March 24, 2022

Jessi Courier

This is Not the End of the Story ~ Jeremiah 7:23-28

Jeremiah’s world was bleak.  He prophesied during a time where God’s wrath promised the destruction of His people and their removal from their ancestral home.

Upon reading the scripture above, I thought, “Oof.  That’s rough.  Isn’t Easter supposed to be about hope and celebration?”  I then continued reading through Jeremiah, hoping that things would turn around.  They didn’t.

But later, as I reflected on the passage, one thought kept surfacing: “This is not the end of the story.”

We have the privilege of knowing the entire narrative arc of scripture.  We know that despite the cycle of sin, wrath, and repentance seen in the Old Testament, all along, God had a plan.  And His plan was for good.  His plan was to provide hope and joy and peace for every single person through His Son’s death and resurrection.  That is the lens through which I view all scripture.  Jeremiah shows us a portrait of an angry and, dare I say, heartbroken God.  But that is the same God who saw the despair and messiness of humanity, and decided He’d rather die than allow His creation to suffer without hope.

There is still suffering in the world, and I’m not here to justify the presence of so much pain.  But in the face of injustice and grief, I remember that we are still not at the end of the story.  The resurrection provides hope and peace beyond this world and reveals a just God who still has a plan.