Wednesday, 3/10/2021
Week of 3 Lent

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Jeremiah 8:18–9:6; Romans 5:1–11; John 8:12–20

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1–3,11a,14c,18–19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68–79, BCP, p. 92)

I grew up looking for the stoic middle ground between happy and sad. “Don’t let your highs be too high, son, or your lows too low,” was my dad’s advice. Coming to faith in Christ shook all that up. Christ’s death and his embracing of the worst of human suffering made space for me to “weep with those who weep.” Christ’s resurrection and his jubilant cry, “Behold, I make all things new,” made space for me to “rejoice with those who rejoice.”

Weep with those who weep. The prophet Jeremiah so loves Yahweh, for whom he speaks, that he feels Yahweh’s own grief over the plight of the unfaithful soon-to-be-exiled nation. Jeremiah’s and Yahweh’s feelings become so intermingled in today’s reading that it’s impossible to tell who is speaking when. It is a combined voice of agony and lament: “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land… O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (Jeremiah 8:18–19; 9:1).

God’s people are stuck in their rebellious, idolatrous, and truth-bending ways. They only know how to complain about the lack of God’s provision for them, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jeremiah 8:20). They don’t get it: the lack of blessing is penalty for not acknowledging Yahweh. They’ve forgotten how to repent, and how to ask for forgiveness. They only know how to “wear themselves out in their iniquity” (Jeremiah 9:5).

Nonetheless, God’s heart and his prophet’s heart are broken: “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” (Jeremiah 8:21).

Our world is not that different from Jeremiah’s. There is untruth all around us: “Fraud after fraud! Deceit after deceit! They refuse to acknowledge Yahweh” (Jeremiah 9:6 JB). And yet, like Jeremiah, it is for us to weep, not turn our backs. It is for us who know, as Jeremiah knew, and as the African-American spiritual knew, “There is a balm (a healing medicinal tree sap) in Gilead” (Jeremiah 8:22). We know that the blood shed on Calvary’s tree is for the healing of the nations. And so, like Jeremiah and like Yahweh himself, we weep for and with those who do not know—and especially for those who seem intent on not knowing. And with Jeremiah, we insist that Gilead has brought forth a Physician of souls (Jeremiah 8:22).

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Even though he expressed it differently, Paul had as much passionate love for his people as Jeremiah did (Philippians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 11:2). The big difference is that Paul had the privilege of finding himself on this side of the resurrection of Christ. And so, his writings pulse with an irrepressible joy—a knowledge that victory over deceit, over misplaced affections, over sin, over death, and over hell itself has been won.

The first half of Romans 5 shows Paul at his most exuberant best. Paul’s exuberance is not at all romantic sentimentality. It envelopes the full depth of suffering, and the need for an endurance that builds character and requires a posture of hopefulness (Romans 5:3–4). Paul knows that divine Justice has cleared us of guilt by the death of Christ: “…we are justified by faith” (Romans 5:1). At just the right time, Christ has died for us who are our weak, who are sinners, who are ungodly, who are God’s enemies (Romans 5:6–10). Paul knows that divine Mercy has taken away our shame and adopted us into the Father’s family: “…we have peace with God …we have access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:2). Most of all, Paul knows that God loves us—and, indeed, that “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us” (Romans 5:5).

And Paul knows we have not arrived. But he knows that we will arrive! “Much more surely then … will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. … [M]uch more surely … will we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:9–10). So much so that he can look forward to that day anticipating that we will cross our finish line, “… even boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Romans 5:11—my translation*). Paul almost imagines us dancing across the finish line, filled with a sense of victory and joy.

Jeremiah’s tears and Paul’s dancing joy—both are true to the emotional life of followers of Christ. Especially during Lent, it is good to be reminded that our Lenten season of self-examination and repentance is a preparation “with joy for the Paschal feast” of Easter (BCP, p. 379).

Lenten Preface: You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

*Readers who know Greek will recognize that verse 11’s kauchōmenoi (boasting) is a present aspect participle, meaning its action is contemporaneous with the future indicative verb sōthēsometha (we will be saved) in verse 10 that it qualifies adverbially (modally, in my judgment). All the translations miss this important nuance.

Image: Jeremiah Lamenting. Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons