JEREMIAH 31:7-9
For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, “The Lord has saved his people, the remnant of Israel.”
Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Jeremiah was born in Jerusalem around 645 B.C., a little more than a century after Isaiah. He is perhaps the most “tragic” prophet of Israel. With a sensitive character, made for love, he is called by God (626 B.C.) to be the voice of continuous reproach for the sins of the people and the kings, and the announcement of destruction by the Chaldeans of Nebuchadnezzar as punishment for sins. This prophetic activity will make him unpopular, persecuted for demoralizing the people. In 587 B.C., Jerusalem is definitively taken and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the people are deported to Babylon. Jeremiah remains, and is probably taken by a group of fugitives to Egypt where he dies.
This tremendous inner struggle and life of persecution, however, deeply purifies Jeremiah’s faith and leads him to internalize and spiritualize the message. Jeremiah understands well that God’s salvation is an inner dimension, not political; he enjoys God’s friendship, understands sin as a rupture of that friendship, and is, in short, the best announcer of the New Covenant, based fundamentally on the intimate relationship of the soul with God, and on the dedication of life to the service of God, with self-denial and suffering. All this makes Jeremiah a living image of the “Suffering Servant” announced by Isaiah, and therefore, a kind of anticipatory image of Christ.
However, in the midst of this difficult life, there was a moment of hope. From 622 to 609 B.C., the pious King Josiah promoted a religious reform, a renewal of fidelity to the Law. During a reform of the temple, a text of Deuteronomy is found (2 Kings 22:8). The text is read publicly, the temple is reformed, and the religious reform is set in motion. This provokes in Jeremiah a great hope, expressed in chapters 30-31 of his book. It is a song of the triumph of Yahweh, of the definitive restoration of Jerusalem….
HEBREWS 5:1-6
For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”
The same symbolism continues to be developed that we explained on the 29th Sunday, trying to explain Jesus from the symbolism of the High Priest of Israel. Jesus, the human being invested by God with the dignity of Priest.
José Enrique Galarreta