This past week I preached out of Jeremiah 29. If you don't recognize that passage right away, you probably aren't remembering the verse that so many people place somewhere in their home (Jeremiah 29:11). It's interesting how that particular verse is pulled out of context when we frame it up by itself and put it on a placard. For in doing so it implies that the Lord has only "positive circumstances" just around the corner for us. In reality, the circumstances we will face today or tomorrow have very little to do with that verse because that verse itself is a kind of capstone to what he's been saying in the previous ones. In essence, here's what the Lord said before that famous verse: "I took you into exile... you're going to be there for longer than you wish... under a dominating power that has destroyed your life, even killing some of your loved ones... and you know what you're called to do now? Live there in peace by building your lives for the best and by being excellent citizens insofar as you can do so while keeping true to me. Oh, and by the way, in about seventy years, I'll be bringing the community back home." The implication is that most of the Jewish people who had been captured and taken off to Babylon would live and die there in captivity because most wouldn't live another seventy years. This, then, is the context for the great plans the Lord has for them. The applications from the sermon were simple:

• when your circumstances change for the worse, live as if nothing has changed at all (for nothing has, the Lord is still in control and in the long term will make good on his promise of beneficence).
• when faced with a  government that is against you, giving you no voice, you should still strive to pray for it and be great citizens insofar as your conscience allows.

It was this last point that received a question: yes, but what are we to do if the government is unjust (not just a little unjust, as all governments are, but really unjust)? That's an excellent question and one I would guess was asked by those in the Jewish community during their exile. As we look at the testimony of what actually happened in their case, we see something interesting. Daniel and his companions served to their best ability. But that service only went so far for they would not be party to anything that compromised their faith. Consider, for example, Daniel in the den (Daniel 6) or the account of the three, uh, four, in the furnace (Daniel 3). And then consider Jesus' example when moving in an unjust world having all the power he needed to overthrow an unjust oppressor. Did he call the angels to a giant bloodbath? No. Instead he used a power greater than the sword, he used the power of  meekness; he served, he sacrificed, he loved, he forgave... and the world was changed.

What we call the meekness of Our Lord is more than an aspect of His character: it is its fundamental principle. There is nothing in it of the "inert door-mat"; it was, and is, the practice of uncompromising and unyielding love, the exposition of a new technique in dealing with evil. I believe it to be the business of Christians, especially to-day, first to realize, and then to proclaim, this revolutionary technique as the only way to peace and justice. It won't be easy, for meekness has little "face value" compared with armaments; but, if the Cross means anything at all, it is the vindication of meekness as the most dynamic and explosive force that humanity has ever known... Donald O. Soper (1903-1998), Popular Fallacies about the Christian Faith, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938, p. 76 (via cqod.com)

He's our example. He's our guide. And we should follow in his steps, steps, by the way, that only make sense if we believe his promise to bring us home one day from the exile of our sins. Not only that, but we should follow in his footsteps because he shows us the most powerful means of changing the world for good: love in his name and by his power.