“A Righteous Branch” - November 29, 2015

Jeremiah 33:14-16

The kings who ruled in Jerusalem were held in high esteem, at least some of them. They didn't always deserve it, of course, and the Bible doesn't hide the fact that even the best of them failed miserably at times. David allowed the heat of the moment to overwhelm his sense of right and wrong and he got the wife of one of his generals pregnant, then his attempt to cover it up led to the man's death. The baby, whom they named Solomon, grew up to be the nation's wisest ruler. Even so, some of the policies he put into place led directly to the country splitting into two after his death. The fact that people looked back on them favorably tells you something about the quality of their successors.

Things became bad over time. If you want to know how bad, read I and II Kings and I and II Chronicles. One of the deepest prayers of the ordinary people became the prayer that God would send them leadership that would live up to something approaching integrity.

That's a cry that echoes across time. At the height of the British Empire, in 1906 the British writer G. K. Chesterton wrote,

"O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry;
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die.
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide.
Take not thy thunder from us
But take away our pride."

Time after time people looked for someone who would reverse the trend. Time after time they were disappointed. Yet there were prophets who spoke to them to let them know not to give up. Among them was Jeremiah, who said,

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” [Jeremiah 33:14-16]

A funny thing about families, even royal families, is that they get larger and their branches spread. One branch of David's family, in time, gave up its royal pretensions and went back to ordinariness of the sort that David had known growing up as a shepherd and his father and grandfather had known as farmers. This branch even included carpenters like a man named Joseph who didn't live at the center of power in Jerusalem but in a provincial town called Nazareth.

You do see where this is headed, right?

If you want a truly righteous leader, that never has and never will come from among human political leaders. Even the best -- and there are some who really do try -- will inevitably disappoint even their most loyal followers. There's something about the will to power and the desire for authority that does bad things to those who get their wish.

True leadership that results in the good of the people comes from someone who knows that true power and belong to God alone. So when God sent a true King it would be someone born as far from a palace as you can get, in, say, a stable. The example he would give would be one of servanthood and not rule. 

And because he is that type of king, he expects that type of behavior from the people he leads.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited, 
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, 
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross. 

Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name, 
so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2:3-11]

            That is what it is for the Lord to be our righteousness.  It doesn’t mean we ourselves are righteous by any stretch of the imagination.  We’re more like the kings of Israel and Judah than we would want to admit, with their idolatry and their intrigues and their sins and their cowardice.  We’re far more like them than we are like Jesus.  But we no longer are tied to that life as the only option, and the Spirit of Christ, who brings us God’s love from the ground up and not just orders from the top down, continues to work on us from the inside out until, by his grace, one day we will just “get it”.

            May that day come soon.  May it even be today.  Amen.