For the past few days, my wife Darlene has been encouraging me through her daily readings of Jeremiah. This morning, at the office (between meetings: next meeting at noon with Bedford Biofuels), I’m here reading Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, where we read the author’s diamond-tipped precision,

Kings know intuitively that the deception, the phony claims of prosperity, oppression, and state religion will collapse when the air of covenant hits them. The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings.

Jeremiah stands midway in the history of Israel’s grief… speaks the grief of God that Israel finally must share. Without it there is no newness. Jesus had understood Jeremiah.

It didn’t matter who broke Jeremiah’s yoke, or prophesied a different future other than the one Jeremiah or Jesus brought to light; God blessed who God chose to bless, and God righteously dealt justice to those who rightly deserved judgment. Is God any different today?

We can say it’s all about grace all we want. We can claim ignorance if we so choose to be willingly blind. We can call everyone else the devil. We can pretend to be innocent kings and queens entitled to thrones and couches. We can live in ambiguity. We can say one thing while doing another, for a season. We can attempt to paint over it; it’ll bleed through. We can not repent if we stubbornly persist. We cannot maintain rebellion for long. We cannot manipulate everyone forever….

Patience exposes liars!

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