A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily
prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin for today
-- we continue a Lenten sermon series on Dr. Martin Luther’s Heidelberg
Disputation. This is Luther’s attempt to show what was wrong with the church in
his time. We use an Old Testament text today to demonstrate a message of hope.
Luther said this about the book of Jeremiah:” along with this [the punishment
foretold because of vice and idolatry] Jeremiah gives comfort and promises that
after the punishment is over, they shall be released and shall return to their
land”. Part of today’s commentary comes from an idea in the LSB, pp 1202.
OT Reading- Jeremiah
32:6-15 English Standard Version (ESV)
6 Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: 7 Behold,
Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you and say, ‘Buy my field
that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ 8 Then
Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the
word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land
of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for
yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. 9 “And I bought the
field at Anathoth from Hanamel my cousin, and weighed out the money to him,
seventeen shekels of silver. 10 I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses,
and weighed the money on scales. 11 Then I took the sealed deed of purchase,
containing the terms and conditions and the open copy. 12 And I gave the deed
of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of
Hanamel my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of
purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court
of the guard. 13 I charged Baruch in their presence, saying, 14 ‘Thus says the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of
purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they
may last for a long time. 15 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
Devotion: Good days
ahead!
Jeremiah is in jail, primarily for preaching that the
Chaldeans would take over the land [a treasonous message] because the citizens of
Judah were to be punished by God for their evil ways. He is also preaching,
though, that eventually they will get back their land and, in a very comforting
message, they will experience eternal salvation. Jeremiah is being asked to “put his money
where his mouth is” by buying up land that is already in possession of the Chaldeans.
Jeremiah’s symbolic gesture [buying the
farm!] demonstrates his belief in good days ahead in the land and certain hope
for eternal salvation. God had told him this hopeful prophesy offering a bright
spot in a book [Jeremiah, 52 chapters] largely full of judgment, frustration,
punishment, and suffering. Chapters 31-33 are sometimes aptly referred to as
the “book of comfort”.
We pray: “Thank
you, risen Lord, for our salvation. Amen”
