Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Mass Readings
AS yesterday's first reading, the beginning of today’s first reading from Jeremiah also seems very negative. If we were just left with verses 12-15 we might despair. The context in Scripture, however, is one in which God is the Savior of His people. The broader context, both before and after these verses, is God’s promise to restore His people. They have suffered because of the fruit of their sins. In desiring to be like the other nations they became like the other nations: they grew in strength, and wealth, and committed idolatry. The other nations, both Assyria and Babylon, came in and wiped out their up-and-coming competitor, Israel, who at this point had been divided in two through their further transgressions. The hopeful message of verses 18-22 however is consistent with the larger context, in which God promises to restore His people and devour their enemies. We also here in this passage (verse 21) of the ruler, the prince, what later Jews would call the Messiah, would come from among the Israelites. This is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, Who Himself was an Israelite, of the princely royal tribe of Judah. And God promises to be the God of His people, and that the people shall again belong to Him (22).
The God of the Old Testament, the God of the Bible, of both Testaments, Old and New, is not a God of wrath. The human terms used to describe God’s wrath are the attempt of inspired humans to come to grips with God’s relationship with us. Wrath and anger are relational words used to describe what happens when we go astray. But any wrath, punishments, consequences, that we find, are intended as restorative and healing. God’s “anger” is not the anger of an angry abusive father. Rather it is the expression of an all good God’s response to our separation from Him, our playing amidst the dangerous traffic of the highway.
But God is a God of mercy, forgiving our sins, and restoring us. This should cause us comfort and gratitude. Often, we find ourselves forgetting about our relationship with God, like the fellow Israelites Jeremiah is preaching to. God will not forget us. He shall restore us to right relationship with Him and with each other. And this comes about through the royal prince He foretold the people in today’s passage from Jeremiah: Jesus. It is above all in Jesus that we find our reconciliation with God, and it is above all through Jesus that we may be reconciled with each other. Let us live in the gratitude of God’s mercy. What’s more, let us extend that same mercy to others, so that we may love as God loves, and be merciful as God is merciful.
- Jeff Morrow