I just watched a video that came across my Facebook feed and I shouldn’t have. It was a video of 3 teenage boys running up to a family’s porch and destroying their pumpkins and then running off. The 4 years olds who loved their pumpkins asked daddy why they would do this?
The father called the police and the boys came to pick up the pieces with their mother. Their mother was strong that they had never done anything like this before and that this was their first offense. The father questioned that belief but the mother persisted.
The father then explained to the boys cleaning up the pumpkin debris that his 3 young children 4 and under treasured the pumpkins. They painted it, looked at them every day and had carved them themselves. They were proud of them. And now that was utterly destroyed. They children didn’t understand.
My reaction in my heart was visceral and still is even as I type this. I don’t know what deep chord it as struck in me but it struck hard. Anger. When something valuable to you is destroyed by others and the ones in charge (like the mother) justify their actions. Something of value was stolen from them.
I watched this story in between reading Jeremiah 8. And God too has a similar reaction but even more so. It was his own people that turned against him. His own beloved. It was the adultery of adulteries that he had invested so much time and love into. And they worshiped the moon, the stars and the “queen of heaven.”
God was deeply hurt. And the core of his being had a visceral reaction.
They would be disciplined. And punished. Because nothing else would work. But the consequences of that would be horrendous. His people he loved would suffer so much.
Yet their evil was so bad they didn’t even care.
“They do not speak what is right. No one regrets his evil, asking, ‘What have I done?’ (v. 6)
And yes, the people would blame God even though it was their own sin. Their didn’t truly believe God would ever do such a thing to them. Which is partly why they were so persistent in their evil.
Jeremiah too was devastated. He was crushed.
“My joy has flown away; grief has settled on me. My heart is sick…I am broken by the brokenness of my dear people” (v. 18,21).
Evil is no game. It has terrible consequences. Whether it’s from the broken hearts of 4 year olds who have had their pumpkins smashed or the LORD God whose people openly and persistently committed adultery against him.
It’s good to be angry at evil. The evil we see without and the evil we wrestle even within.
The worst is when we become numb to it all.
Are we numb?
