02.09.1995

Jeremiah

Almost more than any of the prophets he was so strongly aware of his vocation, so that even at his conception and in the womb before he was born, and with his extraordinary appointment as a prophet, he always felt he was with God, to proclaim his word in spite of all persecution. “I am with you” a phrase that comes up frequently, is an element of Jeremiah’s essential thought.
He felt God inside him although he also (in a very human way) often wished to free his body and soul. His God-given stubborn faith in God brought him many, many opponents and deadly enemies. “The sins of Israel” – the world! He constantly reproached the nobles, citizens soldiers merchants, priests, false prophets, magicians and kings.
His thinking, as one of the first Prophets to do so, that iniquitous people should be covered with success and happiness, but the rebellious ones should sin freely and as God’s opponents persecute the righteous, all this puts the Prophet in a sad, lonely situation that he experienced very clearly by himself in the slimy cistern in which he was thrown as a prisoner by his persecutors. But these trials gave Jeremiah even more strength to adhere to God.
Of all the prophets Jeremiah had to undergo persecution with the cruelest suffering. Robbed of his household, taken away from his family and wounded by them, the loss of friends, accusation of treachery, without any safety, free as a bird and imprisoned.
A prophet in the night – Jesus refers to him constantly and precisely understands his passion and his life. A devout lamb of God – for extermination, planned for slaughter, like Jesus…
Until the liberation and kidnapping of the man of God to Egypt… where he was lost forever.
Born c. 650 B.C. in Astatot near Jerusalem of priestly lineage. Became a Prophet c. 626 B.C. Jeremiah directly experienced the tragedy of the weak in the fall of Israel and this weighed heavily on his spirits. The scrolls he dictated to his friend Banth contain and are the confessions of his inner suffering. But the worthless Irfakim destroyed them. The Gethsemane period – came for Jeremiah. He prophesied the destruction of the southern kingdom. He was not allowed to speak any more, nor to enter the temple.