As Holy Week draws closer, Jeremiah speaks about being surrounded by violence, vengeance and traitorous friends and neighbors. Certainly, it would be difficult and disheartening to have to live in such a situation. I am sure it would quickly lead to paranoia, hopelessness, despair and anger against God for feeling abandoned. But in the end Jeremiah says: “But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion… sing to the Lord, praise the Lord.” Jeremiah is sure and secure in his faith in the midst of trials and tribulations.
We find Jesus in a similar situation in the Gospel today. Jesus is close to the end of his public ministry. After preaching in the temple area and proclaiming his unique relationship with God the Father and calling people into the love of that relationship, many of the people and religious leaders are scandalized and angry by what they hear. They turn against him and want to stone him. They begin plotting against him; trying to arrest him. Jesus escaped from their power and went across the Jordan into the desert. He returned to where his public ministry began – in the desert, where he received his baptism from John, outside the walls of the holy city, the capital, and the constrains of the rules and rigidness of the temple and the religious leaders. There in the desert many came to believe in Jesus.
Ciro Alegría is a Peruvian writer born in the northern part of Peru in Nov 4th, 1909. In 1941 he wrote a book titled El mundo es ancho y ajeno, The World is Wide and Alien, where he describes the tough life of agricultural peasants or indigenous people. Living in the midst of the trials and tribulations that we all experience in our daily lives and in these modern times, the world has become WIDE and ALIEN to many. This has produced wide spread depression and a search for meaning and happiness in many things. The prophet and Jesus lived in this same world – that seems so big and alien to us at so many times of our lives. In the midst of this world, the Word of God calls us today to renew our relationship with Jesus; to return to what really gives meaning and happiness to our lives: a good relationship with God. We are called to be like Jesus – to live with such a deep relationship with God that permits us to sing and praise God in the midst of all our daily trials and tribulations and so become signs of faith and hope to all around us.