5th Week of Lent : Friday 3rd April 2020

In the Bible, four significant sections deal with the mystery of suffering: the Prophecy of Jeremiah; the Book of Job; the chapters of the Prophecy of Isaiah which reflect on God’s Suffering Servant, and the accounts of Jesus’ Passion in the Gospels.

In the over-all teaching of the Bible, all these passages are inter-related and find their ultimate significance in the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ passion. Hence, today we read a passage from Jeremiah, which provides some prophetic background to Jesus’ confrontation with Jews who challenge him and his doctrine. The responsorial Psalm speaks of God as a “rock”, and this image leads to the doctrine of the Resurrection.

Death is like a swamp into which we sink, apparently endlessly. A swamp has no bottom, but the spirituality of the Psalmists taught them to hope in God and to realise that, somehow, we would reach a rock-like point of security namely God himself who would be our salvation from death. This hope of the Psalmists received its doctrinal verification in the Resurrection of Jesus,

Lord, during this coming Easter celebration, strengthen our hope in you whenever we face the mystery of suffering and death.