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| Salvador Dali 'Christ of St John' (1951) |
The
name of the prophet Jeremiah is synonymous with someone who is forever
predicting doom and destruction. It is true that much of the book of Jeremiah
is given over to dire warnings, but in the Old Testament lesson for this
Sunday, Jeremiah’s tone is optimistic, and he offers a brighter vision of God’s
relation with his forgiven people, a ‘new covenant’ when the law of God is no
longer an external set of rules, but ‘written on our hearts’. Despite this
optimism, the subsequent history of Israel continued to be one of spiritual
failures and material disasters, and called forth new generations of Jeremiahs.
Christians believe that the new covenant Jeremiah prophesies here was finally
made real in Jesus Christ – but not in the way that the prophets expected.
The author of Hebrews tells us that when “Jesus
offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who
was able to save him from death, he was
heard because of his reverent submission”. But why does it say that he was heard,
when God did NOT save him from death on the Cross? The Gospel passage
highlights this paradox. Jesus confesses that his “soul is troubled’ and that
the prayer “Save me from this hour” springs to his lips. Yet, immediately he
acknowledges that the hour in which he undergoes unimaginably painful death is
the very reason that he came. It is through the brutal ignominy of criminal
crucifixion that he is to be “glorified”.
How
can this be? What sort of glory is it to be “raised up” in this ghastly
way? Hebrews
provides the answer. “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience
through what
he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of
eternal
salvation for all who obey him”. The law of God will never be written on
our
hearts; we are too selfish and sinful to learn obedience through what we
suffer.
Yet, salvation is at hand if, as we approach Good Friday, we are willing
to be
let ourselves be drawn into the mystery of Christ lifted up on the
Cross, and
so enfolded in the perfection of our humanity that he alone secured.
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