Easter 4 Jubilate

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Lam 3:22–33; 1 Jn 3:1–3; Jn 16:16–22; Ps 147:1–11; antiphon: v. 5   –     4/26/26

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jeremiah begins the book of Lamentations thus, How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave (1:1). How has this come about for Jerusalem? He explains a few verses later, Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe (1:5). For her sin of unbelief, Jerusalem, all Israel has been cast out of the promised land. Israel abandoned God and so God has withdrawn His favor from her. Thus we come to our Old Testament reading where Jeremiah reminds the unfaithful Israelites, But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope (3:21): the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning… for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

What then is the application of this passage to us today? We are not in exile. We have not been abandoned as Israel thought she was abandoned. Both of those statements are true, yet we must remember that we are sojourners on this world. Like Abraham, we dwell as those who are merely tenting in one place while we wait to be brought to our homeland. There are two lessons for us. First, when the world or life or work or family turn against us we are to remember that Jesus has no more abandoned us than He did ancient Israel. Second, Jeremiah instructs us as he instructed Israel how we are to live as sojourners far from our homeland, far as yet from the promised New Heavens and New Earth.

(I) First remember that you inherit from Adam a sinful nature. If you examine your heart and mind, how you think and how you desire to live, you will discover that your heart and your mind dislike doing good and only good all the time, but rather the promises, the riches, the enjoyments available from the world are what your sinful nature desires, whether that is laziness as so often affects the young, or pride that so often affects the old, or whatever temptation the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh put before each of us. This is the same problem which beset the Israelites. The cares and desires of the world, especially the wealth and prosperity of their pagan neighbors, tempted them. They turned to false gods, or as someone recently put it, they went after “tolerance, diversity, and pluralism” (Joel Abbot, NotTheBee, 4/20/26). Tolerance of foreign and unbiblical ideas, diversity of religion and practice, and pluralism of deities. Thus God sent them into exile. God’s response to our own sinful hearts when we act or even think like the Israelites did should be the same. He should chastise us as He did them. He should deprive us of house and home as He did them. And sometimes He does chastise us for our sins. But God never does this because He wants us destroyed. He always chastises us, as He always chastised Israel, so that we would repent of our sins of thought, word, or deed, of pride and of sloth, of greed and of gluttony, and of neglecting His Word and the fellowship of the saints in favor of worldly affairs. And for the sake of His Son, of Christ’s death on the cross, God forgives all our sins, placing the guilt on Christ’s shoulders.

Further, God chastises us so that we would learn that our lives are not composed of or lived for this world. The Christians of the Old and New Testament eras knew this. Their lives stand as a testimony of that belief. Listen to this point St. Chrysostom makes, Abraham and the Patriarchs “called themselves, therefore, ‘strangers,’ but Paul said something much beyond this; for not merely did he call himself a stranger, but he said that he was dead to the world and that the world was dead to him. ‘For the world,’ he says, ‘has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’” (Gal 6:14; Epistle to the Hebrews 2.4.1) Yes, we live in this world, but just for a time. We like Abel and Enoch of old, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and St. Paul await the world to come. But just as they endured the sinful world, hoping for the world to come, so must we.

St. Chrysostom also speaks of the new promised land, our true homeland which God is preparing for us while we are sojourning in the fallen world: “For what language, what intellect, can represent that blessedness and virtue, that pleasure, that glory, that happiness, that splendor? ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived’ (1 Cor 2:9) (he did not say that they simply surpass what we imagine; but that none has ever conceived) ‘what God has prepared for those who love him.’ For of what kind are those good things likely to be, of which God is the preparer and establisher? For if immediately after God had made us, when we had not yet done anything, God freely bestowed so great favors—paradise, [face-to-face conversation] with God’s own self, immortality, a life happy and free from cares—what will God not bestow on those who have labored and struggled so greatly and endured on God’s behalf? For us God did not spare God’s only begotten. For us when we were enemies God gave up God’s own son to death (Rom 5:8). Of what will God not count us worthy, having become God’s friends? What will God not impart to us, having reconciled us to God’s own self?” (ibid. 23.6)

Thus also we understand what Jesus says to the disciples in the Gospel reading, A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me…. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. He speaks of His death on the cross and His time in the tomb, but also of His resurrection, when He appeared again to the disciples. That resurrection is for us the great cause of jubilation, the cause of this Sunday’s name, Jubilate, “all of you rejoice” (Ps 66:1), because by it Jesus has shown that He has defeated death and sin for us, and that there is the resurrection of the dead, of those who died in the faith. Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Paul will all be raised, we shall see Chrysostom and all the early Christians because as Christ has been raised from the dead so too shall all be raised with Him who believe in Him. As Jeremiah said, But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases… the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Truly, God has not cast us off forever, but has gone to prepare a homeland for us.

(II) Then we come to our second lesson, which follows this joyous news that God will raise us up on the Last Day in new bodies, sinless and deathless: How then are we to live as those redeemed by Christ’s blood?

One of the Church Fathers, Methodius, argues it is best to cultivate virtue from boyhood.“Therefore, it is becoming that we should kindle the unquenchable light of faith in the heart, and gird our loins with purity, and watch and ever wait for the Lord; so that, if He should will to come and take any of us away in the first period of life, [etc.,] and should find us most ready, and working what He appointed, He may make us to lie down in the bosom of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Now Jeremiah says, ‘It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth;’ and ‘that his soul should not depart from the Lord.’ It is good, indeed, from boyhood, to submit the neck to the divine Hand, and not to shake off, even to old age, the Rider who guides with pure mind, when the Evil One is ever dragging down the mind to that which is worse. For who is there that does not receive through the eyes, through the ears, through the taste and smell and touch, pleasures and delights, so as to become impatient of the control of continence as a driver, who checks and vehemently restrains the horse from evil?” (ANF 6, 326)

Jeremiah used the analogy of the ox pulling the plow with a yoke, God being the plowman who guides the ox through the field so that the ground may be prepared for the seed. What is the example Jesus uses frequently of the Kingdom of God on earth? He speaks of fields and vineyards, of the Master calling in workers to tend the field and reap the harvest. That is also in part what Jeremiah means when taken with the parables of Christ, that God’s people are to be doing the work of the laborers in the field of the world. We are to be doing the work of the ox, preparing the ground for the seed, that is, the ears, minds, and hearts of our neighbors for the seed of God’s Word. How is this done? Joyous living and a friendly countenance which we have because we know that we have been redeemed in Christ, no trouble of the world can daunt us because our homeland is elsewhere. Thus we prepare the fertile ground of our neighbor’s hearts through friendship and joyous living and sharing the Word, and God will cause the growth.

But there is another meaning, that which Methodius brings out, that our lives are also to be ones of discipline and habit building. Consider what Jeremiah writes here: “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. What does this mean? It means that it is not our job to save the whole world or force the Kingdom of God to come among us. It is not our job to force God’s grace or plan, but rather we are to be patient but eager for His appearing.

Jeremiah continues, It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust—there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. What does this mean? It means that while we are sojourners here, there will be hard labor. It is not always easy to be joyful, or to smile. It is especially hard to endure rejection and mockery. It is again harder still to be vastly out-numbered by people who think you are a fool for believing the truth. There is an altogether different level of difficulty when the very government and community turn on you because you are a Christian, because you abhor abortion, because you support God’s order of marriage, because you believe the earth is young and was created in six days, when you are persecuted for the sake of Christ and the Gospel. Yet God has called you to bear whichever yoke of suffering you receive.

For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Bearing these sufferings alone is harsh to one’s soul. Bearing these sufferings unprepared is grasping at failure. So how must you prepare, and how must you learn to endure whenever God decides to place a yoke upon your shoulders? Do not do it alone, as the writer of Hebrews says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (10:25). When you see a brother in Christ suffering, raise him up. Prepare him a meal, listen to his tale of woe in silence, be present with him for two oxen together plow better. Likewise, sharpen the blade which God has given you, that is, read, study, and strive to understand God’s Word. Engrave that Word upon your mind and your heart. Study and learn to understand the history and the doctrine of the Church. King David says, Through your precepts [, O Lord,] I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules (Ps 119:104–106). When you bear the light of God’s Word with you then even at the darkest time of work you will be able to see clearly where you must bear the yoke.

Jesus also instructs us, Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Mt 11:29). And again Jesus instructs us, But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (Mt 5:39). And Solomon admonishes us to Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them” (Eccl 12:1) Why all this advice, so that you may be prepared for the day labor long before it comes upon you. This is not only for the young among us, but also for you who are older, you too may have trials and yokes you must yet bear. So place your mouth in the dust, that is, put your shoulders into the work and grow strong in both good deeds and knowledge of God’s Word, and when your day of struggle comes, whether that is persecution by the world or facing your own death, you may confront it in the joy of the Lord.

St. Jerome argues that “When we leave the roof which shelters us, prayer should be our armor; and when we return from the street we should pray before we sit down, and not give the frail body rest until the soul is fed. In every act we do, in every step we take, let our hand trace the Lord’s cross” (NPNF 6, 38–39). So let every day be for you one of prayer and remembering the great deeds of the Lord, His steadfast love shown you in Christ crucified for you. Amen.