September 28, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘All our enemies have opened their mouths wide against us. We have suffered terror and pitfalls, ruin and destruction.’ Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed.”

(Lamentations 3.46-48)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

Jeremiah is known as “The Weeping Prophet.” Jesus wept at seeing Mary’s deep sorrow over the death of her brother Lazarus. (John 11.35) When Jesus approached Jerusalem for that final week leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection, He cried. (Luke 19.41) We may understand the power of Jesus’ tears placing those two verses in comparison with their context. Jesus knew that Lazarus was “dead.” He had confessed that news to His disciples as they waited four days longer after receiving the news that Lazarus was sick unto death. It was Lazarus’ death which Jesus felt in His spirit that released Him to go to Bethany that they all might see the power of God. His tears were in shared grief with Mary. She was the younger sister and her innocence always put her faith before practical matters. Now her faith had joined her most practical matter: the death of her dear brother. She knew that only Jesus whom she loved in her spirit was able to save Lazarus. With the delay of Jesus’ arrival to spare her brother, the confusion and ache in her spirit poured out in tears. Her grief was different from all the rest.

We are able to see a similar experience of that expression when Jesus came to the place where He could see the whole of Jerusalem. It was on the road from Bethany which led through the Gardens of Gethsemane. On the rocky outcropping as the road turn down into the Kidron Valley and would pass by the Pool of Siloam, Jesus paused. His lament was captured in the words of Luke’s gospel. Where he heard them is unknown but without question it is one of the many stories told by the disciples and followers of Jesus. They also share the commonality of the destruction of Jerusalem as a portent of a future restoration which is spoken of in Jeremiah’s lamentations. His grief over the failure of the people of Israel, including its “spiritual” leadership, to fully grasp the true meaning of His presence on earth was just the beginning of His sorrow. His purpose in Jerusalem had been announced many times. The failure of all of them to hear, see and understand what Jesus was saying was a “grave” problem, indeed. (dual meaning intended.) Ultimately, Jesus’ words, as we read in Luke 19, speak to the truth that Jerusalem cannot be spared from any harm, foreign and domestic, unless Jesus is recognized as the Christ and followed completely by those willing to “take up their crosses.”

As in the days of Jeremiah, there were no crosses then, the failure of the people was evidenced by their decision to trust in the leadership of Jerusalem and Israel to “negotiate” peace with their enemies. The enemies were set only to devour and tear down “the people of God.” Anyone who dared to speak against that plan, even as it was failing miserably, would be seen as a truer enemy. Jeremiah was that person. He was taken, beaten and thrown into a pit left for death. The experience itself was to represent not the test of faith as had happened to the Prophet Daniel thrown into the Lions’ Pit, but the condemnation to Sheol itself. Jeremiah was alone in this (read Jeremiah 5 where he pled with God to spare Jerusalem if just one other person of faith could be found who would corroborate his own faith. Thus, the power of “the witness of two” would be sufficient in court to persuade the judge from speaking a death sentence.

It is here that we hear Jeremiah’s tears most grievously. Jeremiah takes on the full weight of the sorrow of the people and owns it for himself. He becomes an archetype of Christ Himself in that Jesus took on Himself all the sins of the world, believers and unbelievers alike. Jeremiah calls out to God the horrible truth (the destruction all around which has torn down the people themselves) and the fearful reality (they are my people.) Jeremiah accepted the call to be the “one” for the people as he stood prophetically as a priest of the people before God and the accusers. Oh, mighty ones of God, would that our own decision would be to weep and mourn for this nation and all nations of the world. Would that we put ownership to our own understanding and trust in God and offer ourselves as sacrificial answers to the problems. Could it be at that point, at this point, that the taking up of our own cross becomes more evident in Jesus’ meaning and call to do so? It is not for ourselves that we bear the cross as the cross of our salvation has already been borne to Calvary on Golgotha’s Hill by Christ alone. It is by Him alone that we are able to enter into the Holy City of God eternal in the heavens. In this moment in time, we are on the outside looking in. However, with the eyes of faith, we are not looking upon a destroyed city being fashioned in the heavens to dwell on earth. It is a city of true light where God Himself in all His glory resides. However, again, we are those who are standing on the outside looking in at the current Jerusalem, all the “Jerusalems of the world,” and seeing the destruction caused by not aligning fully with God. It is especially poignant when today, it is not merely an alignment with God, as if that were a mere thing, but knowing that we stand together with Jesus the Christ. Let our crosses become the rods of the shepherds and their staffs. Let the crosses become numerous along the roads as they were in the days of Rome with this exception: no dead and dying bodies are hung there. Why not? For it is by one death, Jesus, that we, the believers, have life and have it abundantly. The body “they” may kill but the spirit which is true life lives on validated in power and in truth. Let our tears for those who continue to refuse to acknowledge the “day of His coming” flow again. We should not be trying to convince them as in providing testimony in a court of Law. Rather, let us be seen as “ONE” ready to believe with this stance in “the way, the truth and the life.” Only in our ardent witness can some be won in these days. Let our tears bear witness to the truth of our conviction so that others may join with us in seeing what is yet to come in all its glory. AMEN.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.