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Sermon for the week of Trinity 5
Jeremiah 16:14-21 + Matthew 5:13-16
We weren’t together on Sunday to hear it, but in Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus called three fishermen to become fishers or catchers of men. That wasn’t a new idea. You heard Jeremiah prophesy in this evening’s Lesson that the Lord would do just that: send out men to fish for the scattered children of Israel, to go out into the world hunting for them. And not only for them, but for the Gentiles, too.
It’s easy to understand why they would have to go out hunting and fishing for the Gentiles; the Gentiles had abandoned the knowledge of the true God and were all idol-worshippers. But why would they need to go fishing, or hunting, for the Israelites? Because God was about to scatter them. Remember, it helps to know when the prophets were writing. Jeremiah was the prophet who oversaw the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Israel had reached its lowest point by his time, the lowest point of their idolatry, willfulness, and rebellion against God. In the words right before tonight’s Lesson, the Lord warned Jeremiah not to marry or have children, because all the families in Israel were about to be cut down, either put to death or taken into captivity in faraway lands for their refusal to repent.
They would be cut off, not only from the land of Israel, but from the Church of God, from the presence of God. In fact, the land was symbolic of the Church, symbolic of God’s acknowledgement that these were His people and that He was their God. It’s important to remember that. The land was not the ultimate prize. A place in God’s kingdom was.
After ejecting the people from the land, and from His favor, God promised, in the words of this evening’s Lesson, to bring them back: Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.
It was a miraculous thing, when the Lord brought the people of Israel up out of Egypt. It would be even more miraculous when He brought them back from Babylon. No, there wouldn’t be ten plagues sent against the Babylonians like there had been against the Egyptians. Instead, God would move kings and nations and global powers in order to bring His people back, at the exact time He told them ahead of time, through the prophet Jeremiah, that He would: seventy years.
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. It’s a promise for the future, not only to hunt for them and catch them and bring them back to their land, but to bring them back into His good graces, back into His Church, into His family.
Still, at the present time, in their current state of rebellion at the time of Jeremiah, God reminds them why they would need saving. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
God’s promise of future salvation from captivity required atonement, required that the people pay for their sins through punishment. God couldn’t simply overlook their idolatry and the injustice they committed day in and day out. They would pay for it, suffer for it, dearly. And then they would be brought back to the land.
But to be brought back into God’s good graces required a different kind of atonement, one that the people couldn’t possibly make. Because no amount of suffering can truly make up for a person’s sins against the holy God. No amount of punishment can earn the forgiveness of sins. Only the suffering and death of Christ could do that. It was His atoning death for the sins of Israel, and for the sins of everyone else, that would earn forgiveness for Israel, and for the world.
And so Christ, when He came, sent men out to be fishers of men, hunters of sinners, both Jews and Gentiles, to call them to repentance and faith in Christ, so that they might be saved and brought into the “land of Israel,” not the literal land, but the land that represents peace and belonging in God’s kingdom, the land that is the Holy Christian Church.
And so Jeremiah, knowing this, turns to the Lord in prayer and praise: O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!” “The nations” are the Gentiles, those who didn’t grow up hearing about and believing in the true God who promised since the very beginning to send a Savior of mankind. The Gentiles grew up believing in many gods, making idols for themselves and making up sacrifices to try to appease the gods and purchase their favor. But when the fishermen would reach them, like the apostle Paul, for example, many of those Gentiles would realize how foolish their idolatry was, that their gods were not gods at all. They would come in faith to the God of Israel, and be rescued from sin, death, and the devil, together with the small number of the Jews who would do the same.
Now, you here are not fishermen, in the proper sense. You haven’t been sent out by Jesus to preach and teach and baptize in His name. You’re not fishermen. But you are lighthouses! Each one of you, a little lighthouse shining across the dark sea, so that men may see your light, the light of believers in Christ Jesus living visibly, living openly according to your faith. Isn’t that what Jesus said in the second Lesson you heard this evening? You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. You are a lighthouse, shining in the darkness, when you regularly make time to gather around the preaching of God’s Word. You are a lighthouse, shining in the darkness, when you show kindness, mercy, and love in your home, and in your school, and among your friends, family, and fellow citizens. You’re a lighthouse when you walk openly according to God’s commandments, when you avoid evil, when you dress modestly, when your speech is salted with God’s word, with praise for God, and with invitations to come and see what Christ has to offer here.
This is your calling. This is your purpose. And wherever Christians live according to our calling and purpose, there God accomplishes what He says through the prophet Jeremiah: “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.” You, Christians, have been hunted and fished from among the nations. You know God’s power and might, His goodness and faithfulness in Christ. Now live according to your calling and purpose, and pray that God may use you to make Himself known to the world. Amen.
