2024-Mar-17: Fifth Sunday in Lent
2024-Mar-17: Fifth Sunday in Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34 The book of Jeremiah was written in a specific place and context, offering hope to the exiled Judeans that the covenant with their God would continue in a new fashion, mended after the disaster of 587 BCE. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is part of a collection of hopeful words addressed to exiled Judeans in Babylon and is sometimes called the “Book of Consolation” According to the book of Jeremiah, his call occurred in the “thirteenth year” of King Josiah’s reign (Jeremiah 1:1), approximately 627 BCE, and he was active through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, remaining in the land until after the assassination of Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41), at which point he is forced into exile in Egypt and the book ends without recounting the prophet’s ultimate fate. In other words, according to the book, the prophet lived through one of the most turbulent and catastrophic moments in ancient Israel’s history centuries before the author of Heb...