Trying Times

While our churches are closed, as if by some Roman Edict during the persecutions of old,  or by the force of the hammer and cycle of more recent times, the Liturgical Year moves on and tomorrow, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, or First Sunday of the Passion, purple usually covers the statues as we focus entirely on the last trying days of Jesus. We won't see the purple this year, but today's readings from Jeremiah and John (Jer 11:18-20, Jn 7: 40-53) refer to the "plot" and the machinations for assuring the death of Jesus. : "Yet, I, like a trusting lamb led to the slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: 'Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will be spoken no more.'" Jeremiah's plight foreshadows that of Jesus, as we see the conflict among the leaders heating up and generating votes against him. The purple reminds us that these are sorrowful times, but, indeed, we need not the purple these days, the headlines will do, to remind us that these are trying and sorrowful times. Jeremiah threw his trust on God, "But you, O Lord of hosts, O just Judge,/ searcher of mind and heart,/ Let me witness the vengeance you will take on them, for to you I have entrusted my soul." (Jer 11:20).  With clean hearts and minds let us join Jeremiah in entrusting our souls to God.
Bro. Rene