Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

What do you do when someone punches you in the arm? What is your reaction when someone cuts in front of you on the road or in line at the supermarket or bank? When we suffer some injustice, our immediate reaction is to want to return some suffering to the one who has hurt us. In our youth it may be to punch back, but when we get older we devise other ways of getting back at those who have injured us. We may post a picture or video of them online, letting everyone know what they have done. We might cut off communication with them, give them the silent treatment and refuse to acknowledge their presence in our world. If it is a large organization or the government we might pursue legal action or boycott or publicly defame or find countless little ways to cheat and steal from them.

 

It takes a lot of effort to do all of that stuff, and sometimes there are just no ways to fight back. The bullies are too big, nothing can be proved to those in authority, or they just don’t care about us enough that anything we do causes them any hurt. But deep down we know that justice ought to be served. They have inflicted harm upon us, but to bring about justice seems just too much for us.

 

God tells us that we don’t have to worry about such things. We don’t have to exhaust ourselves trying to impose justice in a world of bullies and incompetent authorities and laws with loopholes, and with our own weaknesses. God tells us that He Himself will impart perfect justice for our cause. “Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the LORD’” (Epistle, Romans 12:19). We do not need to exhaust ourselves or put ourselves at further risk. God will give to them what they deserve.

 

In today’s Old Testament Reading, we hear the prophet Jeremiah’s complaint to God about those who have injured him. As a prophet he spoke the Word of the LORD and most people of his day and in his city did not like it. At first they made fun of him. Then they got angry at him. Then they told lies about him. And then they physically attacked him. That happens when people speak the Word of God in a wicked world. People get angry at God and they take it out on His people, on us. They hurt not just prophets and pastors but all of God’s children who are faithfully living their lives and are not afraid to speak God’s Word to anyone who needs to hear it in the family, at school or work, and in the community.

 

There was not much that Jeremiah could do about it. He didn’t fight back. He appealed to those in authority but they did not help him. They didn’t like the Word of God either. He was powerless, except for knowing that the LORD God had made promises to him, like He has made to us. So Jeremiah prayed to the LORD, as we should pray when people in the world hurt us and when we suffer injustice. “O LORD, You know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors....know that for Your sake I bear reproach” (Jeremiah 15:15).

 

It was not because Jeremiah did anything wrong that the people hated him. It was because he spoke God’s Word to them. It might seem that he could have just stopped speaking God’s Word, but that is not really how it works. And it is not that God was using him like a puppet, forcing him to speak words that the people did not want to hear. They were not bad words, but actually really good words. They were words of love, both warning people of their sins and telling them about the salvation that God had prepared for them out of His love. God wanted the people to hear His message to them, so He called and sent Jeremiah to speak to the people, just as God called and sent people to speak His Word to you, and as He has called you to speak His Word to the people to whom He sends you.

 

The kind of reproach that Jeremiah bore weighs heavy because we don’t always understand the hatred people have for the Word of God and those who speak it. After all, it is a good word. It is good news that there is a God who loves you to the extent that He would come into the world and give His life in order to save you. It is the good news, the Gospel, that we have embraced as a shower of love pouring down upon us to cleanse us and refresh us and purify us from every sinful stain and from all corruption.

 

Jeremiah was somewhat dumbfounded by the vitriolic reaction he received, for he loved God’s Word. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (v. 16). He recognized them as words of love and care; yes discipline and correction, but directed toward protection and betterment, and ultimately salvation and restoration. Jeremiah recognized that the LORD’s Word is a call to be His beloved child: “for I am called by Your name, O LORD, God of Sabaoth” (v. 16).

 

The Word of the LORD calling us to be His children in His name is what we have in our Baptism. We are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). We are called by His name, “Christians.” That is very dear and precious to us. It gives us a dignity and worth that we do not have of ourselves. We are privileged to be in the family of God. John the Apostle expresses this in his first epistle: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).

 

And then the apostle explains our suffering at the hands of the wicked in the world: “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him” (1 John 3:3). And Jeremiah has told us what it meant for his life as a child of God among the wicked in this world: “I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone, because Your hand was upon me, for You had filled me with indignation” (Jeremiah 15:17).

 

It is a topsy turvy world, where the LORD brings us into His great family of saints from every time and place, and yet we find ourselves sitting alone. He gives to us the greatest honour of being His dear children, and the world heaps its indignation upon us. What has God done to us, baptizing us into His name and leaving us among a people who despise His name? We suffer here for the very reason that God loved us so much as to make us His children. Surely He cannot just abandon us here to suffer for it. Jeremiah asked the LORD, “Will You be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?” (v. 18). Was my baptism a trick that appeared to be a promise of glorious things but really brings nothing but suffering and scorn? Will these waters of God’s promise fail?

 

It is on these very waters that we can rely when all seems to be a deceit and a failure. The power of God in our baptismal waters has so united us to Him that we share the very same life that He lived in this world. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Our suffering and the reproach that we bear is actually evidence that we have been united to Christ.

 

So we are not cast off by God in our sufferings and the indignation heaped upon us, but drawn all the more closer to Him. We can confidently pray with our baptismal identity in mind. The waters of His promise do not fail and there is no deceit in Him. The Collect of the Day which we prayed together is suitable for every day to those baptized into Christ: “Grant us courage to take up our cross daily and follow Him wherever He leads” (Collect of the Day. Proper 17 A).

 

And He is always leading us to Himself. He went through reproach, indignation, suffering, persecution, and even death, but now He lives and reigns in glory everlasting. He is always leading us to Himself. Even when we have abandoned Him because we think our suffering is His fault, or that He does not punish our persecutors as He should, or He does not honour or love us the way we feel we have deserved, then His Word comes to call us to turn back to Him in repentance: to confess our sins of failing when we have accused Him of being faulty, and our sins of faithlessness even while He proves Himself faithful and trustworthy.

 

He leads us to the love He has for us in Himself, and away from the wicked who mean us harm. He forgives our sins and restores us to stand in His presence as dearly loved children. He honours us again to be the bearers of His loving word to others and promises that there will be those like us who are turned to His love. They will turn from their wicked ways and He will keep us unmovable. He will strengthen us to stand firm against all of the evil attacks that come upon us for His name’s sake. They will not prevail over us.

 

He remains true to us. Our baptismal waters will not fail. As He promised at the institution of Holy Baptism, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), so also He promised Jeremiah “I am with you to save you and deliver you... I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless” (Jeremiah 15:20).

 

We do not need to fear that He has deceived us or will prove unreliable. Even in our worst sufferings and against the fiercest of foes, we do not need to take matters into our own hands. We are in His hands for salvation. And He will take our persecutors into His hands for vengeance.

 

As we sang in the psalm verses of the Introit: “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” (Introit, Psalm 37:5-7). And of the Gradual: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (Gradual, Psalm 34:19)

 

Jesus finished His saying about taking up our crosses to follow Him, with the promise that we will be avenged for every evil done to us. “For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27). We can rest in His hands. He will bring about the justice we crave.