The Jesse Tree: Day 17

There is a weight that comes when you read Jeremiah, the kind of heaviness you feel in your chest before you even know why. It is the sound of a prophet weeping. It is the ache of a God who has loved His people deeply and watched them walk away. And it is the echo of a watchtower standing alone in a field, built to protect a vineyard that no longer cares to be protected.

In Jeremiah 11, God reminds His people of the covenant that once bound them together. He brought them out of Egypt, planted them like a cherished vine, gave them a land and a name, and His own presence. All he asked was faithfulness. Not perfection, but a heart turned toward Him. Instead, they chose other gods, other loves, other securities. The tears of Jeremiah are the tears of someone watching a slow unraveling, knowing where it leads but unable to stop it.

By the time we reach Jeremiah 25, the consequences can no longer be ignored. Their unfaithfulness has built its own future, and Babylon is on the horizon. Seventy years of exile will follow. Seventy years of living far from home. It is the kind of judgment that feels less like punishment and more like the natural end of running from the very One who gives life.

And yet, even here, God is not done speaking. In Jeremiah 29, a letter arrives for the exiles. It is not a message of despair but of hope. Build homes. Plant gardens. Seek the good of the city where you now live. It will not always be this way. Seek Me, and you will find Me. Call to Me, and I will hear you. I know the plans I have for you, plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.

The tears remain, but they are no longer only sorrow. They become the tears of someone watching winter melt into spring. And the stone watchtower stands not as a monument to failure but as a reminder that God sees the whole field, the whole story, even when we cannot.

In Advent, we feel this tension. We recognize our drift, our idols, our false securities. Yet we also hear the promise that a King is coming, a Shepherd who gathers exiles home, a Savior who steps into our wandering and leads us back with compassion stronger than judgment. Jesus is the God who weeps and the God who restores.