TIMELINE -- Ten years after Nebuchadnezzar subdues Judah, reducing Judah to a vassal state, Zedekiah, the puppet king appeals to Egypt for help. The Babylonians invade Judah and lay siege to Jerusalem. The siege will last for eighteen months. Finally a breach is made through a hole that a battering ram opens. In 586 BCE the city of Jerusalem is taken. Zedekiah is captured and blinded; Jerusalem is sacked and its temple destroyed, its citizens deported. When the dust finally settles on Judah and Jerusalem, only the very poor are left to cultivate the land (2 Kings 25:1-21).  [1]

LIFE IN THE TIME OF WAR - This narrative must be viewed from within the context of "life in the time of war." The Babylonian army is besieging the city of Jerusalem; siege ramps and battering rams have clearly tipped the outcome of the siege in the invader’s favor; it’s just a matter of time until Jerusalem is sacked. Jeremiah sits in prison-a political prisoner-as described in verses 3a-5; so the reader, armed with this information, is set up to be astonished at God’s command to Jeremiah-Buy some property! "There is nothing in the present situation that would precipitate investing in the future of Judah. Siege, defeat, and exile are the present realities." [2]

THE POINT? - While real estate in war zones might be had for a song and dance, it isn’t a sound investment. So God’s command is especially odd in view of the thousands of troops mustering around Jerusalem with their renown war machines and siege mounds and Jeremiah languishing in prison. What this ludicrous scenario suggests however, is that only God’s power can redeem the future and turn the present time into meaningful acts.

connections

In a sense, Jeremiah makes a down payment on the future, a foretaste of the promise, but one that takes place in the midst of the reality of tough times and judgment. How has others who love you deeply pushed you to new levels of hope at a time in your life when you could not muster much hope?

gambits

Retell the story of Jeremiah in two parts. Part One: describe the context and situation that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Jeremiah faced. The city besieged and the citizens prisoners in their own city. Prophets are running around promising the defeat of Babylon and a return to prosperity; but Jeremiah sounds a different note and ends up in jail for predicting Israel’s complete demise and its inhabitants exiled.

Part Two: Jeremiah is told (5 times) by God to purchase some property at such a time. Play with that and suggest the sheer lunacy of such an act on one hand, but on the other hand, it is an act of sheer faith in God’s word of hope.

Draw an analogy that invites your listeners to become people of hope. When the chips were down and discouragement threatened defeat to a project, ministry, building program, pastoral staff, etc., how did hope regather people and faith?

Close with God as the Actor supreme-the One who speaks hope into hopelessness (plenty of examples in Scripture about that!) and faith into faithlessness. Suggest ways that listeners / congregation might look for God’s hope even now in their present circumstances.

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[1] Eerdmans’ Atlas of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1978), sec. 10.
[2] New Interpreter’s Bible VI (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), page 820.