Jeremiah’s Cry: From Ancient Jerusalem to Modern Sorrows
July 30, 2024 - Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Jer 14:17-22
The excerpt from Jeremiah that we hear today is God's response to the prophet's complaint. Jeremiah noted that other prophets assured the people that Babylon would not conquer Jerusalem. They were saying in the name of the Lord: "You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place" (Jer. 14:13). God told Jeremiah that "it was a lie" uttered in His name (Jer. 14:14). But the problem was and is: how to distinguish the true prophet from a false one?
What Jeremiah saw was horrifying, like today's images from the Gaza Strip: bodies of dead people lying in the fields and Jerusalem filled with people dying of hunger. Now, those false prophets who were speaking of peace and security had nothing to say. The priests of the temple, who wanted to execute Jeremiah for predicting the destruction of the temple, were silenced as well (see Jer. 14:17-18).
Then comes a series of questions that reveal the tragedy of the people. "Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead" (Jer. 14:19). The closest approximation of Jerusalem's tragedy in 586 BC is the Holocaust. The questions asked during the Babylonian conquest of Judah and Jerusalem were also asked by the Jews forced to live in ghettos and German concentration camps across Europe during the Second World War. There was only one major difference. Jeremiah pleaded with the Lord: "remember your covenant with us, and break it not" (Jer. 14:21). According to Elie Wiesel, one of the Holocaust survivors and a Nobel Peace Prize holder, in Auschwitz concentration camp, three rabbis declared that God broke the covenant with His people.
Jeremiah's complaint reminds me of a song sung during the German occupation of Poland about "the Paris of the East":
Oh my Warsaw, Oh my Warsaw,
I constantly cry when I see you,
Warsaw, my Warsaw!
There in the ghetto, hunger, and misery, and cold,
And worse than hunger, than cold,
The longing, my Warsaw!
I sneak through the wall
And run here like a hunted dog!
Though I am tracked by the authorities,
The gendarme, the Gestapo, and the SS.
Oh, my Warsaw! Look, there's a tear in my eye,
Because I don't know if I'll see you again
Tomorrow, my Warsaw!
Jeremiah's poem acknowledges the wickedness of the people responsible for their tragedy but also expresses their hope in God. The One who brought such a disaster can also reverse it and breathe new life. That is why the Bible begins with the story of creation and ends with the vision of a new creation. War and chaos, death and tragedy are never the last word in the biblical story. The final word always belongs to the One who brings order out of chaos and life out of death.
Let me end this somber reflection with some historical facts. In 586 BC, Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Babylonians, but it was not the end. The mighty Babylonian Empire lasted only 70 years and disappeared totally from the history of the world (Jer 30:7-11). On the other hand, Jeremiah predicted that Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt (Jer 31:28) and it was so.