Today's Scripture Reading (July 3, 2023): Jeremiah 21
If
there is a truth that is being made clear by the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is
that death as a result of bullets and bombs are only part of the story of war.
Cities in Eastern Ukraine continue to suffer unimaginable obstacles. Yes,
missiles and bullets are killing both combatants and civilians in the war, and
at times, it seems like the combatants don't care to differentiate between
those with guns and those without. Death is always the result of this apathetic
attitude.
But
there are even more dying from starvation, filthy living conditions, lack of
clean water bringing disease, and lack of medical personnel to take care of
even some of the least dangerous health emergencies not connected to the war
taking place in the area around them. As someone who had several severe health
conditions as a child, I am not sure what would have happened to me if I had
been born into an area torn apart by war and could not access lifesaving
medications and surgeries. For those living in Ukraine, that is precisely the
question people ask daily.
As
a result, many have run from the area to safer places behind the battle lines.
Some have moved to relatively safer places in Western Ukraine, and many Ukrainians
have moved to other countries, far from the Russians and their lethal guns. And
yet, a remnant remains in the cities existing at the battlefront, some because
they have nowhere to go and some because they don't want to leave their homes.
And so, they suffer. The Russian promise at the beginning of the war was that
they had come to save the people of Ukraine from a corrupt government that had
been guiding them. But the evidence the Russians are leaving behind is that
they don't care about the Ukrainians. All apparently deserve to die, whether
they have taken up arms against the Russians or are simply the unlucky ones
living in the cities on the Eastern front of the war. Age and gender aren't
important; all are collateral damage in a conflict that should never have
happened.
God
reminds Jeremiah that not everyone will die in combat in the coming war. The
ones who die in battle just might be the lucky ones. Many, and probably most,
of the deaths in Jerusalem will come because of hunger and disease. So many
things the city's inhabitants take for granted will be absent. Despair in the
city will be at an all-time high, and that despair will drive the death toll
even higher. Devastation was coming, and the people were not ready for it. But
the coming disaster could not be stopped, and arrows and swords would kill
some, but starvation and plague would take even more. And in the end, even the
city and temple would die a death that the people didn't seem to understand was
already on its way.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 22
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