Innocence and Opposition: Jeremiah, the Psalmist, and Jesus
March 16, 2024 - Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Jer. 11:18-20; Ps 7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12; John 7:40-53
The first reading takes us to the time of Jeremiah, one of the most tragic prophets in ancient Israel. The Lord informed the prophet that the men of his hometown, Anathoth, plot against him. We witness a similar thing in the Gospel where the leadership of Jerusalem plots against Jesus. In between, we hear a plea of the psalmist who asks the Lord to be saved from all his pursuers.
Jeremiah's prophecy of God's punishment for Israel's disobedience was extremely unpopular among his people. But what infuriated the people of his hometown is not clear. Since Anathoth was a city settled by a priestly family, some scholars suggest that perhaps Jeremiah's support for King Josiah's religious reform (around 623 BC), which abolished all the centers of worship in the country and made the temple in Jerusalem the only legitimate place of worshiping the Lord, was the cause of their resentment.
In the case of Jesus, the reasons that Jerusalem authorities ordered the temple guards to arrest Jesus were stated in chapter 5 of John's Gospel. Jesus healed a crippled person on the Sabbath and ordered him to carry his bed, thus violating their interpretation of the law (see John 5:8). Then, they deemed Jesus' statements about His relation with the Father unacceptable for any human being to utter (see 5:17-18).
Today's passage of Jeremiah includes a prophecy of Jesus' suffering and death. "But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter" (Jer 11:18). At the beginning of John's Gospel, we hear the testimony of John the Baptist: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). These words are also proclaimed during the celebration of the Eucharist. Then, in the heavenly liturgy, we see "a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain" (Rev. 5:6). And John declares that the Lamb who was slain is worthy "to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12).
In today's Gospel, Jerusalem authorities reject any possibility that Jesus could be the prophet whose coming Moses predicted centuries ago (see Deut 18:15) or that He could be the long-awaited Messiah. For them, Jesus was a Galilean and according to their knowledge of Scriptures, there was no prophet from Galilee. But they were wrong. If they would give Nicodemus time to search the scriptures, he would point out to them that there was a prophet from Galilee. The prophet Jonah mentioned in 2 Kings was from Galilee, a place not far from Nazareth (2 Kings 14:25). They were also not aware of the fact that Jesus was of David’s family, born in Bethlehem, in the village where David lived.
Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus, all of them were innocent, and any plot against them was a violation of the law. But in front of corrupt judges who pervert justice, to be innocent is not enough. And so Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus turn to the only Righteous Judge, the Lord, "who saves the upright of heart" (Ps 7:11).