NOTES for Jer 9:1-26
When people are satisfied with themselves and their wealth, when falsehood becomes the norm of life, when emptiness takes possession of the human heart, it means that a radical change is near. In the prophet’s language, it is called “the day of the Lord’s visitation,” the time when absurdity and death reach their peak and God’s intervention becomes necessary. A person recognizes this intervention by faith: God can be recognized as the principal agent of the historical process when kingdoms collapse and thousands of people perish, or, conversely, when divine mercy and beauty suddenly break into life... One way or another, the only way out of the dead end is through “mercy, justice, and righteousness,” when a person touches the One who stands behind his search for meaning and the fullness of life. Then his poverty, his “uncircumcised” heart, and his deceitful tongue (and everyone’s tongue is deceitful to some degree) can become objects of forgiveness rather than punishment, if only this encounter is desired.