Jeremiah
Hope Fulfilled
By Linda Rex
January 5, 2025, 2nd Sunday in Christmas—As we enter this new year of 2025, we face many challenges. We look forward with optimism as we see opportunities for growth or anticipate achieving certain goals we set for ourselves. We may dread the outcome of long-term illnesses. Or we may look forward with hopeful joy as we expect the coming of a new child.
No matter what our future may hold for us, we have learned during our Advent and Christmas seasons, that we can have hope. We can have hope, not because we know how things will turn out, but because amid every circumstance of life, we are not alone. We do not do any of these things on our own, but in relationship with our heavenly triune God through Jesus in the Spirit.
In our Old Testament passage for this Sunday, Jeremiah 31:7–14, the prophet inserts in the middle of his prophetic warning to ancient Israel, a word of hope. This hope is not based upon the nation’s willingness and ability to live rightly or to bring it about, but solely in who God is as their covenant partner. God declared they were his people and he was their God. For that reason alone, he would ensure their return and their blessing.
However, we find that the blessing God intended for his people went far beyond what they expected. God had much more in mind than simply returning this people to a location here on earth and giving them a lot of earthly blessings. God was more concerned about their eternal destiny and their spiritual renewal. What God had in mind is what he had in mind for all humans everywhere in all time—the restoration of our relationship with him through our Lord Jesus Christ, and the unity we would one day have with God in the Holy Spirit in the new heaven and earth.
We read about God’s heart in the New Testament reading for this Sunday, Ephesians 1:3–14. In this passage, the apostle Paul celebrates the loving heart of our heavenly Father, who, from before time, intended us to be “holy and blameless before him.” It was always on God’s mind that we be adopted as his beloved children through our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything we have celebrated during this Christmas season points to the important event of the incarnation, where God’s Son entered into our human existence and joined us here on earth. This was always God’s intention, and he worked towards this end in spite of our human fall into evil, sin, and death.
When we read the prophecy of Jeremiah, we hear the echoes of the future fulfillment of this prophetic word in Jesus Christ. For example, he writes that the Lord says, “… I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.” In looking back through the lens of Jesus Christ, we see this word differently than we would see it through the lens of the Mosaic covenant.
We see that the ancient nation of Israel is wrapped up in the person of Jesus, who fulfilled all that was required of them in their covenant with God. We see the “father” talked about in this passage revealed by Jesus to be his own heavenly Father, and the “streams of waters” to be the Helper, the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit. We see that in Jesus, the Son of the Father, who in our human flesh, walked the road we are to walk in relationship with his Father, we have a path to live in and follow which will prevent us from stumbling. As we walk in the Spirit, and not in our flesh, we walk in Jesus, and in doing so, we will not stumble, for he upholds us.
We see that God’s heart toward us desires our blessing and our joy. He worked for millennia to keep his promise to heal and restore our relationship with him. Jesus, when he came, was diligent to fulfill the promises given in the Old Testament to his people, and to the nations. What we celebrate during this Christmas season reminds us that God is faithful, and that we can place our trust in him, because of who he is as our faithful Lord. We are filled with hope, peace, joy, and love, as we reflect on all he has done for us, is doing for us today as he is present in this world by his Spirit, and what he will do one day when Jesus comes in glory to establish the new heaven and earth. In all these things, we have every reason to celebrate. Merry Christmas!
Heavenly Trinity, thank you for your faithfulness and your love expressed to us in the gift of Jesus Christ. Open our hearts and minds and enable us to receive this precious gift, and respond to all have done, are doing, and will do, in faith, putting our faith completely in you and not in ourselves. We thank you for keeping your word, and giving us every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Amen.
“For thus says the LORD, ‘Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise and say, “O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel.” Behold, I am bringing them from the north country, and I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together; a great company, they will return here. With weeping they will come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they will not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.’ Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—over the grain and the new wine and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow. I will fill the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people will be satisfied with My goodness,” declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 31:7–14 NASB
See also Ephesians 1:3–14; John 1:10–18.
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