It's been a few days since my last post here, but I wanted to make sure that I wrote something for today. This particular reading really spoke to me as I am pondering the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ during this, the most Holy of Weeks.
"O Lord, thou knowest; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors,"
I'm still having a terrible time reading Jeremiah and the great zeal with which he pursues judgment upon the people of Israel. It borders on simple for all the people who have wronged him in his life. It almost becomes a personal vendetta that, in some ways, is not unlike the two boys who went into Columbine High School to shoot all the people who had mistreated them over the years. I've struggled with Jeremiah, and last year, I struggled with a text much like this one for one of my preaching classes. Back then, I decided to paint God's vengeance, God's judgment as something much better than what we would plan for our enemies, for God's enduring mercy always seems to go hand in hand with God's judgment. God's judgment is just, but God does not abandon us and God leads us through the suffering of that judgment.
Part of what Jeremiah is crying out for here is a cry against the persecution he has been facing because he keeps speaking out against the people of Israel. Maybe that's what I'm having the most trouble with, because I have no idea what true persecution is like. But God knows what is wrong and what is right, and maybe God is simply standing up for what is right here. The people Israel simply have to live with the consequences of their actions. The wages of sin are always death. That truly is something to consider as I walk through this Holy Week.
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