One of my “necktie†moments…when I was best man for both of my foster sons Jon and Nelson.
Scripture
This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.†So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed me, and I put it on. Then the Lord gave me another message: “Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.†So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had instructed me. A long time afterward the Lord said to me, “Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.†So I went to the Euphrates and dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing. Then I received this message from the Lord: “This is what the Lord says: This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.
Observation
Jeremiah took a 1,320 mile round trip journey to the Euphrates River to bury a neck tie in the mud and then to return to find it rotten. That was nearly 3 months of travel just to learn that things left beside the riverbank rot. But like most mysteries in the Bible, if we ponder them long enough there is usually a deeper reason.
Okay, first of all, why did I call the strip of fabric a neck tie when the Bible calls it a belt? Because in Jeremiah’s day a man spent as much time picking out his belt in the morning as a man today does choosing which tie to wear. Belts were made of brightly colored fabric imported from distant places to make a power statement about a man’s place in the world. Just like the psychology of the silk tie, so too men were selective in how wide and how bright their belt would be for that day. The men of Jeremiah’s day were a dressing for success. Their world was a rotten heap, but they were scrambling for the top anyway.
Okay, that explains the belt, but why this trekking to the Euphrates? That was a 330 mile trip from Jerusalem where Jeremiah lived. Three hundred miles in his day was like a transoceanic flight in our time. Jeremiah made the trip not just once but twice. Why would God ask such a thing?
I think of it something like the test trials in a modern factory. Machines wear out car seats, blue jeans and blenders to test how long the product will last. Within a week a test machine can simulate years of use. Jeremiah’s trips were like time lapse photography of a man’s life. Within a few years what was once store window display became back alley garbage can refuse. Such is a man’s pride in life. What a man thinks of himself and what others think of him will one day be worn out like rotten fabric.
Okay, that explains the trip, but why the Euphrates? Simple: that was the direction the armies of Babylon would march from. What seemed so secure today would be gone tomorrow. Babylon would accelerate the process of the disintegration of pride. There is no place in life so secure that a man cannot fall. What seems bright today may be gone tomorrow.
So what’s the point of the passage? We are to cling to the Lord like a belt around the waist or a tie around the neck. Our only pride comes not from whom we are but who the Lord is. Our glory endures only so long as it is connected with his. Once we are out of his hand our glory will rot away.
Application
So what’s the point of the passage for me? There is only one glory I can have, and that is my attachment to Jesus. There are so many ways we try to impress others, especially when we meet strangers. In unfamiliar ground in business out come the neckties. With a strip of $50 cloth a man tries to make a statement about himself. But what matters most is what that cloth is bound to. If it is just to the man himself, it is a noose. But if it is to the Lord it is a conduit of spiritual authority.
Prayer
Father, there are times I need a time lapse view of my days. What seems so important today will be insignificant tomorrow. I was taken to the back corridors of a cathedral in Australia where ragged, rotted flags were hanging. I was told that these were the retired battle standards of battalions. According to tradition they would hang in the cathedral in the presence of the Lord until they disintegrated. Perhaps that is a symbol of my own life. My glory means nothing, only your presence. And if my life is left out to dry, let it be in your presence where at least your glory can cover over the decay of my existence. Amen
