Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
In the first reading for today, Jeremiah is responding with deep emotion to the situation in which he currently finds himself. He is at a very low point, in fact very close to despair, but he hasn’t quite lost hope yet. His spirit is divided. On the one side, he cries out with accusations and reproaches against God for bringing him to this low point. He has experienced his friends and acquaintances turning against him. And his message to the people of Judah has not been accepted by the people or the leaders of Judah. On the other side, he reaffirms his trust in God as his only help and recourse during a very troubling and trying time. In addition to his own personal sense of loss and futility, Jeremiah sees that the Lord is sending Judah into exile because Judah has turned against the Lord and his prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah is saddened by this. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that God has made a promise to help him and that this promise will eventually be fulfilled.
One phrase in particular stands out for me in this passage. Jeremiah states that the Lord has “rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked” (v. 13). This seems to foreshadow Mary’s words in the Magnificat where she says that God “has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1: 52). To me this is a recognition of God’s promise to help those who are in need and to eventually bring justice to the world.
The reading from Jeremiah is paired with a gospel reading in which Jesus is threatened with stoning because he has claimed to be the Son of God. This seems an appropriate scripture to reflect on at this time, since we are getting ready to observe Holy Week. I am reminded here to consider how Jesus may have felt when he knew that so many of the people to whom he ministered did not recognize him for who he was, and many even wanted him dead. Even among Jesus’ closest friends, many deserted or denied him at the end of his earthly life.
Despite these hardships, Jesus did not lose hope that God’s work would be completed in him. In his death on the cross, Jesus showed his humanity and his humility. He took on our weaknesses, failings, and infirmities. There was nothing in Jesus’ passion and death that people should have immediately found inspiring. And yet here we are two thousand years later commemorating that very passion and death. What Jesus did and continues to do speaks to people at a deep level.
It seems that God is telling me today to aspire to have the kind of faith that Jeremiah and Jesus demonstrated. It is not a faith that avoids or shrinks from hardship. Neither does it paint hardship as being “no problem” or as easy to deal with. I understand that in life there is plenty of evil and suffering to be faced. But I know that I can face it if God is there with me. As we see in the case of Jeremiah, times of crisis tend to focus our attention on what is really important. One thing that I can find myself grasping for at times such as these is God’s promise to us that our hope in him will not be in vain. In the verses immediately before today’s reading, Jesus gives expression to this promise. Comparing himself to a shepherd, Jesus says that his sheep “shall never perish . . . My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand” (vv. 28-9). Am I willing to trust Jesus’ words today?
- Joel Schickel