For I will stir up and bring against Babylon
    an alliance of great nations from the land of the north.
They will take up their positions against her,
    and from the north she will be captured.
Their arrows will be like skilled warriors
    who do not return empty-handed.
Jeremiah 50:9 (NIV)

Human history is, at a glance, the story of one conquest after another. Families became tribes. Tribes became nations. Nations became empires. Empires rise and fall. That, in a nutshell, is the Great Story from Genesis through the fall of Jerusalem that Jeremiah predicted. It starts with Abraham having a family. The family grows into the twelve tribes. God delivers them from slavery in Egypt and makes them into a nation. Under King David and Solomon they became a regional empire. As with most empires, a combination of internal implosion and external enemies lead to decline and defeat at the hands of the next emerging empire.

We are nearing the end of the voluminous compilation of Jeremiah’s prophetic messages. For 49 chapters the prophet has been proclaiming the defeat and exile of his own people at the hands of what he referred to early on as a “nation from the north” and later revealed to be the emerging Babylonian empire. Now, at the very end of his prophetic works, Jeremiah turns the tables 180 degrees.

In today’s chapter it is Babylon who receives God’s prophetic word of doom. This time it is the Babylonians who will fall to an alliance of nations from the north (i.e. the Medes and Persians). And, while Jeremiah proclaims this event from afar, the prophet Daniel is present in Babylon for the event as God presents the Babylonian regent with the literal handwriting on the wall (see Daniel 5) as Babylon falls to the invaders and a new empire takes over.

I found myself mulling this over in the quiet this morning.

Amidst the prophecy against Babylon, God reminds His people in exile of the promise He’s been making to them all along. A remnant will return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The temple will be rebuilt. Out of her a messiah will emerge as Jeremiah prophesied back in chapter 23.

What a contrast Jesus was to the human history of empire building. He came, not as earthly monarch, but as the King of Heaven. “My kingdom is not of this world,” He told Pilate. The paradigm He gave His followers was antithetical to human empire building. His paradigm was for a radical love to change the heart of an individual. The individual then spreads that radical love to change the hearts of others in their spheres of influence. The love spreads exponentially and begins to change communities, tribes, and nations from the inside out. The Jesus Movement of the first century rocked the Roman Empire with this paradigm.

Then, in what I consider to have been a brilliant chess move by the evil one, whom Jesus referred to as the Prince of this World, he gave control of the Empire itself to the Jesus Movement. Slowly, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and humans turned the Movement into another human empire, just like we always seem to do throughout history.

I also thought this morning about the prophetic end of the Great Story that was laid out for John in his Revelations. It ends with the Prince of this World and all the nations of the world, the human empires, lined up against the King of Heaven.

And, I think that’s a macrocosm of the spiritual journey as a follower of Jesus. Jesus asks me, as an individual, to turn away from the human way of doing things, the rat-race of wealth and earthly success, the dynamics of power and personal empire building. Jesus wants me to live with radical love, extravagant generosity, and a servant-hearted kindness to others, even my enemies who want to roll over me with their own power-plays and personal empires.

In the end, Jeremiah reminds me that what goes around comes around. Empires rise, they fall, and other empires emerge on this earth.

Or, as U2 put it:

Kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall,
but You go on,
and on,
and on,
and on…

Personally, I want to be part of a Kingdom that’s not of this world.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.