Incurable Affliction

"'For I am with you,' says the Lord, 'to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will not let you go altogether unpunished.' For thus says the Lord: 'Your affliction is incurable, your wound is severe. There is no one to plead your cause that you may be bound up; you have no healing medicines. Why do you cry about your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable. Because of the multitude of your iniquities, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you. Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity. Those who plunder you shall become plunder and all who prey upon you I will make a prey"  Jeremiah 30: 11-16.


It's a condition that plagues us all: humanity. I often grumble as I wrestle with the ugly parts of me just how awful it is to have this darkness constantly sneaking up on me, living in my inner-being, just waiting for a foothold out. It's my human condition, my great depravity. It's an excellent excuse for the terrible things we do but not enough so that it excuses us from the consequences that follow wrong actions. This may be ironic to say, but I love the harshness of the passage above. Your affliction is incurable. You have no healing medicines. You can't do it. You can't save yourself. You may try, God only knows how many times I have and likely will continue to try. Your sins are piling up. Your incurable. It's so desolate and hopeless.


Then we reach deep into some of the context of this writing. The Israelites are so much like us it's scary. They've fallen away, big time. They didn't want to listen to God, didn't want to worship Him, didn't want to do anything but exactly what they wanted to do. If they lived in modern America they would be skipping church, only praying in emergencies or when they wanted something and idling their lives away on alcohol and lewd behavior (and for those who think lewd is antiquated, try worldly). They'd look surprisingly similar to you and me.


But in this passage God isn't saying they're utterly incurable. He's saying they're incurable in the path they've set themselves on. When you dig yourself a hole well above your head and you try to save yourself, all it's going to do it scrape away the edges and make your hole bigger when you try to climb out. Bonus, it may throw some of the dust in your face in the mean time. The Israelites had dug a HUGE hole- no way of climbing out and righting themselves. They'd fallen into this severe, destitute place far off from God. In their plight they were hopeless.


Then the next part, and don't miss it because I love this: Why do you cry about your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable.  Why do we feel sorry for ourselves? Why do we weep about the trivial things of life? Why do we drown on and on about the things that are temporal and don't truly matter? Our sorrow is incurable and our thirst unquenchable. Unless we go to the right source.
God says something rather uncomfortable next.  I have done these things to you. We don't typically like to think of God as inflicting sorrow on us much less severe wounds and incurable afflictions. We don't like to think of God as the power who swept the Israelites into captivity and desolation. But He's that God too and in this passage He mercifully gives us just a small glimpse of His reason: For I am with you... to save you... yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will not let you go altogether unpunished. He loves us so much. It's real; it's raw; it's uncomfortable. He loved them so much, despite their wandering, to devour and plunder the nations He used to scatter them. I love the word therefore, it's such a great word to sum up. Yet here, upon first glance, it sits awkwardly between to seemingly unconnected sentences. Until you think about it. The Israelites were His chosen, call by His name. And even though they broke the sacred bond, He certainly wouldn't. And though He did everything to them, He still broke apart the nations and stood once again protecting them, much like a father for his child or a shepherd for his flock. He not only stood up for His people He destroyed any doubt that He was the controller and ruler, the Almighty God.


What a powerful, fierce and incredibly loving God we serve.