Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
September 23, 2007

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

The prophet Jeremiah lived in a very troubled time and place. He lived of course in the land that we know as Israel in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE, a couple of decades on either side of the year 600 BCE. The little kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, was the only remaining Hebrew kingdom. There had been another one, the kingdom of Israel to the north of Judah; but the great Assyrian Empire from the east had destroyed Israel more than 100 years earlier. Since then Judah had been under almost constant attack, or at least constant threat, by those same Assyrians. Now a new power had arisen in the east even more powerful than the Assyrians had been. The Babylonian Empire was besieging Judah and Jerusalem. The land was laid waste. Commerce and agriculture had been destroyed. The people suffered from war and famine. Their whole world was crashing down around them. Soon, they knew, the Babylonians would begin a final siege, and little Judah had no way to fight them off. The end of their way of life was at hand, and only the fools among them failed to see it.

Yet that wasn’t the worst of it. The people of Judah believed that they were God’s special favorites. They had believed for centuries that their God Yahweh, who once so long before had, as they believed, freed their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and had given them this land as their eternal inheritance, was on their side and would protect them from all of their enemies. Now they were being destroyed by a foreign power that worshipped other gods, that worshipped idols. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. The people could conclude only one thing. The Lord their God had abandoned them to their enemies. God had even forsaken them, and worse. It appeared to them that God was punishing them. In their mind their oppressor was not merely the Babylonian Empire, it was God Himself. All hope was gone. There was nothing left but despair.

Jeremiah gave powerful voice to that despair. We heard part of his lament this morning. “My joy is gone, grief is upon me…. ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’ For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.” Jeremiah 8:19-21 NRSV A few verses earlier Jeremiah expressed his view, and his people’s view, of why the calamity was happening: “The LORD our God has doomed us to perish, has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned before the LORD.” Jeremiah 8:14 The prophet wailed: “Is there no balm in Gilead?,” using the name of an adjoining region to stand for Judah itself. Jeremiah 8:22a NRSV I think he meant it as a rhetorical question. It certainly seemed to him that there was no balm in Gilead. All hope was gone. There was no consolation or help to be had anywhere.

Now, this passage would be of interest only to historians—and we all know how irrelevant they are—except for one thing. We’ve all had, or some day we will have, our own Jeremiah moments. Jeremiah was talking about a people, a nation; but his words are a metaphor for our personal experiences as well. Times of despair come to all of us. We all know that horrible feeling of hopelessness, when we feel lost and don’t know where to turn for help. At least, I know that I have had those times, those feelings; and I expect that because I am human I will probably have them again. They are times of illness and physical pain. Even worse, they are times of grief and emotional pain. They are times when God seems indeed to have abandoned us, or even to be punishing us, as Jeremiah was so sure God was doing to his people so long ago. I too have on occasion cried out with Jeremiah “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Jeremiah’s theology, his view of how God relates to the world and to God’s people, led him to answer that question no. Jeremiah is perhaps a particularly gloomy prophet. Reading very much of him can be a real downer. Still, his despair is understandable given the times in which he lived and especially given his view of God. His understanding of God gave him no way to answer the question other than with an emphatic no. His belief that what was happening to him and his people was God’s doing prevented him from seeing any other answer.

Yet, my friends, the Good News of Jesus Christ is that there is a balm in Gilead. There is comfort and healing to be had in our Jeremiah moments. We must, however, understand what that balm is and what it isn’t, how it works and how it doesn’t. We Christians see and learn what that balm is and what it isn’t, how it works and how it doesn’t, in one place, namely, in the cross of Jesus Christ.

What do we see in the Cross of Jesus Christ? We see the Son of God Incarnate, God the Son become human and dwelling among us as one of us, as a human being like us. And we see the Divine Human Jesus Christ entering into and enduring the worst that human sin, human evil, human violence can inflict upon a fellow human. We see God the Son suffering and dying, and we see God the Father grieving and suffering the loss of God’s Son. We know that the cross wasn’t the end for Jesus because we know that on the third day he rose again. Yet that knowledge comes later, after the cross. We don’t see that when we behold the cross itself. There we see only suffering and death.

And we see that God does not reject our suffering and our death. Rather, God enters into them with us. God is present in them with us. Jesus truly felt abandoned by God when he cried out from the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He had to feel that sense of Godforsakenness if he was to know our sense of Godforsakenness in our Jeremiah moments of suffering, despair, grief, and death. Yet because it is God Incarnate experiencing being forsaken by God we know that God does not in fact forsake us in those times. It’s a paradox of course, but then all profound truth is paradoxical. In the cross of Christ we see that God is truly present with us in solidarity with us no matter what befalls us in life. It’s a truth Jeremiah could not see because he expected God to prevent bad things from happening to God’s people It’s a truth that we can see because we know in Christ that God is with in the bad things that happen to us as well as in the good.

That is the balm in Gilead. The balm in Gilead is the presence of God with us, holding us and loving us, in whatever comes our way in life. It is a powerful balm indeed. Many of you know that last May my twin brother Pete had a severe stroke. We thought he was going to die. He didn’t, but he remains severely disabled, largely paralyzed on his left side. His stroke hit me hard emotionally. Maybe it’s true that twins are closer than other siblings, even when we don’t think we’re all that close. I flew to Tucson to be with Pete and his family during the first days following his stroke, and during that time I often fell into grief and despair. When I did the image of Christ on the cross would appear to me, and I would say: Oh, yeah. You get it. You’ve been where I am, and worse. You’ve even been where Pete is, and worse. You are where I am. You are where Pete is. Then I felt supported and comforted. I know that Pete too has felt God’s healing presence at least at times as he struggles to recover from his stroke. He has told me so. God has been a balm for him and for me in this difficult time.

God can be a balm for you too in your difficult times too. In those times, look to the cross of Christ and know that God is with you, walking every step with you, sharing your burden and making it possible for you to bear it. Look to the cross of Christ and know that you are safe with God no matter what happens. Look to the cross of Christ and find strength, courage, and peace, peace for your soul in the knowledge that God is there wherever you are, and that the presence of God makes all the difference.

Jeremiah cried out in despair: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Across the millennia we answer: Yes, Jeremiah. Yes there is. It may not be the balm you cried for. It will not stop the empires of your day or the powers and principalities of ours from inflicting calamity upon people. It will not prevent suffering. After all, God did not prevent suffering and death even for God’s own Son. It is a wonderful balm nonetheless. It has the power, as the great old hymn proclaims, to make the wounded whole and to heal the sin-sick soul. It has the power to enable us to face whatever we must face in life and in death with peace and at times perhaps even with joy. It is the loving, grace-filled presence of God with us and for us. That is a wonderful balm indeed, and for that balm we give God our heartfelt thanks and praise. Amen.