lenten blog | March 24, 2025

Jeremiah and Jesus

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 24th:  Psalm 39; Jeremiah 11:1-17; and Romans 2:1-11.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Jeremiah is one of the most compelling books in the Bible, at least in my opinion.  It’s hard not to be drawn into his personal story, to sympathize with the plight that his blessing of prophecy forced upon him.  In some ways, Jeremiah is the Jewish Cassandra of Troy.  Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo, but when Cassandra spurned the god’s amourous  advances Apollo layered on the curse that her prophecies while true would never be believed.  We read today:  “And the Lord said to me: Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem.”  Jeremiah is forced to proclaim an unpleasant and unwanted revelation to his own people, a revelation they refused to believe, and he had to do it face to face with them on the streets of Jerusalem.  The prophet could not post it on social media.  Jeremiah had to face the people with his words of condemnation, and in turn face their anger or their terror. 

Today’s passage begins with:  “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord …”  The next two paragraphs open with “And the Lord said to me …”  Jeremiah is charged with the dangerous, thankless task of warning the people of Jerusalem that their fate is sealed, that defeat and destruction are certain because they are ordained by God.  Take hope away from a beleaguered people and they’ve lost before they’ve actually lost.  This is why Jeremiah was treated as a dangerous traitor by the rulers of his own people.  Now Jeremiah loved his neighbours, but was compelled to preach their coming devastation.  Can you imagine the pangs of conscience and the distress of soul this must have forced upon him?  His people rejected his prophecy and because of his prophecy rejected him as well.  Jeremiah remained faithful to his vocation, but at the loss of everything else.  What kind of test of faith must this have been? 

Add onto this the opening of the last paragraph:  “As for you [Jeremiah], do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble.”  Not only did Jeremiah have to preach coming destruction, he was unable to pray for the people about to be destroyed.  Jeremiah had to process the fact that God would not listen to their pleas or to his.

Jump more than 500 years into the future and in Jesus Christ this is reversed.  In Jesus God enters the world to proclaim face to face the unconditional love of God.  Where once God was unforgiving, in Jesus’ cross God forgives all.  Where once the prophet was sentenced to isolation and despair, now Jesus yells from the cross, “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”  The punishment meted out by God in the Book of Jeremiah is now the punishment accepted by God in Christ.  To return to the old format of an angry, unforgiving God after all that Jesus endured seems downright wasteful to me.  And as the Romans passage begs, may we refrain from that old trope of judgment of others because God has said something radically new in Christ.  May we struggle with what it means and how to live into it this Lent. 

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.