(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
At the time when Jeremiah was prophesying, the northern tribes that had clustered around Samaria and Mount Ephraim had long since disappeared. In effect, there were no tribes left up north. Only the tribe of Judah and what was left of Benjamin remained, and these were clustered around Jerusalem and Mount Zion. Israel, as signifying the northern tribes, was as good as dead. Jeremiah, however, called them forth to go down to Mount Zion and Jerusalem with gladness and joy.
God can reach out beyond death and love with an age-old love. A friend of mine had to bury his great-nephew, a ten-year old boy, who had been shot by his twelve-year-old brother. My friend’s sister in one day had lost two of her grandchildren, one to death, the other to the court system. Amidst much anger and grief, my friend spoke only a few words at the funeral. His message is that God is able to reach through the bars of a prison cell with his forgiving love; that God is able to reach through the grief and the blaming happening among the adults with his healing love; that God is able to reach through the bars of death with his saving and life-giving love.
God can reach beyond the borders of the Israel of old to bring God’s people back from their non-existence to Zion, God’s holy mountain. Yes, with festive tambourines and dancing, with feastings and with wild celebrations God can bring his people together.
If God could do this in times past and if he can reach into the hearts of a grieving family to console, then God can bring us out of the stress of the coronavirus and any other danger with healing and life.
What God said through the prophet Jeremiah to the Israelites of his day, we can understand as said also to us. The Word of God was for that time and is for this time. God has loved with an age-old love.
I cannot fathom what life will like in heaven. I cannot even fathom what life will be like after the coronavirus. I can only proclaim a God whose love is age-old, whose love reaches where we cannot go, whose love has overpowered all evil and all sin in the world. God is the God of all people and he delivers, frees and enlivens all peoples. In God the non-existent exist; the dead live; the sorrowful receive consolation; and the despairing hope.