HEBREWS 12:1-4
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
These paragraphs are taken from the final part of the letter, where exhortations to the Christian life are made.
In today’s text, a beautiful image is used: this is like a race: surrounded by spectators (the non-believers), we strip off everything that hinders us from running (the sins) and we run after Jesus, who has run ahead of us and has already reached the finish line.
His race was difficult, and he had to face the cross: he was asked for much more than we are, but we run toward the same goal. It is a beautiful exhortation to face the difficulties that arise in a life of complete Christianity.
JEREMIAH 38:4-6 and 8-10
Then the officials said to the king,
“This man Jeremiah ought to be put to death because he is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, and all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”
“He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.”
So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
Ebed-Melek went out of the palace and said to him,
“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death.” (For there was no longer any food in the city.)
Then the king commanded Ebed-Melek, “Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”
This is one of the last and most violent episodes in the life of Jeremiah, and one that best expresses the dramatic difficulty of his life.
The action is set in 587 B.C. The troops of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon are besieging Jerusalem. The Jewish nobles are insisting on resistance, based on a hypothetical help from Egypt. Jeremiah sees clearly – according to him by revelation from Yahweh – that all resistance is futile, and he exhorts everyone to surrender to the Chaldeans in order to save their lives. This attitude is taken as unpatriotic, and Jeremiah suffers violent persecution, is imprisoned, and is nearly killed.
This is only one of the many occasions on which preaching costs Jeremiah persecutions and dangers. His book is full of such sufferings, and his whole life marked by such drama. Jeremiah, a gentle and cordial person, is driven by The Word to constantly denounce the abuses and infidelities of the people and especially of their leaders, who respond with constant persecutions, of which he bitterly complains to God (v.15,18).
All this will have profound effects on his religiosity, which is increasingly inward, more “religion of the heart”, which will make him the highest step of the Old Testament and the most immediate predecessor of Jesus. His very life, transformed by so many difficult events, becomes an anticipated image of Jesus. It is even probable that Jeremiah is the real figure in which the second Isaiah was inspired for the figure of the Servant of Yahweh.
José Enrique Galarreta