Instead we watched for a good part of the afternoon the local coverage of that day: their ABC affiliate played the news exactly as it had unfolded on 11/22/63. I hadn't been alive yet then so have no memories of JFK myself, but watching that coverage took me back nevertheless and was heart rending.
In all the news this Friday about JFK's assassination, another commemoration got pushed to the background of the news. 11/22/13 also marked the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis' death. I was pleased to see that on Friday, his plaque was unveiled at Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.
JFK and CS Lewis both had a heavy impact on our world - privately, publicly, politically and in terms of faith. In my own life, CS Lewis has probably had more influence and I am thankful for his witness and wonderful way with words. Lewis often gives me a way to frame my own faith story when my own words fail. I share a famous quote by him that sums it up perhaps perfectly:
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
On with todays devotional:
Jeremiah 46:18-28 (NRSV)
God will save Israel
As I live, says the King,
whose name is the Lord of hosts,
one is coming
like Tabor among the mountains,
and like Carmel by the sea.
Pack your bags for exile,
sheltered daughter Egypt!
For Memphis shall become a waste,
a ruin, without inhabitant.
A beautiful heifer is Egypt --
a gadfly from the north lights upon her.
Even her mercenaries in her midst
are like fatted calves;
they too have turned and fled together,
they did not stand;
for the day of their calamity has come upon them,
the time of their punishment.
She makes a sound like a snake gliding away;
for her enemies march in force,
and come against her with axes,
like those who fell trees.
They shall cut down her forest,
says the Lord,
though it is impenetrable,
because they are more numerous
than locusts;
they are without number.
Daughter Egypt shall be put to shame;
she shall be handed over to a people from the north.
The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, said: See, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh, and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him. I will hand them over to those who seek their life, to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and his officers. Afterward Egypt shall be inhabited as in the days of old, says the Lord.
But as for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob,
and do not be dismayed, O Israel;
for I am going to save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and no one shall make him afraid.
As for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob,
says the Lord,
for I am with you.
I will make an end of all the nations
among which I have banished you,
but I will not make an end of you!
I will chastise you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
As I live, says the King,
whose name is the Lord of hosts,
one is coming
like Tabor among the mountains,
and like Carmel by the sea.
Pack your bags for exile,
sheltered daughter Egypt!
For Memphis shall become a waste,
a ruin, without inhabitant.
A beautiful heifer is Egypt --
a gadfly from the north lights upon her.
Even her mercenaries in her midst
are like fatted calves;
they too have turned and fled together,
they did not stand;
for the day of their calamity has come upon them,
the time of their punishment.
She makes a sound like a snake gliding away;
for her enemies march in force,
and come against her with axes,
like those who fell trees.
They shall cut down her forest,
says the Lord,
though it is impenetrable,
because they are more numerous
than locusts;
they are without number.
Daughter Egypt shall be put to shame;
she shall be handed over to a people from the north.
The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, said: See, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh, and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him. I will hand them over to those who seek their life, to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and his officers. Afterward Egypt shall be inhabited as in the days of old, says the Lord.
But as for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob,
and do not be dismayed, O Israel;
for I am going to save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and no one shall make him afraid.
As for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob,
says the Lord,
for I am with you.
I will make an end of all the nations
among which I have banished you,
but I will not make an end of you!
I will chastise you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
It has been a long time since I've read the book of Jeremiah - too long perhaps. The verse from Jeremiah that perhaps is best known to us is from Jeremiah 31: "The days are surely coming says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…" We know that in terms of our New Testament lens - and see in it the promise of the new covenant in Jesus Christ.
But for Jeremiah's initial hearers, there was also promise in those words, as well as the words from today, that extended beyond our Christian understanding. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed and the Southern Kingdom had already been subjected to the ongoing suffering of being a pawn between the Assyrians, Egyptians and the rising empire of the Babylonians. In the midst of national trauma, come the words of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, that hope remains. Punishment for the sins of the kingdom of Judah will come, but God will not destroy them. And more importantly, God is with them.
Suffering has been an ongoing theme in these these ELCA texts recently, and remind us where God is during suffering: not above, winding the puppet strings to see how we will take it; not absent, allowing us to be miserable alone.
But with us. Walking through it with us. Even before we get the Cruciform image of God's redeeming work from the New Testament, God reminded God's people and us through Jeremiah, that a steady hand is leading us through the worst we can imagine. That God is in the pain and in the sorrow and in the crevices of our hearts that feel like breaking.
God of our heart, you are with us. Remind us always when our hearts and minds fail us; when tragedy strikes and by our own strength we feel we can not go on. Be the strength that gets us through. Amen
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