Jeremiah 33:15 “In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.”

Do you ever get depressed about our current crop of leaders? Politicians make all kinds of promises to get elected. Then it seems their main concern becomes getting re-elected. Sometimes it seems as if they would sell their souls to stay in office. They aren’t concerned with doing what is right for the country. Personal morals and decency don’t concern many of them at all. Between 2010 and 2020 more than 105 members of our congress came under investigation or had to resign due to issues ranging from bribery to sexual harassment to ethics violations.

Ancient Israel had its own leadership problems. King David, the good king, the model king, committed adultery and murder while in office. It went downhill from there. As Jeremiah wrote, King Zedekiah was the spineless puppet of special interest groups in Judah fighting an unwinnable war and driving the nation toward catastrophe. I have to think that a faithful Jew in 600 B.C. complained as much about the state of their government as we do, maybe more.

That being said, the Lord tends to give a nation the kind of leaders it deserves. It’s not as though the typical Jewish citizen was a model of godly behavior in Jeremiah’s day. They were materialistic. They took advantage of the poor. They were sexually promiscuous, considering themselves “liberated” from God’s standards. They had stopped attending temple or abandoned the Bible faith for other strange religions. Sound like the citizens of any country you know?

Against that backdrop, the Lord’s promise is that much more striking. “I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line. He will do what is just and right in the land.” To be “righteous” in Bible terms means that one’s life and actions conform to God’s standards. The Lord was promising a leader who was guided, not by what was popular or trendy. It would not be his goal to please people or conform to the culture. His only guide would be the law of God, the morals laid out in the 10 commandments, that standard of right and wrong recorded in the Holy Scriptures. His life would be consistent with that standard with no exceptions made for anyone, ever.

That description fits Jesus to a “T,” who was “tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin. When he laid down the challenge to his enemies to convict him of some sort of sin, they had no reply, because they had nothing with which to accuse him. Even when they tried to pay false witnesses to accuse him, they couldn’t get their accusations to line up. He was the righteous Branch from David’s line.

He was the kind of King we need. You can trust that a leader like that “will do what is just and right in the land.” Earthly, material, political kingdoms don’t work like that, not in this world. There is little tolerance for consistent justice and integrity. Scandal and power seem to go hand in hand.

Jesus did not aspire to set up a material, political kingdom anyway. As it was, his righteous life got him crucified by those in authority. But he was and is a King nonetheless. He set up his kingdom in human hearts. He still does. He rules by faith. He turns enemies into subjects by winning them with his love. He does not pander to his constituents. He does forgive them when they stumble. As he changes hearts from defiant rebels to willing followers, he leads them toward the same kind selfless, serving, righteous, loving behavior that marked his own life. When we look at the day that was coming for Jeremiah and his people, the one that has come with Jesus, a righteous Branch has appeared. “He does what is just and right in the land.”