God’s Aching Finger
Jeremiah 12:1-17
You only realize the value of what you’ve lost when you lose it. You only realize the value of a person when you’ve broken up with them. That’s probably why the expression we hear these days, “Do good while you have it,” came about.
Sometimes, a harsh breakup can be love. Then you’ll realize that the other person wasn’t there because they needed you, but because they wanted to give you something good. That pain can be helpful.
Suppose two lovers break up. But when one of them drinks, he keeps calling, saying he remembers the other person. Meanwhile, the other barely remembers the other person.
Which of them do you think loved more? It’s surprising, but it’s the one who broke up with him ruthlessly. It’s because he loved you so much that he was able to break up with you. The Bible says so.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town” (Matthew 10:14). He tells us to firmly shake off the dust from our feet.
You might ask how such a cold, abrupt departure, as if shaking off dust, can be love. But if it’s impossible to leave in that way, then it can’t be love “without regret.”
God trained Jeremiah in this way. He was betrayed by the people of Anathoth, whom he trusted and loved. Most of the people of Anathoth were from faithful priestly families.
They were displeased with Jeremiah’s proclamation and plotted to kill him. God responded sternly, “Is not my inheritance to me a spotted hawk? Do not the hawks surround it? Go, gather the wild beasts, and let them devour it.”
Judah was likened to a “spotted hawk” because it had a good past as God’s chosen people. Judah had lost its holiness and became unclean like the Gentiles.
Therefore, God decided to hand over Israel, His inheritance, and His desolate inheritance to His enemies. He tells Jeremiah to shake the dust off his feet. This is God’s heartbreaking love.
The film adaptation of Kang Full’s comic, “I Love You,” depicts the heartbreaking love of Kim Man-seok, a prickly and blunt-tongued milkman. On his early morning delivery, he encounters Song I-ppun, a woman collecting scrap paper, and falls in love with her.
He gives her a carton of milk. When Song goes down a steep slope, he appears to hold her cart, and when she climbs, he appears again to push her.
One day, Song tells her new love, “I don’t want to lose you, so I’m leaving. Death will soon separate us. I don’t think I can bear that.”
“How can I send you to the other world? I want to return to my hometown, cherish this happiness we first met, and grow old like that.” Kim Man-seok, who brought Song back to his hometown, embraces her and grieves.
“Will I see you again? Will I see you again before I die?” The two men, separated by a distance, yearn for each other. In the end, Kim Man-seok soon dies.
In a dream just before his death, the grandfather puts on the gloves his grandmother gave him and gives her a ride on his motorcycle. The grandmother, wearing the hairpin he gave her, races excitedly across the fields behind the motorcycle driven by the grandfather.
Kang Full asks us what true love means. True love is heartbreaking. But he asks whether this heartache is necessary for true love. The love of the cross is a “heartbreaking love.” Our faith is a participation in this love. Shalom!
Oh, Father God.
We are God’s “painful fingers.”
Let us know more deeply the Lord’s “heartbreaking love.”
Let us participate in that profound love.
In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
