Back to the Beginning…Almost

Jeremiah 4:9-10, 19-28
The prophet Jeremiah offers a horrifying vision of what God might do in response to the ongoing faithlessness of the people. “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger. For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end” (Jeremiah 4:23-27). Notice the various elements of creation that are mentioned. The earth is “void” and the heavens have “no light.” There is no human presence and even the birds have vanished. There are no plants for “the fruitful land was a desert.” In so many ways this is a mirror image of the creation story of Genesis 1, for here is a virtual undoing of the acts of God at the beginning of time. All that is left is a barren, empty, deserted wasteland, very like the void over which the spirit of God passed before saying, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3).

Yet even in the midst of this vision, this threat of total destruction, there is hope, for God has not forgotten the various covenants, the promises made to Noah, and Abraham, and through Moses: “I will not make a full end,” says the Lord to Jeremiah. Indeed, there is a reminder of God’s grace even in the face of human stubbornness and disregard for the divine will. The utter bleakness of Jeremiah’s vision does not overcome the hope that God holds out, that within a restored creation the kingdom will come in its fullness. In the story of Pandora’s box, the girl, Pandora, releases all that is dreadful and evil into the world. But along with the woe there is also the last thing out of the box which is hope. Here, in Jeremiah, we find a veriation of that story rooted in God’s relationship with God’s people, a story that contains both the judgment of a just God, and the grace of a merciful Redeemer.

God’s anger burns hot, but God will not bring an end to creation, says Jeremiah. Indeed, with the arrival of Jesus Christ and his ministry some centuries later, God reaffirmed the divine commitment to humanity. In the end as in the beginning, we are blessed by the care of a loving God.

Prayer: God of all creation, look beyond the darkness of the world and lift up your light on the goodness that you have established here, that all may know your love and repent of their sins. In Jesus’ name. Amen.