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Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time Jeremiah 31:1–7
Until now, we have mostly heard Jeremiah speak hard words.
He has condemned idolatry.
He has exposed injustice.
He has called the people to repentance.
He has warned them that their choices would have consequences.
But now, as disaster falls, Jeremiah’s voice changes.
The prophet of judgment becomes the prophet of consolation.
Jerusalem may be destroyed.
The temple may be gone.
The old world may have collapsed.
But this does not mean that God’s story has ended.
A world has fallen.
But God is already preparing a new beginning.
The Lord says:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
These words remind us of Saint Paul’s words:
“Nothing can separate us from God’s love.”
Not the destruction of the temple.
Not exile.
Not any other tragic consequence of our sins.
Jeremiah speaks to a people who have seen what sin does to a nation,
to a city,
to a temple,
to a heart.
But he does not allow them to despair.
He tells them to pray instead:
“Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.”
The remnant is important.
The future does not begin with a powerful nation.
It begins with survivors.
With those left over.
With those who passed through loss and still belong to God.
This is often how God works.
After the flood, Noah and his family became the beginning of a renewed world.
After the exile, the remnant of Israel became the seed of restoration.
In the Gospel, Jesus begins with a small group of disciples.
And He compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed:
tiny,
almost invisible,
but full of life.
God does not need large numbers to begin again.
He needs a people who will receive His love and walk with Him.
Jeremiah tells a shattered people that they are still loved.
Not because they were faithful.
Not because they deserved it.
But because God’s love is everlasting.
This love does not deny sin.
It does not pretend that nothing happened.
But it refuses to let sin have the last word.
In Jesus Christ, this everlasting love takes flesh.
God does not only speak of love.
He comes among us.
He gives His life.
He gathers Jews and Gentiles, near and far, broken and searching, into one family.
Saint Paul will dare to hope that all Israel will be saved, and that the fullness of the nations will also come in.
Jeremiah’s remnant becomes a sign for all humanity.
No one is beyond recall.
No people is too broken for a new beginning.
For the love of God is everlasting.
And what God loves, He never stops calling home.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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