You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. – Jeremiah 20:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 28, 2014): Jeremiah 20

In the late 1960’s, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice penned their conception of the last week of the life of Jesus Christ. “Jesus Christ, Superstar” has proven to be an enduring image, and the songs of the Rock Opera have carried the cries of the human part of Jesus to every generation since the opera was first written and performed. And one of the most moving scenes in the Webber-Rice story takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is there that Jesus is confronted with the cross on which he will die, there that Jesus strains against the will of God wondering if all of this is worth it and there that he wonders about the goal that they are trying to reach, and there that he wrestles with everything that is about to happen. But near the end of the prayer, Jesus finally gives in to his Father’s plan. The words that Rice places in the mouth of Jesus at this moment are –

God thy will is hard but you hold every card
I will drink your cup of poison
Nail me to your cross and break me
Bleed me, beat me, Kill me, take me now
Before I change my mind.

The sentiments of the words are only partially the product of Rice’s imagination. The Gospel record does include that at the end, Jesus struggled with the path that he was to travel. But the reality is, as much as some portions of the Christian Church seems to want us to believe differently, sometimes God’s will is difficult. John the Baptist seemed to struggle at the end of his life wondering if Jesus was really the one that was to come – or whether they were waiting for someone else. And in this passage, it is Jeremiah that is questioning the will of God.

Specifically, Jeremiah’s complaint goes back to the beginning of Jeremiah’s prophetic writings. At the moment when Jeremiah was called, he had excused himself. He was too young and he did not have the words that were needed for such a task. But in that moment God’s reply to Jeremiah was “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you” (Jeremiah 1:7-8.) But in this moment, now years into the God mission that he had accepted, Jeremiah is not sure that God was true to his word. He spoke the words that God has placed in his heart – and yet it did not seem that God was with him – or that God had been at the ready to rescue him.

But the story was not over yet. God still had further places to carry Jeremiah. But sometimes it is in the midst of the story that we stop feeling him. And that is why faith is so important for all of us – because with the eyes of faith, we know that God is with us, even in the moments when we question him the most.     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 35