Marble steps, a modern rendition of the Pergamon Altar, rose at a sharp angle, leading to the entrance of the National Cathedral. President Jehoiakim and Charles Ahab stood on top of the steps and smiled as the cameras flashed. Pashur Immerson waited in the background while the press battled for position to capture a soundbite. Off to the side and down a ways, James Shemaiah stood with a group of colleagues, happy to remain out of the limelight.
Easter lilies lined the staircase. White trumpets heralding rebirth, wilting under the pressure of the hot April sun. A cross draped in white and purple guarded the entrance to the cathedral. Above the cross, a banner read ‘He is Risen.’ All eyes focused on the president and his chief of staff.
“Thank you all for coming today,” Jehoiakim said. “It was my honor to listen to the sermon from our national spiritual advisor, Pashur Immerson.” He held out his hand to invite Immerson over. “His words delight me as always. Speaking joy and peace, the promise of blessings yet to come. What an amazing sermon, Reverend Immerson,” he added as Pashur arrived. “I hope our gift to restore the cathedral will please God as much as it has Bishop Rosen.”
The press chuckled. Immerson dipped his head in contrived humility and accepted Jehoiakim’s outstretched hand. His pupils reflected the artificial lights of the flashing cameras.
Jehoiakim continued. “I want you to know that I am fully committed to the …”
A shout from behind the crowd interrupted the president’s statement. Indistinguishable words but the intention undeniable. A hundred heads on the steps turned to look. Another few thousand people gathered at the foot of the altar followed the shouts as they headed towards the president. Secret service agents reached for hidden holsters and talked busily over their secure channels. Out of the midst of the crowd, a thin man dressed in worn-out clothes climbed onto the back of a flatbed on which large speakers sat. His voice boomed for such a frail man.
“Hear me, o nation,” Jeremiah said. “Listen to the words the Lord has given to me.”
Cameras spun around to catch the commotion. President Jehoiakim spoke into a microphone which no longer worked. He yelled at his security to fix the problem, to silence the intrusion, but the depth of people surrounding the flatbed prevented them from resolving either issue.
“I remember your youth,” Jeremiah said. “How you were devoted to me. I brought you into a land overflowing with abundance, covered with lakes and rivers. The rains fell in their season. Grains and grasses flourished in all the plains. On every green hill and in every green valley, fruit trees gave forth their splendor and your cattle ate their fill. Everything you could have wanted, I gave to you. In return, you followed me everywhere with a glad heart, seeking my face, obeying my commands.”
“But then you turned away from me and followed after worthlessness. You no longer gave thanks for the blessings I provided but followed the desires of your own heart. You sought the embrace of foreign nations and their worthless gods. ‘Where is the Lord?’ you asked. ‘Is he nowhere to be found?’ Your land was a land of plenty. Did I not provide all you needed and more? What do you gain by drinking the waters of the Volga? What advantage have the waters of the Yangtze?”
“You have chased evil and drunk all that you could. In your heart, you have said, ‘The Lord does not see. Surely, no harm will befall me.’ Is not the world and all that is in it mine? Does not my eye see all of your wickedness? ‘Ah, but the Lord is merciful. He will not castigate me.’ Your evil will chastise you; your apostasy will reprove you. The wickedness you commit will come back on you, and I will let it happen.”
“Maybe, the disaster would turn you back so that I would forgive you. But the disaster would not turn you back and you continued to walk in the way of the depraved. Therefore, my wrath will fall upon you, and it will not be satisfied until you have paid the price for every one of your sins.”
“In what ways have we sinned against you? Will you punish the innocent? With our lips we praise you. By your name, we cast out demons and invoke a blessing on our homes.”
“I broke your bonds and brought you to a home where you could worship in freedom. But you said I will not serve you. On every high hill, under every green tree, you bowed down like a whore. If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife, will he return to her? You have played the whore with many lovers, and you would return to me? You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom. Therefore, the spring rain has been withheld.”
“With whom have we played the whore? Do we not serve you?”
“You have bowed to Mammon and Gaia. To Molech and the prince of the air. The earth and skies, you have worshiped, as if they could send you rain. As if they could form the child inside of you. I will withhold the rains and make you barren so you know that I am the Lord. You and your children will go hungry. You will seek for nourishment but find none. The hunger will grow so great that you will devour your children.”
“You have chased the god of the moon who is no god and called him by my name. Therefore, I will send you darkness so that you may worship it. I will send you fears in the night to terrify your soul. You will rise and say it is only a dream. But it is not a dream. The terrors that come to you at night will follow you when you are awake. They will grow like a tide that never ebbs. In the dark, you will sit alone, blinded, fear surrounding you on every side. A creature without a body but with iron hooks and teeth and claws. It will wrap itself around you, eat through your flesh, and sink into your mind. Where can you run? Where can you go to get away? You will long to die, but a greater fear of what awaits you in death will plunge you back into the arms of the darkness which embraces you.”
“Molech calls and you answer. I will make you pass through the fire. Bacchus sings to you and you praise his name. I will make you drunk on your own abominations and filth. I will make you feast on the dung you desire. To you, evil has become good. Good is called evil.”
“How is that so? May that never be!”
“You say to your father, ‘You birthed me and I suckled at your breasts.’ You say to your mother, ‘You have taught me to be a man, effeminate and pretty.’ You chase after lust and call it love. Into the sewer, it drags you. ‘If only you give me your daughter, your son, I will be satisfied.’ But you will never be satisfied. Your thirst will only grow. Even as I withhold the rains, you will seek for water which is no water.”
“We will cry out to the sky to send us its rain. Do not our learned ones know how?”
“Your knowledge is an illusion; your wisdom is foolishness. Rocks and dirt, clouds and trees are your gods. In the end, they will condemn you. You have defiled them with your sin, and for you, they will no longer bear fruit. The clouds will withhold their rain. They answer to me; to my voice only will they listen.”
“My God. Do not say this about us. Are we not your children?”
“Return to me. Admit you have done wrong. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Return faithless sons and daughters, and I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Will you be angry forever? Will our father God contend with us, his children? In what have we been faithless?”
“To whom do you look to satisfy your needs? Is it to me? You have not honored me or given thanks. Claiming to be wise, you have become fools. Therefore, I have given you up to your lusts, to the impurity in your heart, because you have exchanged my truth for a lie and worshiped the creature rather than the creator. You have run to the nations surrounding you to teach you how to sin, but you have become worse than they are. Now, you teach them how to sin. Heathen nations look to you to learn how to do wrong.”
“What do we do that is wrong? How do we teach them to sin?”
“The lifeblood of the guiltless is on your skirts. You did not find them breaking in. You found no wrong in them, yet you sentenced them to death. In spite of all this, you proclaim your innocence. You claim this is justice, that this is moral. It is my name you invoke as you rip my children apart.”
“Surely, we are not all evil. Do we not do more good than bad? Show us who the evil ones are so we may remove them from our midst.”
“The rulers are liars. No truth is found in them. They brag about how clever they are, how they deceive the people I have placed under their care. All day and all night, they invent evil, competing to outdo each other, striving to see who can be the most wicked. They steal and destroy. Behind them is only destruction. I will bring them low and cast them into chains. In a foreign land, they will serve evil masters so that they may know what they have done.”
“The rich are thieves, greedy. Their eye only searches to increase their wealth. You have your billions but still you aren’t satisfied until no one else has any. You look on others and say, ‘My wealth has made me great. My wisdom has made me powerful. Listen to me for I possess knowledge and wealth.’ Is not everything in the world mine? Is it not I who choose who shall have? I have given to you so that you should do good, to care for the widows and the orphans. But you bring everyone to ruin, throw them a few coins, and brag about how generous you are. In the day of disaster, will your riches save you? When the bullets rip through your flesh, will the delicacies and wine in your stomach protect you?”
“The shepherds are not shepherds at all. The messengers do not bring my good news. Instead, they are snakes that whisper lies. From the pulpits, over the airwaves, in newspapers and magazines, they conspire with the rulers and the rich to invent evil. They change my truth for the lies of Balaam. Instead of righteousness, they preach licentiousness. Instead of loving their neighbors, they teach the people to lust after their neighbor’s wife and house and children. My mercy is meaningless. To them, my grace is cheap, bought for thirty pieces of silver and a bowl of water into which they can dip their bloody hands. They call me their father, but their father is a liar and a thief and a murderer just as his children are.”
“At least the people will follow you. The poor will hear the lies and know them for what they are.”
“From the least to the greatest, they all desire lies and love them more than the truth. In the shadows, they walk because their deeds are evil. For that reason, I will have no mercy on them when the day of destructions comes.”
“My heart melts within me.
Outside the city walls, I hear the blast of the trumpets.
The enemy has arrived.
They wield their swords.
They wield the sword that God has given them to slay us.
Will you not listen? Can you not see?
Will you not turn to the Lord so that he may heal you?
Only he has the power to save.
Give thanks and follow him with your whole heart.
But you have determined not to listen.
You are blind; you shut your eyes; your feet run to do evil.
I see the destruction.
I know what waits.
Dread and darkness, destruction and death.
Turn before it is too late!
You will not turn; your feet move ever forward.
The end is sure; it has been determined.”
“The armies come. They lay siege to the city. The walls are on fire; fire falls from the sky. No water is found in the wells. What little water remains is bitter, poison to the tongues which cling to the roofs of our mouths. The crops are gone, ravaged by the swarms of locust which cover the earth, by the armies that wait in the valleys and swarm through the vineyards and the grain. They slaughter the cattle and leave their carcasses on the plain where wild animals eat their fill.”
“Your hunger lays siege to you. It hems you in on every side. Your flesh rots; your stomach bloats. Bones stick to your skin as the pain gnaws at your stomach. You beg for a scrap, for a crumb. You desire to eat the excrement which lies in the street, but the wild dogs beat you to it. Worms crawl in your bowels and feast on you. Your neighbor smells the broth on your stove and asks you to share, to spare her a piece of your child that you boil into a stew, but you chase her off as a lion chases off a hyena.”
“Still you do not repent, and a pestilence falls on you. A pandemic and a plague descend over the city like ash from a crematorium. The disease rots your flesh. A foul odor rises from your skin. You are so wretched that no one plays the whore with you. In your sickness, you are blind and grope around, searching for someone to guide you. Your hand grips the flesh of your neighbor, black, rotted flesh which falls off in your hand. The tumors which grow inside come to the surface, to compete with the wounds which ooze over your skin. Your body is a sewer.”
“The sword has come! The walls are breached! Men and tanks pour through the holes. Their eyes have no mercy. Their hands do not offer forgiveness. Blood pours onto the streets. Fire rises from our flesh, which drips onto the street like the sweat from a candle. It is over. The city has fallen. The Lord has abandoned us. Do not cry; do not pray for he won’t hear. My city. My nation. If only you had listened.”
“Yet through all this, I will preserve a remnant. In my mercy, I will spare a few so that they may once again praise my name and know that I am God. Thus, says the Lord.”
Jeremiah closed his mouth and stepped off the flatbed. A hush followed him down the street while cameras stared blindly at the place where he stood a moment ago. No one said anything. No one dared to say anything. The only reply came from a thousand hearts pounding in unison, terrified at the words, anxious for what was to come, filled with hate for the man who shined a light on their darkness.