"He escaped from their power"

The world is a threatening place for many today.

Today’s readings (as earlier this week) present us with two holy men (including the Holiest – true God and true man) threatened with death, yet both trusting in God.

The prophet Jeremiah (20:10-13) says to God,

...to you I have entrusted my cause.
Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
For he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!

And in the Gospel (John 10:31-42), our Lord is surrounded by a murderous crowd, “but he escaped from their power.”

He would not escape long: one week from today we will commemorate His painful death.

As for Jeremiah, it is said that he was eventually seized, carried off into another country, and murdered.

Yet neither of them was abandoned by God, even though there may have been expressions of feelings of abandonment.

To be sure, even at the worst moment, our Lord knew clearly that He was in the Father and the Father was in Him – most especially as He was in the midst of the greatest work of the Father: the bloody sacrifice of His own Son, for the love and life of humankind - a death that would end in resurrection.

By the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, may you and I always remember God’s love for us and His continuing presence in the lives of His faithful – no matter what.