A sermon based on Jeremiah 33: 14-18
By Charles J. Tomlin, DMin;
November 28th, 2021, Flat Rock-Zion
Baptist Partnership
Series: The Royal Names of Christ
15 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.
16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."
17 For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,
18 and the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time.
(Jer. 33:14-18 NRS)
Most
people are familiar with Handel’s Messiah, especially at Christmas.
The
most explosive lyric in the Oratorio: ‘For Unto Us a Child is Born’. It’s based on the text of the King James
Version of Isaiah 9: 6 where like musical fireworks it explodes: ‘Wonderful, Counselor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace!
That
just may be the most beautiful Christmas lyrics of all, but what does it mean
for us, really---in our world, for our times?
On
this first Sunday of Advent, we begin a series of messages on Isaiah’s royal
names for God’s in
anointed
Messiah. It
was actually a fourfold name. The King James’ translators added a comma where
the original Hebrew has none. It should read: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.
The
first name
we are considering today is about a coming King who is given the name: Wonderful Counselor. This is quite an
unusual and interesting way to refer to a coming King. Hardly ever in Israel’s history, or in any
human history for that matter, are kings ever called
‘wonderful’ or ‘counselor’. Never would anyone
think of putting these together.
Besides, even today, people make
a lot of jokes about counselors who are psychologists or psychiatrists. We even have a derogatory name for them: Shrinks:
And I have to admit, some jokes about
psychiatrists are funny. One story goes:
A man with an
unusually large head came in to see the psychiatrist. A few minutes later, he left the room,
angrily yelling at the receptionist.
Sir, please calm down and tell
what's making you so angry, the receptionist asked.
The man retorted: I came in to see
the head shrink, but my head is still the same size!
But sir, she concluded. Isn’t he just trying to make you a
little patient?
Or how about the more familiar
joke that goes: How many shrinks does it
take to change a lightbulb? One, but the lightbulb has to
really want to change.
CALL, I WILL ANSWER...
Many people get
nervous to think about having a counselor, but the royal hope of Israel,
according to Isaiah, is that the anointed King of Israel’s hope would indeed be a most ‘wonderful counselor’. But
how is a king, or anointed Messiah of God a counselor? What does ‘counseling’ have to do with Jesus?
Last spring I received
an invitation to a seminar with the keynote speakers being former ambassador Madeleine
Albright and former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell. The seminar was about the importance of wisdom
and moral leadership. That’s the kind of leader Isaiah was envisioning for Israel:a coming King. One who would rule with exceptional wisdom and moral authority. Only this kind of ruler could rightly lead
God’s people out of their spiritual and political darkness. Only a wise and moral king could give guidance
that is both wise and good.
This is exactly what we see in how the
gospels present Jesus to the world. The
king as “counselor” will be wise. He will
devise wise plans for his kingdom. As a wonderful
counselor Jesus answers human need by seeing beyond our conventional
assumptions with a unique discernment.
In story after story Jesus astonishes his contemporaries. As they observed his caring, compassionate work,
people asked: “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has
been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!” (Mark
6: 2).
Even the familiar
birth story in Luke 2, moves toward his childhood, when he is celebrated for
his uncommon wisdom. It says: The
child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon
him. … And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human
favor. (Luke 2: 40, 52) Do you see
it? Jesus was wise in how he took on the
corruption of his world, making even dying on the cross a kind of serving and suffering wisdom that contradicts
the “foolishness” of the world (1 Cor. 1: 25, 27).
In book of
Jeremiah, another one of Israel’s great prophets, we have a text that points
directly to how God’s himself will respond to human need in Jesus the Messiah. Like a good
counselor, God
listens, hears, and responds says
Jeremiah. “Call
on me, God says, and I
will answer. (33:3)
The most important job of
every counselor is to listen, and the mark of a
good listeners is that they ask lots of questions. Jesus
was a master at asking questions. Often, he started conversations with a
question. And when Jesus was asked a question, he usually
answered with another question. In a book
entitled Curious,
Tom Hughes writes: “Throughout the
four Gospels, Jesus is asked 183 questions. Of those 183 questions, how many do
you think he answered? Only Four. Jesus responded to the other 179 questions
with a question, or a parable, or a cryptic remark that opens the door for even
more questions.” (Hughes, Tom (2015-09-17). Curious:
The Unexpected Power of a Question-Led Life (Kindle Locations 223-225). NavPress.
Jesus asked lots
of questions. God answers, not by
replacing our own response or actions, but by listening and helping us come to
the answer ourselves. That’s how the
wisest counselor works too. They don’t
give out answers, but they listen, question and help us find the answer that is
already there, deep within us.
Isn’t this the greatest
wisdom, not to remove our choices, but to shape and direct them? When Jesus healed someone, he often said
something like, ‘Go your way, your faith has made you well.’ In other words, the answer is already in us. That’s also how a counselor does their most
wonderful, healing work too. The wise
counselor doesn’t simply spill out advice to us, but answers our need by
revealing how God can empower the answer that lies within us. God’s king rules, not by overruling us, but
by getting into our hearts, and partnering with us to bring healing and help.
THIS IS WHAT THE LORD SAYS…
As our wonderful counselor, Jesus
also confronts us with the truth. This
is what a good counselor does too. They
listen, but they don’t allow us to stay the way we are, but the confront,
challenge and enable us to see in what we may not see.
When Jesus questions us too,
by the way the lived and His Spirit within us,
Jesus also us to see, know, understand and begin to live the truth. This challenge of ‘truth’ isn’t meant to
condemn us, but by coming to know and realize the truth, we can be set
free!
Still, facing and accepting
the truth can be very hard. As the Old Testament teacher, Walter
Bruggeman said: ‘The capacity of
Jesus for the wonderful—the impossible—constituted an immediate threat to all
established power arrangements. He is
promptly seen to be dangerously subversive because he challenges and
contradicts all normal assumptions. This is a king who refuses to accept
conventional”. He confronts people
and power with the truth. (Names
for the Messiah: An Advent Study by Walter Brueggemann, chap, 1.)
I’ll never forget how during a
pastoral training group we had to tell how we saw each other in our
personalities and our pastoral work.
This was hard, and sometimes very painful work. We were asked to be completely honest in our
evaluations of each other. I ended up confessing to one person what I
didn’t like about him, and he, in turn, told me what he didn’t like about
me.
In the end, we came to realize
that we learned the most about ourselves from the person we didn’t like. It caused us to confront how we were being
perceived, so that we could see the truth about ourselves and grow in showing
love and compassion for others.
Isn’t this what Jesus was doing
when as the wonderful counselor, he confronted his own people with the truth
about themselves? The ultimate truth
about Israel’s story, which is every persons’ story too, is how, as John says,
Jesus came unto his own, and his own people did not receive him, BUT, as
many as did receive him, the text says, he gave them power to become
God’s children (John 1:12).
Notice again. Jesus doesn’t automatically make us God’s
children, but Jesus gives us to ‘power’ to decide to become God’s
children. In this wonderful counsel,
Jesus came to confront us as sinners, not to condemn us, but so we can gain the
power of truth and redemption to move out of our own self-destructive behavior.
The story is told that an non-believing
colleague was visiting C.S. Lewis at Christmas. While they were visiting in
Lewis’s office, they began to hear from outside carolers singing.
As they sang about the virgin
birth, the colleague said to Lewis, “Isn't it good that today in our modern
world we know more than they did in the ancient world. We know now that virgins don't have
children.”
C.S. Lewis responded by
saying, “Don't you think that they also knew way back then that virgins didn't
have children?”
What Lewis was doing was
confronting his friend with a different way of looking at the miracle of
Christ’s birth. Just like Lewis’
colleague, we can get stuck in how we see things and forgetting how there are
always new possibilities beyond what we think and what we know. Isn’t that what Christmas is about? Nothing is impossible when God breaks into
our world.
I WILL FORGIVE...HEAL. (6-8)
Most of this text from
Jeremiah, like Isaiah’s great text too, is about the new possibility of
recovery and healing God wants to bring his people through forgiving their guilt
and restoring their prosperity and joy.
This is exactly what a ‘wonderful’ counselor does. They listen, confront, and challenge us, not
because they want to condemn or denounce us, but because they want to help us
get on a better road and make a better life for ourselves.
Jeannot
Plessy was a pastor’s wife in New Orleans. She had just returned from doing
mission work in Samoa. On Tuesday
night, while she was dropping off her grandchildren at her daughter’s home in
the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans, she became the victim of a
carjacking. When her son-in-law rushed to help her, the carjacker ran over
Plessy. She died as the result of those injuries.
The
Pastor, in writing to his church family about the incident, said what we all
think in these moments. “Such tragedies cause us to become overwhelmed by
sadness and grief. We wonder, ‘Why do
such tragedies happen to good and godly people in our world?’ Most of the time,
there are no answers to that question.”
But,
for these times, especially for these times, I am comforted to know that we
have Christ for the crisis, and He is a Wonderful Counselor.
In
this broken world, we all will struggle in some way; whether it is our own
fault, or like it was for Mrs. Plessy, no fault of our own. If we refuse to reckon with and realize how
difficult life can be, and that we all need a Savior and Counselor, we will
struggle to find healing or hope. As
Jeannot’s Plessy’s mother, also a believer, said, “I don’t know how people go
through tragedies like this without the Lord and God’s people to help them.”
I
don’t know either. I’m just glad to know
that we can celebrate Him as the Wonderful Counselor! Whether we are struggling with sin, like
Israel did, and like we all do, or we are struggling with the inequities and
unfairness of life, as we know it, it’s good to know that we have a counselor,
who not only confronts our sins, but who also forgives and heals us, both in
this world, or by giving us the ultimate healing of the hope of eternal
life. A good counselor, and our most
wonderful counselor, is always at work to bring healing and hope, both to our
soul and in our bodies.
THE DAYS ARE SURELY COMING, (Jer. 33:14ff.)
What ties this whole passage
together, and points us back to Isaiah’s own words of the future Messiah as a
Wonderful Counselor is this promise of hope.
This is what a good counselor does---gives us hope. This is what a good leader and ruler does
too---give us all hope. Our human
souls can survive almost anything with hope; and without hope, we end up
tripping over the most insignificant and inconsequential.
To give his people ‘hope’,
Jeremiah spoke of a day that is ‘surely’ coming, ‘must come’, and one day ‘will
come’ because God keeps his promise. Isaiah,
gave his people hope by speaking of a child who would be born and grow up to be
a king who would rule God’s people in a completely different way; as a
Wonderful Counselor, as the Mighty God, as the Everlasting Father, and as the
Prince of Peace.
Interestingly, Isaiah tells us the story of two babies. In Isaiah
chapter 8, God speaks to the prophet Isaiah and tells him to get a large
scroll, and across it, with big letters write the name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
Not long after that Isaiah and his wife discovered that they were going to have
a baby. God then told Isaiah to give the child the name he had written on
the scroll. The name meant: Quick to the plunder, swift to the
spoil. God then said to Isaiah, "Before your son is old
enough to say mamma or daddy, your nation will be plundered and the people
taken off as slaves." Can’t you see a mother standing in the
back yard and calling, “Hey, ‘Plunder’ time to come eat”?
Needless to say,
this child came to symbolize the hardship of the Hebrew people because of their
rebellion against God. Every time Isaiah looked upon his own son, he was reminded
to confront God’s people with the most difficult truth.
As we move into
chapter 9, however, we find that the struggle
this child represents was harsh. The words Isaiah used to characterize
this tragic time were harsh and difficult no matter what translation you are
reading; Gloom and anguish (NRSV), Darkness and despair (NLT), like death
is casting a shadow (NLT). As much as
we might try to deny it, these words can sometimes be true to our own existence
too. In the last two years many have struggle either with losing loved
ones to Covid, dealing it’s economic consequence, or bearing scars of months after
month of loneliness and isolation. Christmas,
that should be the most joyful time of the year, can cast its own shadow of
darkness too, as many struggle economically or suffer from depression.
But the prophet
Isaiah proclaims in the midst of this kind of darkness, there shines a great
light! In other words, there is hope! A light has dawned. For
you see, there is a second baby! The prophet proclaims, “For unto us a
child is born.”
The good news is
that this child will be different from the first. He will not represent
plunder and despair but hope and peace. For the Christian who believe in hope, the name of this hope is Jesus. Jesus is the wonderful counselor who not only
listens to us, but confronts us with our great need, and then offers us healing
and hope. But how does that hope come?
As we all know,
the word counselor means advocate: One who stands up for us when no else is
willing to do so. An attorney is often called "Counselor" because
he stands up for his client in a court of law.
By standing up for his client, the ‘counselor’ gives his client a voice and
offers hope for justice---which basically means, setting things right.
Jesus Christ is
the wonderful counselor of Israel who offered God’s people a different way to
face our sins and the world’s injustices too.
Jesus helps us face life because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the
life, who shows us the way to the Father, which is the way of justice,
righteousness and goodness. In Jesus,
we know that we aren’t alone, and that God is not against us, and that nothing
will separate us from God’s love. This
is hope.
During the Civil
War, there was a young man who had lost his older brother and father in the
war. His mother sent him a letter pleading with him to come home and help
her and his sister take care of the farm.
The young man
was granted a furlough and went to Washington, D.C. to plead his case to the
president. When he arrived at the White House, he asked to see the
president. But he was told in no uncertain terms, "You can not see
the president! Don't you know there's a war on? The president is a
very busy man. Now go away!"
The young man
left very disheartened. He went to a nearby park and sat down on a bench
and tried to figure out what to say to his mother. It was then that a
young boy walked up to him and said, "Soldier, you look unhappy.
What's wrong?"
The soldier
looked at this young boy and he began to spill his heart out to him. He
told him about his father and brother dying in the war and how his mother
needed him back on the farm.
The little boy
took the soldier by the hand and led him around to the back of the White
House. They went through the back door, past the guards, past all the
generals and the high-ranking government officials until they got to the
president's office itself.
The little boy
didn't even knock but just opened it and walked in. There was President
Lincoln with his secretary of state, looking over battle plans on the
desk.
President
Lincoln looked up and said, "What can I do for you, Todd?" And
Todd said, "Daddy, this soldier needs to talk to you."
Right then and
there the young man was able to plead his case.
This why Jesus
is a wonderful counselor. Jesus is our advocate. In Jesus, and through
the Spirit, we have the ear of God himself.
Amen.
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