A Fourth of July Meditation:

Jeremiah, The Fourth Turning, and The Hope That Remains

What Jeremiah, a centurion, and a fractured republic teach us at 250.

A reading from the Book of Lamentations and the story of Jesus and the centurion seem unusually fitting on this occasion of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday. Both passages land with unusual force.

Jeremiah lived through the devastation of Jerusalem: the Temple in ruins, the leadership class carried off to Babylon, the poor left behind to fend for themselves, and a society reduced to something like Hobbes’s Leviathan — solitary, anxious, and afraid. It was a world stripped of its illusions.

And yet Jeremiah carried a hope that seemed almost unreasonable. Before the destruction even happened, he believed that God would restore His people. That judgment was not abandonment. Indeed, Jeremiah believed that the covenant was stronger than the collapse, and history proved him right.

As we approach the 250th birthday of the United States, I find myself reading our own moment through Jeremiah’s eyes. We are living through what many call a Fourth Turning — a period of unraveling, institutional fragility, cultural exhaustion, and civic confusion. The signs are everywhere: frayed trust, hollowed out leadership, and a people increasingly unsure of who we are or what holds us together.

It is not hard to imagine how a society loses its way. Jeremiah saw it firsthand. And like Jeremiah, we too are witnessing signs of decay in our own culture — a deep mistrust of institutions, economic uncertainty that leaves families anxious about the future, and a growing sense that the civic story that once held us together is fraying. These are not abstract concerns; they are the lived experience of millions of Americans who feel unmoored, unheard, and unsure of what comes next. 

My prayer as we enter this Fourth of July weekend is simple: that God would look mercifully upon us, walk among us, and heal us — as Jesus did for the centurion’s servant. That we would turn again toward the One who gives nations their moral center. That we would learn, painfully, if necessary, that self-reliance without God becomes self-destruction.

There is an old hymn we usually sing during Lent, but it feels strangely fitting for Independence Day:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways;
Restore us in our rightful mind…

That is my prayer for a fractured America at 250 – a nation that will one day be restored, be wiser, and have a reverence for God and people – the deeper things that make us whole.

Jeremiah teaches us that collapse is not the end of the story. God restores, rebuilds, and remembers His people even when they forget Him.

May that be true of us.