Living in Reality: Jeremiah 1:1-3
Jeremiah was a Priest from Anathoth, a village about 3 miles from Jerusalem and one of the original cities set aside for Priestly families to make their home as they served in God’s House. Abiathar, who served under King David, was from there, and that family included the great Eli, who raised the prophet, Samuel. It’s also essential to notice that Abiathar backed the wrong horse in the succession of King David. He went with Adonijah, but that son was defeated by Solomon, who had Zadok as his Priest. The house of Abiathar never quite recovered its prominence and, for a few centuries, had performed its duties in the shadow of the flourishing Zadokites, viewing them as worldly and compromised with their prevailing culture. These Priests of Anathoth had a dim view of what they considered a compromised Temple establishment. That’s Jeremiah’s background - raised in the Temple to serve the Lord and his people, and yet deeply suspicious of those who loved to parade their prominence and use their position in the religious world to dominate and manipulate others.
We Three Kings
The book opens by telling us not only where he is from but under which Kings he served in Judah. Three are mentioned: Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. That forty-year period began with a revival and renewal and yet ended in exile and devastation.
Josiah - a King of Recovery and Renewal. We can read the story of Judah’s renewal in 2 Kings 22. He became King at the tender age of eight and immediately began a program to renovate the polluted and neglected Temple. That would’ve thrilled Jeremiah! During the renovation, a ‘book’ was discovered and read before the King. That book was God’s Law, unheard and unheeded for many years. Josiah led the nation in repentance, tearing down idols, restoring the Temple, and seeking to bring Judah back into conformity with God’s ways.
Jehoiakim and Zedekiah - Both of these descendants of Josiah “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord”, finally bringing upon Judah the long-prophesied destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, as well as the exile of her people into Babylon (see 2 Chronicles 36 for a deeper dive on what happened and why).
Why is all of this important to the ministry of God’s word through Jeremiah? In a word, “reality”. This book isn’t a biography about a prophet, but rather the words of the prophet that pierced the facade of Judah’s situation and pointed to leaders and citizens alike not only that “all that glitters is not gold”, and ruins are not the final word on God’s heart towards his people.
“Until the captivity of Jerusalem…” (Jeremiah 1:3)
“Judah went into captivity, away from her Lord” (Jeremiah 52:7).
In a way, those are the bookends of Jeremiah. They are critical to grasp and hold onto.
Jeremiah began in a season of great national renewal - “revival,” we might even call it. Yet Jeremiah was not someone moved by the current situation. He could rejoice in it, but his life was rooted in the word of God that came to him (1:2). As we will come to see, Jeremiah could see through the very temporary renewal that was being experienced; he knew that deep, lasting change of heart had not occurred in Judah and that as soon as Josiah was off the scene, Judah would return to her idols. Jeremiah had discernment and could see right through the hypocrisy of his day to reality.
But if Jeremiah saw through the hypocrisy, it was also to see through to the promise of God. That’s the ultimate reality. Whatever may be happening in us or around us, whatever we may be facing, we can be sure that reality is a settled matter around the word of God that comes to us in Jesus Christ. Whatever God declares must occur; God’s word is a true and reliable word, one that can be counted on (Jer 1:12-19). Jeremiah was prophesying approaching demolition in the middle of a revival! He was unimpressed by temporary renewals and longed for the recovery of Judah’s complete devotion to her Savior.
That was true at the end as well. When destruction did come, Jeremiah did not say that such an act was the final word from God. As Christopher Wright observed, Jeremiah didn’t angrily say, “I told you so!” but instead hopefully said, “I told you why!” Jeremiah went around the empty and ruined streets of Jerusalem and cried out,
“This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning,
Great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion…
Therefore I will hope in him.”
- Lamentations 3:21-24
This is our call to the word of God, to ultimate reality, to Gospel Sanity. If we try to live according to whatever is happening around us - even if it is good! - we will fail to deal with the root of reality. Then, when the evil day comes, having already established that we live not according to God’s word, but according to the culture we see, we will capitulate to the prevailing winds and surrender our souls. Whether we see revivals or reversals, we must base our lives on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ given to us in the Scriptures. That is the ultimate reality. That is prophetic life. That is Gospel security and sanity.