The Righteous Branch

A flock of sheep is scattered across the hills. Some are lost. Some are hurt. Some have been taken by wolves. And the shepherds who should have been looking after them are nowhere to be found.

The prophet Jeremiah lived in Jerusalem during the last years of the kingdom of Judah, about six hundred years before Jesus. It was a terrible time. Babylon, the mighty new empire, was pressing in. One king after another of David's family sat on the throne, and most of them were a disappointment. They built themselves fine palaces with forced labour. They ignored God's warnings. They burned Jeremiah's scroll. And the last of them, King Zedekiah, was weak and wavering. In the chapters just before our passage, Jeremiah speaks to these kings one by one. Then, in chapter twenty-three, he speaks about all of them at once.

In the Bible, kings and leaders are often called shepherds, because their job was to care for God's people. But these shepherds had failed. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord. “You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them.” They didn't come looking for the lost. They didn't care for the hurt. They only cared for themselves. So God says: “Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings.” Because the shepherds did not visit the sheep, God will visit the shepherds, to judge them.

And then God says what he will do instead. “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply.” God himself will be the shepherd who goes looking. And he will give them new shepherds, good ones, who will feed them. “They will no longer be afraid, nor dismayed, neither will any be lost.” Not one missing. Every sheep counted. Every sheep safe.

Then comes the great promise. “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land.” David's family tree was being cut down. Its kings were failing. But God would make a new branch grow from it, a king who would be everything the others were not. Wise. Fair. Good. “In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely.” And then his name. “This is his name by which he will be called: The Lord our righteousness.” Not just a righteous king, but a king through whom God himself makes his people right. Jeremiah would live to see Jerusalem fall to Babylon. But he had held on to God's promise of a better King. Six centuries later, in the line of David, that King was born. Jesus would call himself the good shepherd, who leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one lost sheep.

The name in Jeremiah's promise holds a surprise. The last king of Judah was called Zedekiah, a name which means The Lord is my righteousness. But he did not live up to it. Many scholars think Jeremiah was making a pointed play on the king's name. The promised king's name, The Lord our righteousness, uses the same Hebrew words, turned around. The true King would be what Zedekiah only claimed to be.

The righteous Branch. You'll find it in Jeremiah chapter twenty-three, verses five and six, with the warning to the shepherds just before. When the shepherds failed, God promised to gather his sheep himself and send a righteous King. So here is a question to carry with you. A good shepherd looks for those who are lost. Who might feel lost or left out around you, and how could you look for them?