Jeremiah 13:1-11 Personal Message
God will give Jeremiah many object lesson messages for Judah but today’s object lesson is for him alone. It is more of God’s answer to Jeremiah’s woe.
I remember stories of Jeremiah and some of the ‘strange things’ God told him to do. They were to be seen by the people so that they would learn something of God’s plans. The actions God tells Jeremiah to do today would NOT be seen by the people. It was an intimate lesson. Unless someone followed him everywhere he went, they would have no idea that this lesson even took place.
In my bible helps, it speaks of the river where God told Jeremiah to put this loincloth. Jeremiah was from the town of Anathoth. My bible helps presupposes he still lived there. I don’t know if this is true or not because Jeremiah complained to God about the people of his home town wanting to kill him. I would expect that he moved from there shortly after this attitude surfaced. But if he stayed, my bible helps presents us with a question. Was it really the Euphrates or was there a spelling error in a later translation? They present the Euphrates with the Hebrew spelling of “perat”, being hundreds of miles from Jeremiah’s home town, and a nearer river “Parah” being less than 3 miles from Anathoth.
I initially read, “after a few days” passed between Jeremiah burying the loincloth and digging it back up. But the text says “after many days” instead. We don’t know how long it was in between the two acts. So, we don’t know how much travel time was between the two acts either. And God was NOT shy on having His prophets cover great distances. He may have had Jeremiah walk that great distance. He may have had him closer to the Euphrates. Or He may have allowed the spelling change to get us thinking too.
God certainly got Jeremiah thinking with this act. He had Jeremiah purchase the most intimate garment a man would wear. This represented the most intimate relationship God had with ANY people on earth. We don’t know how long Jeremiah got to wear it before God told him to go bury it. Was it of fine quality? Did Jeremiah appreciate it while he had it? Was it more comfortable than any other he had?
Now it’s time to take it on a journey. Did Jeremiah wear it until he reached the place where he buried it? Did he put on another at home and carry this one? Did he carry a spare to put on when he buried this one? God told Jeremiah what he was going to do with it before Jeremiah set off on this journey, so I’m assuming he prepared in advance for his needs.
This long journey reminds me of the journey Israel took with the Lord through the desert. It took 40 years to make this journey. Not because the distance was so great but because the sin in the people’s hearts were. The entire first generation would die in the desert before God allowed Israel to enter the Promised Land.
What was Jeremiah thinking when he buried the loincloth? I doubt it was that he would be digging it up again. Was he wondering what lesson God was going to teach him through this act? Was he thinking “Why on earth did You have me buy this and get so comfortable in it if You were just going to take it away from me a little while later?” Why “hide” it?
If it was me, I KNOW I would have been analyzing every step of the journey. On the way there, while digging, and on the way home. “What is this all about?” “What are You trying to teach me?” “Did I actually hear God speak or is this something of my own imagination?” We don’t get to peek into Jeremiah’s mind, so we don’t know what he thought about this process.
Did Jeremiah forget about the loincloth after he got home? God didn’t. He told Jeremiah to go back and dig it up. “WHAT! You’ve got to be kidding! Do You know how nasty that thing will be?” That would be my first thought. Maybe Jeremiah had a different thought. “Ok. I wonder where this is going. Will there be a miracle waiting for me when I get there? Will God have somehow protected it over all this time? What will I see when I dig it up?” This wonder might have made the trip more exciting. “I can’t wait to see what God is going to do!”
It’s time for the ‘Big Reveal’. Jeremiah digs in the place he may have visited in his mind many times, or completely dismissed when he got home. Either way, he knew right where to look. He puts his hand in and draws out the loincloth. It is DISGUSTING! It is dirty, smelly, and probably moldy. I wouldn’t doubt that it had worm holes in it too. “You brought me here to dig up THIS?!”
How long did Jeremiah have to wait for God’s comment? Was it an immediate thing once he laid eyes on the loincloth, or did he have to sit and ponder a while first. Jeremiah KNEW that God had told him to do this act from start to finish. He was probably expecting an answer. And God supplied it.
Jeremiah had to trust God from the beginning of this ‘journey’. He had enough of a relationship with Him that he KNEW God had a reason for all He was telling him to do. That only comes with time and experience. We can easily read the lesson God wanted to emphasize to Jeremiah. He was dealing with a ruined Israel and Judah. The MOST intimate of relationships God had established had been ruined beyond repair. Only bits and pieces would be saved from this original relationship; a remnant. The garment had no remnant to salvage but God would carve out one for Himself from the covenant He established.
For me today, I was thinking about Jeremiah’s process. I was wondering how I would feel in his place. One thing that struck me is that I would have been expecting some miracle when I got back to the place where the loincloth was buried. I would have expected it to come out perfect; to have been protected. I wouldn’t have expected God to have me pick up a nasty piece of cloth. “Couldn’t You just have told me the answer without having dragged me all the way back here? I could have told You it would be unusable after being buried so long in the ground. Why did I have to see it with my own eyes?” I would have wanted a short cut to the end of the lesson.
Jeremiah did all the hard work to get to the end of the lesson. To get to a moment of hope that didn’t materialize. The same hard work God had gone through for centuries, waiting for His people to turn again to Him with their whole heart. And finally, to see that they were beyond hope.
God doesn’t usually tell us what waits for us at the end. It takes trusting in Him to get to the ‘ah ha’ moment. It takes the journey to make the lesson real to us. When I go in with expectations of how ‘this’ is going to turn out, I miss the point more times than not. I have to trust that He has a plan EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, and be willing to walk that path to the end. I can’t have my ‘finale’ in the middle or I would probably hop off at that point. I have to ‘get comfortable’ with waiting or He is going to get tired of hearing me say “Are we there yet?” He loves me enough though, that even when I do ask that question, He answers me with love each time. There IS a lesson IN the journey that can ONLY be learned by having ‘been there’ with Him for all of it.
Father God, THANK YOU for the journey. Thank You that I KNOW I don’t have to walk it alone. Thank You that I KNOW You will bring meaning to everything You call me to do. That I WILL learn Your lessons along the way, or we will repeat that process again until I do. THANK YOU for the little lessons along the way too that keep me holding on for the ‘Big Reveal’. Keep me walking and trusting You Father. Thanks for the reveal today too.
