Adent 2 2012

“It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”  So begins Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities.  A statement that seemingly contradicts itself with both the positive and the negative.  Thoughts of hope and simultaneously thoughts of misery.  Best and worst all at the same time.

We might have similar inclinations with our Old Testament text for today.  “Behold” it says. “The days are coming.” It says. “When I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the House of Judah.” 

This is hopeful, is it not?  The Lord fulfilling his promise.  The Lord making good on the Word that he gave to his people Israel and Judah so long ago.

“In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Here is where it starts to get a little iffy.  Here is a statement that is at once hopeful and frightening all at the same time.  The Lord will do justice and righteousness in the land.

We can’t stand injustice.  When we see a person getting taken advantage of, when we ourselves are taken advantage of it bothers us.  It hurts your conscience.  That part of you that knows right and wrong, when it sees wrong occur there is a sense that someone has to make it right.  Do you know what I mean? 

Has anyone ever done wrong to you.  I can remember when I was a young boy we went away for the weekend to go camping.  We got back and our garage door was open.  The side window was smashed.  My bicycle, which was my most prized possession at the time, had been taken.  I loved that bike, rode it every day, and to have someone take it, that was hurtful.  But even worse than that was the notion that someone had been in our garage to take our things.  Someone had come in to do evil in our house.  That stung.  It felt strange to walk into our house knowing that an evil person had been there, knowing that the sanctity of our personal space had been violated.  Have you ever felt that way?  It is hurtful, it is unsettling to have someone do evil to you.

To hear this message,  “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David he shall do righteousness and justice in the land.”  Why this means that those people who do unrighteousness and those people who do injustice – they are going to be caught.  They are going to be rounded up and punished.  They will be made to pay for the wickedness they have done.  Their reign of terror will come to an end because there will be a good and righteous king, a righteous branch sitting on the throne of David his father.

Oh, but it is the best of times, it is the worst of times.  Because while this righteous branch is doing righteousness and justice in the land, while he out rounding up the wicked and giving them their due, he is searching out the wrong doers and not one will get away.  Each one will be punished and each one will receive the justice that is coming to them.

It is a sly trick of our sinful nature that we are keenly aware of the wrongs that have been done to us.  I can tell you of an experience I had almost 30 years ago when my family was robbed, when thieves  broke into my house and stole from me.  Can I give the same detail, relay the same experience when I was the perpetrator?  What about when I was the offending party, can I still relay the same story with the same sort of emotion?  Can you?  Not likely. 

Break up a fight between two people and as each one cools his or her temper he will tell you with great detail what the other person did, why he was right in throwing that punch – the other person in the fight, why they had it coming.  He deserved it.  I couldn’t just stand by and take it.

We are very good at explaining away and justifying our sin.  Giving all the reasons why we did what we did, why it was not so bad, why we had a good reason or even a right.  “Situational ethics”, you know.

When the righteous branch comes to ferret out the unjust and the unrighteous, he will eventually get to you.  He will discover your sin and he will find out your unrighteousness.  He will know the truth and nothing will be hidden from his all-seeing and all-knowing eye and everything will be laid bare before him.  He will see through your thinly disguised excuses.  He will see the holes in your feeble attempt at self-defense and self-justification.  He will administer justice and judgment to you for the sins you have committed.

It will be the best of times.  It will be the worst of times.

It will be the worst of times.

It will be the worst of time, yet it will be the best of times.

It will be the best of times because this text is a text of hope.  The Lord gave this word to his prophet Jeremiah when Judah and Jerusalem was under attack from an enemy, a foe that was too great and too powerful for them.  One of the history’s great empires – the Babylonian empire had set its sights on them.  That little corner of the world that was a crossroads of commerce was valuable for controlling trade routes, merchants on their way to Egypt would stop through Palestine.  And King Nebuchadnezzar wanted a piece of that pie.  He sent a great and powerful army to go take it.

Now the Israelits and Judah – they were the Lord’s people.  And the Lord was and is powerful.  He can singlehandedly change the direction of a battle, a war, an empire, an entire era or epoch of history.  And the Lord had chosen this little Israel and Judah to be his own.  And so he fought for them.  He defended them and he protected them and he kept them safe from outside invaders.

The Israelites were proud of this.  It gave them confidence and strength.  They were bold.  Yet not bold in their valor or their righteousness or their nobility.  They became bold in their sin.  The defiled themselves with false gods and evil.  So much that the Lord had grown tired of them.  The Lord was going to punish them and he was going to use Nebuchadnezzar to do his righteousness and justice.  The people were going to receive their just rewards.  We must hear this justice and understand this righteousness and know this character of our God.

But even while the Lord is planning for the destruction of Jerusalem and the slavery of the people he called his own, he was at the same time planning their restoration.  How he would  bring them back, how he would rebuild them, how he would restore them, how he would once again make them powerful and great as a people, and how he would once again establish his King and his Kingdom. 

A righteous branch would come.  This Righteous Branch would save Judah and Jerusalem.  This Righteous Branch would be king who would cause his people to dwell securely.  This Righteous Branch is Jesus.

You see Jesus is at once the best of times and the worst of times.  He is God’s favor and restoration and hope while simultaneously executing and doing justice and righteousness in the land.  All of God’s right and righteous judgment all of the punishment that each and every sinner deserves for each and every sin, Jesus punishes that sin.  Jesus executes justice and righteousness for that wrong doing.  Jesus makes sure that every sinner has his day in court and his date with the executioner.  But the one punished is not the one who committed the crime.  The guilty party the offending party is set free from his guilt, set free from her guilt.  Instead the innocent is punished as a substitute, as a surrogate, as a stand in.  The guilty is set free, because Jesus himself receive the punishment.

This is unheard of.  The king, the judge, the doer of justice – he gets the punishment.  He calls out the sinner, he calls out the sin, he calls out the punishment and orders the executioner to punish – not you but himself?  Yet this is what the Lord does.  Justice is done, but it is done to the sinless one, the Son of God who permits himself to be hung on a cross, to be a curse so that we can  go free.

The worst of times for Jesus.  The best of times for you.

The Best of times for you because you have been given, you are on the receiving end of the best prize in all of history.  The world was enthralled with the 588 million dollar power ball prize that was awarded this past week to the hard working couple in Missouri and some unknown person in Arizona.  This was reportedly the largest jackpot in the history of the lottery.  Yet this prize is worthless in comparison to the prize of faith and forgiveness given to the believer in Christ. 

Because the Lord, the Righteous One, the King who sits on Heaven’s throne call you with the name that he himself is called.  Yes, that’s right,  the Lord who has defeated his enemies once and for all time and all eternity and who has been given all authority in heaven and one earth call this name of power and honor on you.  This is the Name by which Judah and Jerusalem, by which the people of God will be called – The Lord our Righteousness.  That is powerful.  That is baptismal.  The name of God being called, being assigned, being given to a sinner.  Can there be any greater gift?

Dear friends, the worst of times is reserved for even the smallest of sinners. But the best of times is granted to even the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.  That gift is yours.

Amen.