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Advent Take Aways: Take away Injustice! Jeremiah 33:14-16
Advent Take Aways
Take away Injustice
Jeremiah 33:14-16
† In Jesus’ Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrate what righteousness and justice truly is, even as you share in Christ’s Justice and Righteousness!
- God Gives…God Takes Away
Looking at all the Advent readings for this year, a common thread started to appear. Or perhaps it would be good to say was that the common thread was that things disappeared.
You see, the coming of Christ, whether the first coming, or the second coming we wait for, means radical change to life – as things which haunt us disappear. In this sermon series, we will watch the distractions that corrupt us be taken away, then the fear and anxiety be taken away, we see our-self-centeredness taken away…and we will consider what their absence means…
It all starts with what is taken away in today’s reading, as the promise of God is heard,
And injustice is dealt with
And what is left, when Christ comes, is the complete absence of injustice and its corollary, unrighteousness, is truly amazing…
- The Take Away
If we are going to talk about injustice, we better define what is not just, what is not right, what is not fair. Just, right and fair are all the same word in both Greek and Hebrew.
The problem is that most of us, injustice is slanted heavily in our favor, as we cry out about a call in a sporting event. “those refs are blind”, like a child accusing another of an unfair advantage. We do the same thing when we hear of someone’s court case, or a business deal, or a war.
We assume, and often demand that others acknowledge that we have all the information, that we know all the rules, and that we have the responsibility and authority to judge the matter! Whether we are on the playground, or trying to force peace on the Holy Land.
This is where it gets a bit…challenging. Unless we not only know exactly what happened, and exactly what the minds were thinking and hearts were feeling, our judgment of what is injust or just is biased, and therefore sinful!
Yeah – we can be the ones who back injustice, even when we claim to be defending justice! God’s standard of justice versus injustice has no grey area, it is complete. Anything less than 100% perfect is unrighteous, anything biased where we claim it isn’t fair or righteous is simply sin—we’ve decided to make God in our image—we’ve credited ourselves with His purity, with His omniscience, with His righteousness and justice!
And let’s face it, that isn’t us!
For us to pray to end injustice affects our attitudes and behaviors as much as the world’s
- What that Leaves Us
So the promise from Jeremiah deals with the taking away of injustice. It is the focus of the entire passage. It starts with
14 “The day will come, says the Lord, when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good things I have promised them. 15 “In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. (Jeremiah 33:14-15)
Here is the promise of the first advent – the coming of Jesus—the descendant of King David. The difference between Jesus and every other descendant of David is simple—He is righteous—remember- that is the same word as just!
Here is the standard, here is the One whom everyone else is going to be measured by, and in him, there will be hope—a hope that was always promised, a hope to restore the people of God, and the glory of His people that was seen in the days of King David!
But the way Jesus deals with injustice is not through legislation, the establishment of His kingdom is not through political intrigue, or brute military strength. That is what the world still struggles to understand, as it sees injustice as something that has to be overwhelmed.
Instead, injustice is dealt with by Jesus by His taking it upon Himself at the cross. That is the real way to deal with it, to let it be laid on Jesus, as Isaiah prophesied,
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6 (NLT2)
This is why Jeremiah says, 16 In that day Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’
You see, this is the key—Jesus doesn’t just provide us righteousness as someone would deposit or credit us money. Jesus is not just why we are righteous—He is out righteousness.
It is our union with Him in baptism, where we are united with His death, and He cleanses of us sin and all injustice and He becomes our righteousness. He is our Righteousness…
As he takes away the injustice -all of it, at the cross –leaving us freed from it. This is the hope of the second advent, the day when Injustice, already defeated Is banished.
And until that day, The Lord Jesus will protect you, as you dwell in the Father’s peace which is beyond all understanding. AMEN!
A Rant Against Injustice
Thoughts which draw me to Jesus, and to His cross..
15 If you put these people to death all at once, the nations who have heard about your power will say, 16 ‘The LORD was not able to bring them into the land he promised them. So he killed them in the desert.’
17 “So show your strength now, Lord. Do what you said: 18 ‘The LORD doesn’t become angry quickly, but he has great love. He forgives sin and law breaking. But the LORD never forgets to punish guilty people. When parents sin, he will also punish their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, and their great-great-grandchildren.’ 19 By your great love, forgive these people’s sin, just as you have forgiven them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
20 The LORD answered, “I have forgiven them as you asked. Numbers 14:15-20
We condemn this wicked idea about works. First, it obscures the glory of Christ when men offer these works to God as a price and propitiation, thus giving our works an honor that belongs only to Christ. Secondly, they still do not find peace of conscience in these works, but in real terror they pile up works and ultimately despair because they cannot find works pure enough. The law always accuses them and brings forth wrath. Thirdly, such people never attain the knowledge of God, for in their anger they flee his judgment and never believe that he hears them.
Shortly after being tortured she was transferred to another cell, where she found a tattered Bible. She opened it, and the first thing she saw was a picture of a man prostrate under lightning, thunder and hail. Immediately she identified herself with this man, saw herself in him. Then she looked further and saw in the upper part of the picture a mighty hand, the hand of God, and the text from the eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, a text that comes straight from the center of Resurrection-faith: “Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ” (8:39). And whereas at first it was the bottom half of the picture which she experienced, her being invaded by all that was terrible, crushing her like a helpless worm, she gradually came to experience more and more the other part of the picture, the powerful hand and the “Nothing can separate us”. At first she still prayed, “Lord, let me out of here”, but this interior shaking of the prison bars turned more and more into that truly free composure which prays, with Jesus Christ: “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
Injustice, some would say, is in the eyes of the oppressed. They get to consider what is just, and what is not, or at least a neutral court does. And if the court decides there is more oppression the the judgment isn’t right, the cries of injustice increase, and protests and even civil wars erupt.
I cannot find that sort of reaction in the writing of then Cardinal Ratzinger. I think if you asked the lady tortured about injustice, or it’s pseudonym–unrighteousness–you would get a far different attitude. For she found justice, real justice, in the pages of scripture and the etchings in that Bible. (I wonder if it was a Lutheran Bible – and the picture being of Luther’s desperate plea for God to save him.) The justice she found was so satisfying, that she could leave her situation in the arms of God, and welcome His actions, or inactions.
I envy her spiritual maturity….as I deal with my own challenges.
She encountered the love of God that would not let her go… and it didn’t.
And as she grew to depend on Him, His declaration of her righteousness took hold, and she knew peace in the despair.
That is why Melanchthon and Luther and the group around them so fought that injustice could only be defeated by Christ. That His forgiveness was not dependent on my, or the extreme measures I could take to stop sinning, and pay for those I’ve committed. (nor pawn them off on my descendants and friends – who have their own to deal with!) There is nothing I can do to fight injustice in war-torn regions of the world, but pray and try to help them see Jesus’ power to deal with their own sins, and then, they can see the sins of their “oppressors” dealt with as well.
THis is so clear in the passage from Numbers – Israel’s injustice had to be dealt with. They were rejecting God, they were looking to their own wisdom, they were dismissing His care for them. But God, in His mercy, hears the cry of Moses, and forgives them as promised. Why? Because they were His.
As was the lady imprisoned,
As were you and I…
“Apology of the Augsburg Confession: Article IV, 204” Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 135.
Joseph Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year, ed. Irene Grassl, trans. Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 25–26.
Effect without a Cause?
Thoughts to encourage our love for Jesus!
“You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Matthew 5:11 (CSBBible)
St. Teresa wrote this admirable maxim: “Whoever aspires to perfection must beware of ever saying: They had no reason to treat me so. If you will not bear any cross but one which is founded on reason, then perfection is not for you.”
If I work out at a gym, I expect the next day I will be sore. That’s just cause and effect. It is reasonable and logical.
If I treat someone badly, I ought to be treated badly in return. I am the cause and the effect is just and right. (Even though I do not like it – one bit!)
But it is when I am treated unjustly, when I want to say, “I don’t deserve this,” or “they have no reason” as St. Teresa noted, that I encounter trouble. When I am trying to help, and I get mauled by the person needing the help. That is when I tire, and I grow weary and I want to just hang it up.
It is illogical, in this world where sin and brokenness abounds, to think that everything will be justifiable, that everyone will simply love us, because we are trying to show them Christ’s love.
It is also illogical when we know that Jesus says “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44, and Paul teaches us to “bless those who persecute you, bless them and do not curse them” (Roman 12:14) to expect that we won’t have enemies and persecutors. We should expect opposition, and that the opposition is not reasonable, logical, and often painful.
Yet, it is wrong, it is sin, if we do not love, pray and bless them.
I don’t like that.
But that doesn’t give me the right to become as disobedient and unreasonable as my heart cries out to be.
And it doesn’t mean passively taking their abuse, for loving, praying and blessing them is as more active than hating, scheming against them, and cursing them. It requires to think about what is truly best for them, and to lovingly do those things, seeing them through.
It is not easy…to take up such a cross, such a burden. It requires realizing the love of Christ for us, even the love that drive Hi to the cross when our sin tortured Him (and the Father) and learning to find the rest and peace that comes from Christ dwelling in us. To understand that He is the answer to every injustice. This isn’t about living in the brokenness – it is about living in the love of God,
ANd for those that do not know such peace, may we pray they leave their dissonant, broken lives and are drawn into Christ as well.
Alphonsus de Liguori, The Holy Eucharist, ed. Eugene Grimm, The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori (New York; London; Dublin; Cincinnati; St. Louis: Benziger Brothers; R. Washbourne; M. H. Gill & Son, 1887), 427.
How Do You See God Working in “Them?” How does that affect your own faith?
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
10 Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord!” he replied. 11 The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now. 12 I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again.” 13 “But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! 14 And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.” 15 But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. 16 And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” 17 So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. 19 Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength. Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days.
Acts 9:10-19 (NLT2)
675 It’s true that he was a sinner. But don’t pass so final a judgment. Have pity in your heart and don’t forget that he may yet be an Augustine, while you remain just another mediocrity.
How can we hate people as much as we do? Just a glimpse on social media this morning, I see people attacking homeless, immigrants, the President, the House of Representatives (both sides), athletes, Muslims, conservative Christians, those who have had abortions, those who are pro-life, Hollywood and Netflix, people who liked the new Star wars, and those that found major issues with it.
It is spiritually exhausting, all this hatred.
We not only judge their actions, but we also condemn them and assume they are and will always be demonic.
It is as if we don’t believe God is capable of turning them as if God has never had to deal with sinners before, and is incapable of transforming them into saints.
Ananias needed to be converted as much as Saul did. His reluctance shows it, as his faith wasn’t in the God who was transforming him. Did he think God didn’t know who He was sending him to baptize?
Do we believe God does not desire these people we hate to come to faith, to repent, to be transformed?
If we did believe their salvation was possible, would we spew our hatred out on Facebook and Twitter the way we do? Would we try to justify it when we are challenged on our words and actions?
I would imagine this affects us more than we know, go if we realized God could save them, then perhaps we wouldn’t hesitate to go to God, confessing our own sins, our own darkness, our own doubts.
We need to be cleansed of all sin, and all unrighteousness, including our doubt that God can save all people, that the cross paid for all sin. That in Christ, all can be considered holy. The more we trust in HIm to save and transform others, the more we will see what He is doing in us.
Trust Him, He is at work, seeking to save the lost, all of us.
Amen!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Injustice. Sin. Brokenness. DEAL WITH IT
Devotional Thought of the Day:
1 With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down and the sin that clings so closely, and with perseverance keep running in the race which lies ahead of us. Hebrews 12:1 (NJB)
Worship of God is an act of justice towards Him which disposes us, indeed sets us free, to be just towards one another, because it is the living out of our filial relationship towards God; and it is the living out of our common filiation or sonship in Christ. Worship is therefore in a very real way the basis of any human action, especially towards one another. Pope Benedict XVI echoed similar sentiments:
There is a permanent temptation for the Church: to put aside the cross
(cf. Mt 16:22), to negotiate with the truth, to avoid persecution, thus diminishing the redemptive power of the cross of Christ.
Yesterday I was talking to a young lady at the chiropractor’s office. She was kind of curious about me wearing a collar, and while I waited to get adjusted, we talked quite a bit. She was a little surprised at how I talked about my church, and how we tried to deal with our brokenness, rather than hiding it, or ignoring it. She liked the idea, even more than she liked hearing about California and the celebrities I have run into across the years.
As I was reading this morning, I thought about the fact our society is broken. We see it in the poverty in some communities. We see it in the interaction of our public figures. We see it in the horrors that we encounter, if we bother to hear the news from Africa, where illness and disease and war still kill people daily.
There is a part of me that thirsts for justice, that thirsts for it all to be fixed. To see our politicians grow up, to see them work together to bring peace, and if not prosperity, then at least and end to poverty that results in death. We need to deal with it, just not ignore it! We need to take on such injustice and brokenness, and work to find the healing of our lives, and our society, and our world. I want to see the brokenness of the church dealt with as well, rather than just ignored, or dismissed because it won’t affect me or mine.
I want to cry out, “Deal with it!”
But that is a temptation that I consider naive at best. Not because people will not (and for the most part, they won’t) but because how we cast aside everything and “deal with it”.
You see, what I need to do is cast aside all of that stuff, all the stuff I need, that we need to deal with, first. Because, let’s be honest, I can’t cause AOC and Trump to sit down and reconcile, and I can’t solve the problems in middle Africa, or for that matter in Cerritos, Ca, or Windham, N.H. I can’t replace injustice with righteousness quickly enough.
But I can walk with the Lord, who will do that, who will work thorugh His people, who will change us, and through that change enable us to love each other in a way that is effective and transformative. That will bring about reconciliation, that will teach people to care more about helping others than compiling their own wealth.
You see these things that we long for are the side effect of something bigger. They are results of worship, of clinging to the cross where we discovered we are loved, where all of the injustice in our lives is crucified with Christ, where all our sin and the things that break us down are shattered. Where we learn what matters, what is worth our praise, what transforms us.
And as we look to Christ, as we worship, as we dwell in the presence of God, we are transformed. We begin to love because we are loved, we begin to help others find that justice and righteousness and they in turn are transformed as well, not by force, but by the process of realizing they are loved.
Deal with it…
Father, deal with us!
“deal with it, please, dear Father in Heaven… by dealing with us! Make real Your presence, Your love, Your transforming us… AMEN!”
Turkson, P. (2012). Adoration as the Foundation of Social Justice. In A. Reid (Ed.), From Eucharistic Adoration to Evangelization (p. 172). London; New York: Burns & Oates.
Pope Francis. (2013). A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. (A. Rossa, Ed.) (p. 233). New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis.
The Cost of Fixing Injustice
Devotional Thought for our day:
22 Then Peter took him on one side and started to remonstrate with him over this. “God bless you, Master! Nothing like this must happen to you!” Then Jesus turned round and said to Peter, “Out of my way, Satan! … you stand right in my path, Peter, when you look at things from man’s point of view and not from God’s”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps he must give up all right to himself, take up his cross and follow me. For the man who wants to save his life will lose it; but the man who loses his life for my sake will find it. For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world at the price of his own soul? What could a man offer to buy back his soul once he had lost it? Matthew 16:22-26(Phillips NT)
When you want to control your abandonment in the hands of God, the tenderness of your filial relationship is lost. Neither ideology nor psychoanalysis or sociological interpretation of the mystery knows of tenderness. Rather, they know the art of manipulation, not of caress.
You want the world to change.
You can’t understand why the problems in our society exist, why there is hatred, why people can’t work together. You want them to change (whoever “them” is) and you easily get frustrated by their actions.
I get that, I am tired of my own anger at people who are angry at people who are angry because they are reacting against what they perceived as unjust.
I’ve got some news for you (and it applies to me), the change and the peace we seek doesn’t begin with their change, it begins with the change that needs to happen in us, in you and me. It starts with your giving up all rights to yourself. It starts with your relationship to God. It starts with you letting God be God and trusting Him to do exactly what He promised to do in our lives. You need to let Him guide you in life, and listen and follow. Not partially, but totally.
As Pope Francis notes, you can’t really control your abandonment in the hands of God.
There is a reason for this, which he explains as “the tenderness of our filial relationship is lost”. What that means is that as we play God, as we determine we are in control of our lives, we forget and lose track of our relationship with God. We forget about the fact we are His beloved children (hence filial – that of a son), we forget that He desires we walk with Him. , we forget about the love our Father in heaven has for us.
All this happens as we try to take control of our destiny, for 10 minutes or for a lifetime. THat is what Jesus talks about in that trying to save our life, we lose, but if we abandon it to the care of the Father, to the guidance of the Spirit, to the work of Jesus on the cross, we gain it.
And we gain a sense of justice, a sense of righteousness that God fills our life with. We realize that righteousness means we love those we consider unlovable, and rather than just condemn those who acts are unjust and unrighteous, we put them in God’s hands, We pray that He would spare them by transforming them just as He is doing to us. We work to help them realize they are His beloved children and that He has saved them from their sin. That is how injustice is fixed, first as we remember that Jesus’ work has committed us into the Father’s hands, and then, abandoning our will, our destiny, our life into his hands, we see Him work miracles, reconciling others through our work, as He guides us to love them.
Easy? No, and yet yes. He does the work! We have to just stop fighting Him…..
The cost? Already paid for on the cross of Calvary. The blood of Christ that was spilled that sin would be covered, and separated from the sinner.
This is our hope, whether the injustice is minor, or national. That Christ came to redeem the ungodly, and we have seen it happen in our lives.
So go, in His name, and love.
Pope Francis. A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. Ed. Alberto Rossa. New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis, 2013. Print.
God’s Justice is Love?
Discussion/Devotional thought of the day:
“Don’t fear God’s justice. It is no less admirable and no less lovable than his mercy. Both are proofs of his love.” Escriva, Josemaria
To think of Justice as an act of love is challenging, primarily because I don’t think we understand justice. We see it primarily as punitive, and in an eternal sense – there is something to that. But justice in scripture is also righteousness – and in that form, it cannot abide unrighteousness,
It seems to be that we want God to work on the injustice in the world, that which we see as not being righteous. The challenge is wanting Him to do the same in our own lives, even as we pray it occurs in our communities and countries. And ultimately, His righteousness is proven in how He deals with our unrighteousness – He keeps His promise – His sacred covenantal promise and makes a righteous people by putting their injustice and unrighteousness on someone else- that His justice may be seen.
May we find that love every day, as we look at crosses that surround us – testifying to His justice, His mercy and His love!
