Jeremiah is in agony.  “My joy is gone.  Grief is upon me.  My heart is sick.”  Israel’s failure to repent has placed the nation under the wrathful watch of God.   In the face of eroding hope, Jeremiah is sickened by the apathy of God’s people.

So, the prophet utters questions born of despair:

          “Is the Lord not in Zion?”  “Is there no balm in Gilead?”  “Is there no physician there?”

          Balm was a medicine used in ancient times to soothe rashes and other conditions of the skin.  Jeremiah wants to know if there is medicine for God’s people, something that will be a source of healing and hope.

The great English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, frequently was plunged into severe depression. In a biography of this "prince of preachers", an author once wrote, "What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know...even his desperate calling on God brought no relief.’There are dungeons', the author wrote, 'beneath the castles of despair.'"[1]

          Have you ever been to that place-a dungeon beneath the castle of despair?   Have you ever felt as though hope was eroding?

          Farmers know all about that kind of erosion.   

          The leaves have just matured.  They are as wide and as long as they should be.  Then, the hailstorm comes.  The season of harvest comes and goes and you have nothing to show for it. 

          Or, you experience the relentless return of the carcinoma.  You go through the chemotherapy all over again, complete with all the side effects experienced the first time around.

          Or, the foundation of your relationship is crumbling.  Before you realize it, the relationship itself has collapsed around you, like an old building hammered by a demolition ball. 

          Life in the dungeon is dominated by the darkness of despair and by the question why?   Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why do children die?  Why do hurricanes sometimes touch land and destroy lives?  Why do diseases like AIDS develop? 

          On a theological level, I have to respond, “I don’t know.”  Ultimately, we have to respond, “we don’t know”.  Even as we make that admission, it is important that we cling to what we do know.  What we do know is that all of our moments are in God’s hands. What we know is that God loves unconditionally; God heals us, makes us well and mends our broken hearts.

“Is the Lord not present?”  “Is there no balm, no medicine, to be found?”  “Is there no physician here?”

          In just a few moments, the hymn will remind us “Yes, there is a balm, a balm that heals the sin sick soul.” 

          Vast ranges of scripture passages remind us there is a balm.  The prophet once wrote of wolves lying down with lambs and a little child leading God’s people.  Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life”.  From Rembrandt who, with his paintbrush and faith, gave us the painting of the Last Supper to hymn writers who, with their faithful words, painted pictures of God’s love, the message is clear.  There is a balm in Gilead and in Dunn, in your life and mine.  The Lord is present in Zion, in our places of work and in our homes, too; there is a physician who is ready to put salve on our wounds of grief and despair.

Jeremiah, the one who in today’s passage asks, “Is the Lord not in Zion?” later proclaims: “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.  They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord.”

          There is a balm in Gilead and he is identified by the Apostle Paul as the mediator between God and humankind, Jesus Christ, the one who gave himself as a ransom for all.  He is the physician. He is the God in Zion and in any dark dungeon through which God’s people travel.

          German pastor Paul Gerhardt and his family once experienced a journey through the dungeon of despair.  During the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century, Gerhardt and his family were forced to flee from their home. One night as they stayed in a small village inn, homeless and afraid, his wife broke down and cried openly in despair. To comfort her, Gerhardt reminded her of Scripture promises about God's provision and keeping. Then, going out to the garden to be alone, he too broke down and wept. He felt he had come to his darkest hour. Soon afterward, Gerhardt felt the burden lifted and sensed anew the Lord's presence. Taking his pen, he wrote a hymn that has brought comfort to many. "Give to the winds thy fears; hope, and be undismayed; God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears; God shall lift up thy head. Through waves and clouds and storms He gently clears the way. Wait thou His time, so shall the night soon end in joyous day."[2]

          “Wait thou His time.”  His time is not always our time.

          You and I live according to chronos time, time that is measured by the clock and the calendar.  We set our alarm clocks so that we can get to work on time.  We count the days on the calendar until Christmas.  “Hurry up and get dressed”, we say to our children, “we must get to church on time”.  Chronos time governs the pace and sometimes the way in which we live.  But there is another kind of time noted by Paul and others who use the Greek word Kairos.  Kairos is Divine time or God’s time.  Paul writes that Jesus as a ransom is revealed at the right time, at the right kairos. 

          The challenge before us is to not allow our lives to be governed by Chronos time-the clock, the watch, the calendar-but to submit our lives, including our experiences in the dungeon, to Kairos, to God’s time.

          For those who are experiencing grief from the death of a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, the difficult challenge is to resist saying: “In one month, God is going to take away my grief.” The difficult challenge for the couple experiencing trouble is to resist saying: “O.K. we’ll spend one month in therapy; if our relationship isn’t healed by then we will call the lawyers and begin the proceedings.  That is one thing we can agree upon.”

          We want instant healing, instant reconciliation, and instant peace. We want all of that in our time.

          Our challenge and our calling is to submit our time to God’s time, to know that all of our moments are in God’s hands, including moments when we ask, “Is the Lord not in Zion?”  “Is there no balm in Gilead?

          “Wait thou His time and He will give you a “song in the night.”  

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Dunn, North Carolina  28334-3241

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