HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 13, 2024 – Jeremiah left Jerusalem in chains. Along with the other prisoners, Jeremiah had to walk the perp walk of shame, shackled and humiliated, while Jerusalem lay smoldering in ruins behind him.

It didn’t matter that Jeremiah had spent years begging people to turn back to God to avoid this very thing. It didn’t matter that he’d already done hard time in a slime pit and elsewhere with only a scrap of bread a day to sustain him. He had to suffer along with everyone else, sinner or not, deserved or not. It’s what he signed up for as a prophet.

And why not? Being a prophet of God is not all wine and roses. Jesus wore a crown of thorns, not roses, and was offered vinegar on the cross, not wine. He suffered what he hadn’t earned and endured cruelties for our sake as well as for his. Why should it be any different for us or for Jeremiah? Why should it have been worse for Jesus than for us?

This is a hard truth for many who allege to be followers of Jesus. They recoil at the pick-up-your-cross-daily part of the requirements, the perp-walk-of-shame part of the deal, the grinding poverty part of everyday reality that characterizes true disciples of Jesus, and so they gravitate towards the false prophets who promise them a life of prosperity and blessings. Yet all genuine prophets have had a rough go of it, including Jesus – especially Jesus – because the higher a soul strives, the more that soul will be targeted and tested.

I love God so much it hurts sometimes. But that doesn’t exempt me from being tested and tried. Being a child of God guarantees you’ll be tested and tried until you’re finally fitted for your own crown of thorns.

The roses come later, if and when you make it Home.

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I stayed for a few weeks in a household of a few dozen assorted humans, none of whom (other than me) claimed to be Christian. Theoretically, that should mean I was the kindest, most generous, and most patient among the residents, but the reality is far from the truth. I’m humbled by what some of them taught me from their place of unbelief. Even so, knowing I’m a Christian, a few of them watched me like a hawk, swooping in on occasion to bait me, expecting me to snap at them or let loose a tirade or (even better) launch into a sermon so they could have their “gotcha!” moment and triumphantly march me to the door. Thank God I didn’t snap, though I was tempted. Thank God that God keeps me reined in, at least in public.

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I wandered into a worship service last Sunday and then a few minutes later wandered back out. The music (live band with amplifiers) was ear-splitting and I had the sense that I was at a rock concert rather than a church service. I’m open to accepting that the fault was all mine for having sensitive ears and expectations that didn’t line up with reality, but is it wrong to expect people to turn off their smartphone and do without their sippy-cup of coffee for just one hour? To me, it’s not enough that they “at least made the effort” to show up on a Sunday morning, any more than it’s enough for a student to pass a course just for showing up in class. Showing up is not the required effort; doing your best at the task at hand is the required effort.

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We can only imagine what was going through Jeremiah’s mind as he trudged out of Jerusalem in chains, knowing he’d never return and that Jerusalem and its temple would never return, not to their former glory. Jeremiah was as near starvation as the rest of the prisoners and just as shell-shocked and traumatized by the horrors they’d witnessed, yet he would also likely have been expected to endure more stoically than the others, being a prophet of God. He would have been expected to boost the morale and have a timely, encouraging word from God for them. He would have been expected to be more than merely Jeremiah in chains.

Prophets are always expected to be more than merely human.

We, as born-again believers, bear our own chains. We bear them daily and in all circumstances and some of them are ungodly heavy and cut into us. But the chains don’t come from God, they come from the world, and we’ll bear them as long as we’re here on Earth. The world not only expects us to bear them, it demands that we bear them and that we do so publicly. They like to see us bowed down by their weight. It makes them feel justified for rejecting God.

And if you’re thinking there must be a way for you, on your own volition, to quietly slip out of your chains – remember that God permits them for your edification, and what God permits, you need to endure. God will remove your chains when it’s time. No point in trying to pray them away. The heaviest of Jeremiah’s chains were removed by an enemy of Israel (who had respect for him as a prophet of God, though Israel didn’t), and the rest of his chains Jeremiah bore until he went Home.

This is how it will be for us, because again – why should doing hard time on Earth be any easier for us than it was for Jeremiah or for Jesus?