Don't Be Stupid (Jer. 51:15-18)
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday always makes me stop and think, and yesterday was no different in that regard, yet a difference for me was present. Due to my fresh reading of Jeremiah and Lamentations, the thought struck me that many of us in this generation as Christians have taken the same dangerous stance as Baruch did. Let me try to explain. Jeremiah had a scribe/secretary (probably a relative) named Baruch who wrote down his messages for him. Baruch diligently labored alongside Jeremiah and didn’t seem to quail at hard things Jeremiah asked of him; outwardly he was obedient to God and to the tasks given him by Jeremiah. Yet the Lord saw something else in him, his true heart, and offered in a very short chapter of Jeremiah a direct message for him. This chapter is a pause—God turns from speaking of calamity to the Jews and to the nations around them and speaking to Jeremiah to speaking to Baruch’s complaining, which God had heard, as he hears our complaints, whether petty or not....