I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the LORD. – Jeremiah 39:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 25, 2014): Jeremiah 39

On August 22, 1572, Gaspard II de Coligny was shot by a man called Maurevert. The shot missed taking Coligny’s life, but it did cost the French Nobleman and admiral one of his fingers. No one is sure who it was that ordered Coligny to be shot, but the assassination attempt caused French Catholics a problem. Coligny was a prominent Huguenot (Protestant) and the fear was that the attempted assassination would be seen as being religiously motivated. So the French Catholics made a fateful decision. They decided to make a pre-emptive strike against the Huguenots. Many of the Protestant leaders, including Gaspard II de Coligny, were executed on August 24, 1572. And after the execution, mob violence would claim as many as another 70,000 Huguenots in what has become known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

Part of what we know of the Massacre comes from a Huguenot who narrowly escaped the Massacre. His name was Maximilien de Bethune, the Duke of Sully. The Duke escaped death by walking out of Paris with a Catholic book of prayer under his arm. With the book of prayer under his arm, the attacking Catholics at the height of the violence simply overlooked the Huguenot Duke.

As Jerusalem is preparing to fall, the inhabitants of the city prepare for a very uncertain future. But for the leaders in the city, what happens next is fairly certain – what awaits them is death at the hands of the Babylonians. One of these leaders would have been a man named Ebed- Melek. Ebed-Melek was a Cushite who served in the court of King Zedekiah. One of the reasons why we believe that Ebed-Melek was a leader was because Jeremiah says that it Ebed-Melek that went to the king to ask for Jeremiah’s release from the cistern in which the prophet had been imprisoned. And the king responded positively to Ebed-Melek’s request.

But another reason that we believe that Ebed-Melek was a leader in the court of Zedekiah is that Jeremiah also tells us that the Cushite was worried about his future when the city fell. So Jeremiah assures him that because he honored God by getting his prophet out of the cistern, when the city fell – and the city would fall – God would find a way to get him out of the city. All because he dared to trust in God.

Amazing things still happen when we dare to trust God. Even when things look bleak, we can trust that God has plan, and we honor God when we are willing to follow the example of Ebed- Melek and place ourselves in the middle of that plan.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 52