to himself, Jeremiah remains faithful to God in telling his own people that they have sinned in their selfishness, greed, and ignoring God’s call to justice and concern for all people.

However, they resisted his preaching and would not listen. Time after time, they ignored him, laughed at him, and refused to change their ways. And the biblical record reveals that their stubborn resistance led toward their eventual destruction as a nation.

In Jeremiah 8, we hear Jeremiah weeping for the brokenness of his people that piled up as the consequence of their sinning. He knows that the judgment of God is now unavoidable and that the time for amending their ways is past. This causes Jeremiah to feel a deep sadness and pain in the pit of his stomach.

And yet, like God, Jeremiah continues to have compassion for his people. “My grief is beyond healing; my heart is broken. …I hurt with the hurt of my people. I mourn and am overcome with grief. (vv.18 & 21, NLT). …Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.” (9:1)    

Jeremiah is a man in deep pain and asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (8:22).And his painful weeping reveals that it is too late, “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” (8:20).

In verses 10 – 12, he summarizes their grievous sinfulness. “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No. they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.”

“Do not even know how to blush.”  That is an accurate and appropriate description for many of our contemporary church and national leaders. Like the people of Israel, we have no shame in naming ourselves Christian even as we give ourselves to esteeming and bowing to the idols of power, money, sex, personal success, and material possessions. Nor do they blush in choosing to believe lies and conspiracy theories rather than obvious facts and truths.

With all the social and political issues that currently divide us, it is fair to say that we are a church and a nation at war with each other, rather than standing together in Christian love and compassion for all, and daily acting out the good news of Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, our prisons are filled to over-capacity, children go to bed hungry in most every city and town of our nation, and many die because they do not have the money to pay for health care. And yet, we arrogantly claim to be a Christian nation. God weeps over us, my friend. Sadly, it can be truthfully said, “They do not even know how to blush.”   

What makes me and you blush? What breaks our hearts? Is it because we care about the victims of our society, such as the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the handicapped, the unemployed? What about the societal sins that multiply victims, such as pride, greed, prejudice, lust, malice, injustices, and oppression of all kinds? Do they also make us weep?

Jeremiah’s heart was broken because of the sins of his people. But he always understood that God’s love is a healing balm, bringing forth newness of life where there was the stink of death, resurrecting hope where there was despair, and rebuilding that which has been torn down.

May we, like Jeremiah, have our hearts broken by what breaks the heart of God. For then we can truthfully and compassionately sing with our voices and our lives, “There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole; there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”  Amen!

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness” – www.geigler13.wordpress.com – 8/21/24

GOD, Heartbroken and Lonely

Through the prophet Hosea, we are given a sweeping review of the earlier history of God’s people. Hosea sees and understands the past, present, and future of Israel as God’s child from the perspective of God being the divine parent who remembers with joy, anguishes with grief, suffers with loneliness, and looks forward with hope.

To read these verses slowly and reflectively is to feel the deep pain of God’s lonely, heartbroken love for his people. Yes, grievously heartbroken, because his people had foolishly rejected and ignored his freely offered invite into a relationship of love. Yes, painful loneliness, because his people chose instead to follow the false gods of selfish consumerism, fearful racism, and divisive politics.

Unfortunately, current attitudes and behaviors in our nation and churches today, by many people who call themselves Christian, have caused me to remember this earlier story, and believe it to be currently as true as it was then.

Chapter 11 opens with God, the parent, saying that, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”  You then immediately feel the pain of a rejected love that this all-knowing parent has for his child, “But the more they were called, the more they went away from me.”  And yet, He lavishly poured out His grace and love upon them.

God graciously loved his people and helped them get out of Egypt. But Israel soon chose to worship new gods and broke the basic rule of the covenant, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Did they do this deliberately and intentionally? Probably not. More likely it was the result of the people becoming careless in nurturing their faith and thus their relationship with God became non-existent.

The Assyrians soon disrupted Israel’s peace and prosperity. Hosea saw and understood this event to be God’s judgment upon the faithlessness and immorality of the people.

But throughout this time of defeat and despair, Hosea’s prophetic ministry continued to affirm the (“hesed”) steadfast love of God. “Hesed” is a passionate, emotional, persistent, and loyal love, a love that will not ever quit loving. Although the lover clearly sees the beloved’s unfaithfulness, “hesed” relentlessly works for the restoration of the relationship.

And, according to Hosea, that is the kind of love God has for his people. God chose these people, claimed them as children, made a covenant to faithfully love them, when he brought them out of bondage in Egypt. But they prostituted themselves by turning to other gods.

And this heartbroken, lonely God asks, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim?” (11:8). God had destroyed these two cities along with Sodom & Gomorrah.

For us today, the “good news” is that the God whose heart is revealed in Hosea 11 is the same God of whom John would describe in his first letter, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (3:1). “This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (3:16). “This is how God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (4:9).

It may be agonizing to contemplate the thought that the Almighty God is heartbroken, lonely, and longing to reconcile our relationship with himself, to enjoy the intimacy for which we were created. But it is equally awesome to imagine an empty place in God’s heart which only you and I can fill with our voices of grateful praise.

My friend, the God who would not abandon the people of Israel has not given up on us. When we act as if He does not exist, when we sell ourselves to other lovers, when we prostitute ourselves for the sake of the pleasures of the world around us, His steadfast love follows us.

When we suffer the consequences of our own foolish choices, when we experience the results of our own sinful behavior, His steadfast love follows and overshadow us, waiting in grieving loneliness for our return to a restored relationship of total love and trust.

Let us give attention to Hosea’s appeal and respond with repentant hearts; “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. … Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” (6:1-3).

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness” – www.geigler13.wordpress.com – 8/7/24