Today’s Scripture Reading (May 31, 2020): Jeremiah 32
I can hear Simon Cowell on any of his “Talent Shows” ask the question. So, what is the dream? Sometimes the dream is unrealistic; it doesn’t match up with the talent of the performer. Sometimes the dream only appears to be impractical. When Simon asked the question of a frumpy Susan Boyle on “Britain’s Got Talent,” she responded that she wanted to be a professional singer, maybe as successful as Elaine Paige. It was a reality Simon, and the other judges, clearly believed, in the beginning, was a step beyond reality, but her voice proved that it was at least possible that the aspiration was not misplaced.
“What is the dream” is also a question that we sometimes place beside the sentiment coming from God that asks, “Is anything too hard for me?” It is the exact question that was asked of Abraham after his visitors revealed that his wife, Sarah, was going to become pregnant and bear a son in her elder years. To Abraham and Sarah, such a reality was an impossibility. If Sarah was unable to become pregnant during the best of her childbearing years, how was she going to become pregnant now that she was well into menopause? The response that the couple received was, “Is anything too hard for the Lord” (Genesis 18:14)? Sarah’s pregnancy was the dream that had long been unfulfilled. But God could do anything.
But the question takes a surprising turn during the days of Jeremiah. The dream, from Judah’s point of view, was that the Babylonian army would disappear from the Jerusalem in the same manner that the Assyrian Army had vanished from the City of David more than a century earlier. After all, is anything too hard for God. He had done it once; he could do it again. And many within the city walls believed that it was only a matter of time. Not only could God do it again, but he would do it again.
But God speaks to Jeremiah using the same words that were spoken to Abraham and Sarah. “Is anything too hard for me?” But this time, he was not speaking of Jerusalem’s deliverance, but rather the city’s destruction. Sometimes the dream survives and flourishes, but sometimes the dream also withers and dies. And for Jerusalem, the dream was about to die. Babylon would take the city and destroy it, not because God was unable to save it, but because God had declared that the pathway to salvation for his people lay in his people spending some time in the heart of the Babylonian Empire. As unlikely as Jerusalem’s destruction as an integral part of the people’s salvation might have sounded to the citizens of the city, it was a reality that God had thrown his weight behind. For the dream to become a reality, Jerusalem had to be destroyed. To the people of Jerusalem, that sounded like an impossible contradiction. But, is anything too hard for the Lord?
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 33
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