Christmastide

December 28, 2021

Scripture Reading:
Jeremiah 31:10-14

Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
   and declare it in the coastlands far away;
say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him,
   and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.’
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
   and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
   and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
   and over the young of the flock and the herd;
their life shall become like a watered garden,
   and they shall never languish again.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,

   and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
   I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
   and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty,

says the Lord.

Israel fell to the pandemics of greed and lust for power, ending in exile. Jeremiah tried to assure them that God remained with them even in their folly and would return them to wholeness if they turned back to the Lord. This is one of the sadist things I have ever written, particularly immediately following the celebration of the birth of Christ. Although Jeremiah’s Israel had only the promise of the Messiah’s coming, we were blessed to be the recipients of his teaching and modeling love and his gift of grace and love in his life, death, and resurrection.  We follow the wrong paths as our ancestors in faith did. They should have known better because God sent prophets to warn them. We definitely should know better since we have a living Savior to guide and direct us if we can just turn away from that which distracts and isolates us from the ways of God’s love.

We will never fully address pandemics like COVID or stubborn problems like poverty and climate change if we do not seek the cure for the pandemics of greed and lust for power in our world today. Many of our elected officials have been bought by wealthy donors, but we seem to admire them for it and envy their wealth. The entrepreneurs of greed and power work hard at dividing and conquering us to our detriment. Paul addressed such divisions in Galatians 3:28. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. That oneness in Christ Jesus was in his prayer before his crucifixion as recorded in John 17:22-23 as he talks to God, The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

We can blame the politicians and others for our plight, but we must remember we elected them or allowed them to be elected because we did not bother to vote. Therefore, they no longer need us to support them and are doing everything in their power to take voters that do not help them out of the elections. If we do not reclaim our democracy by voting, we will find ourselves in an exile of our own making. To do that, we need to restore our faith in God and learn to be one with all of God’s children.

Prayer: God, forgive us for being tricked by people who use us for their aggrandizement. Please lead us to your oneness and heal the prejudices that divide us.  Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.