Go Buy a Field

Passage: Jeremiah 32

The Book of Jeremiah is full of dire warning and divine condemnation.  Through his beleaguered  prophet, God tells his people repeatedly that their idolatry and infidelity have reached a critical point.  God has insulated them from the consequences of their wild abandon as long as divinely possible; and now they will be abandoned to their inevitable downfall.  God’s people will fall into the hands of his instrument of cosmic judgment: the marauding Babylonians.

And yet, sprinkled throughout this narrative of impending doom are kernels of hope.  Jeremiah, whose prophecy comes to expression both in words and symbolic actions, buys a field.  Why?  Why, after declaring that the Babylonian scythe is poised to raze the Promised Land to stubble does Jeremiah lay claim to prime wasteland? 

Because it won’t always be wasteland.  The God who burns also plants.  The God who lays waste also renews.  Where human eyes see only irreversible devastation, the eyes of the Lord see new life.  The Lord tells his prophet,

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. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’  (Jeremiah 32:14-15)

How often do we find ourselves confronted with the devastation of our short-sighted and self-serving behavior?  A failed marriage; a failed business; kids who won’t talk to us; friends who will no longer acknowledge us; a neighborhood blighted by our neglect; a city torn by our prejudice?  We survey the devastation, pull up stakes, and move on.  Because our efforts can only ever land us here – failure; brokenness; wasteland.  Could it be that what landed us here was a failure to trust in God right from the beginning?  And could it be that the God we ignored in the beginning is still right here – inviting us to turn to him; inviting us to trust him; inviting us to follow his way instead of ours?  Stop trusting strategies that have only yielded disappointment.  Start trusting the one true God – the only one who can turn wasteland into fertile ground.