NOTES for Jer 3:1-25

In life we are most often guided by human laws. So too God's relationship with people is described in Scripture as the relationship of a husband with a wife (compare Eph. 5:22-33). According to Old Testament law, a wife divorced from her husband can no longer return to him, and a woman who has betrayed her husband must be punished by death. But God Himself says incredible things in this prophecy: unfaithful Israel can return to God and receive forgiveness. Let us remember that His love is stronger than the law, and imitate Him in this.

Today's reading helps us better understand what exactly led Jeremiah to reproach the newly minted Yahwists for apostasy. It is no accident that the theme of the prophet's preaching becomes faithfulness and constancy. He compares the people of God to an unfaithful wife who has betrayed her husband and, while complaining about her husband's anger, nevertheless has no intention of changing anything in her life (vv. 1-5). But God does not reject His people even when the people turn away from Him. Return is always possible, but on one indispensable condition: acknowledgement of guilt (vv. 12-13).

Such acknowledgement opens the path to genuine spiritual renewal, which will change the entire life of the people and become a forerunner of the coming of the messianic Kingdom (vv. 14-19). But outward conversion without acknowledgement of guilt only makes the situation worse (vv. 6-11). The issue here is not revenge by God, who wants to enjoy the triumph of His own rightness, but something that belongs to the very foundations of spiritual life: choice and responsibility. Spiritual life begins, properly speaking, with the choice that a person or an entire people makes, and first of all with the choice of a spiritual path: will it be the path indicated by God, or a path chosen by a person according to his own understanding?

But choice also presupposes responsibility, a person's readiness to answer for the consequences of the choice made and, first of all, acknowledgement of the seriousness of the choice as such. This is exactly why acknowledgement of guilt for a committed sin is so important: it presupposes that a person takes his own choice seriously, even when it was made wrongly. God is ready to forgive mistakes, even if they were made repeatedly. And even in cases where these mistakes were by no means made through ignorance, where one must speak precisely of spiritual mistakes and not simply mistakes of reason or feeling. But then the fact of acknowledging that there was a mistake becomes fundamentally important, because thereby the seriousness of the intention is acknowledged, and therefore the seriousness of the choice itself. If a person or an entire people wants to turn to God but refuses to bear responsibility for a former mistaken choice, and how else can one explain the refusal to acknowledge guilt for a sin completely obvious to everyone, then conversion becomes impossible. The one turning back is thereby signing his own irresponsibility and, consequently, spiritual insolvency. Thus refusal to take responsibility for a committed sin makes repentance and the sinner's return to God impossible.

Not only are the two parts of the people represented here as two sisters, but so are two patterns of behavior that, from that time on, have been repeated many times by apostates of many different times and peoples. Some apostates turn away from the Lord openly, accepting opinions and teachings that have suddenly become popular. Others continue to count themselves as the successors and bearers of a tradition which, however, they successfully combine with teachings and a way of life far removed from divinely revealed truth. But hypocrites are apostates just like the others, and they too will have to drink deeply of the consequences of their deeds.

The Lord once again calls sinners to repent and return. But the prophet, speaking here of the shame that has covered the sinful people, does not mention that a desire to return to God has awakened in the people. Like the first people after the fall, their descendants find it easier to endure shame than to turn repentantly to the Source of forgiveness.

And now the words of prophecy are heard: when those who were first chosen do not stand firm in faithfulness, the Lord will call all the other nations to Himself, and after them the Jews too will return to Him. What times are being spoken of here, if not the New Testament times? The prophetic word is deep and many-sided, and we can apply it not only to the return from the Babylonian captivity, but also to more distant times.

Prophecy reveals most vividly the paradox of God's relationship with humanity: the contrast between absolute condemnation and absolute love. The unfaithful people are likened to a wanton daughter and a treacherous wife—and there immediately follows the promise: “I will join Myself to you... you will call Me Father... I will give you a desirable land as your inheritance...” One does not cancel the other, nor does one contradict the other. Unbelief and paganism do not become better because of love, and love does not diminish because of betrayal. The Ruler of the universe and King of kings finds Himself in the position of a deceived husband or abandoned father. But this is absurd; it must not be so! Anyone who hears and understands these terrible words and takes them to heart will immediately turn to God; the “rebellious children” will come to their senses and return. This is what the prophet's preaching is intended to achieve—if only it reaches its goal, the human heart!

For many centuries the ark of the covenant played an enormous role in Israelite doctrine and worship. It was the material testimony to the covenant made between God and Israel—a covenant under which God assumed responsibility for the people's destiny, while the people promised to fulfill God's law given through Moses. The ark confirmed the saving work of God, who brought His people out of Egyptian slavery, and the righteousness of His law. The ark was sacred!

Then Jeremiah prophesies that the ark will lose its significance, that it will even be lost, and that it will no longer be remembered. This will mean not a rupture in the relationship between Israel and God but, on the contrary, its restoration and enrichment. It is revealed to the prophet that a time will come when the symbol of salvation will no longer be the exodus from Egypt but the Messiah-Christ's way of the cross, and when God's law will be borne not by tablets of stone but by human hearts.

What an inconvenient thing repentance is. One would so like to say that inside we ourselves are good, but others interfered with us: other people, circumstances, forces of nature. In short, as in the old film Beware of the Car, "he is, of course, guilty, but he is, of course, not guilty."

But then it turns out that we ourselves have no need of God, that everything is in order with us. It is God who has problems: with the forces of nature, with circumstances, with other people. Let Him deal with them. But this means that we have no chance for our inner change; our sins remain unforgiven and undestroyed, and our fall into death is not even slowed.

No, it is better to agree with the prophet and not look for excuses for ourselves: we have sinned from our youth to this day and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.

What an uncomfortable thing – repentance! So much would I like to say that we ourselves are good from inside, but other people, circumstances, elements disturbed us. Indeed, as in an old Russian movie " Attention: car", - " he is certainly not guilty, but he is not of course guilty".

But then it turns out that we aren’t in need of God, everything is ok with us. It is God who has problems - with elements, with circumstances, with other people. Let Him settle with them! But indeed, it means that we have no chance for our internal change, our sins remain unpardoned and non-annihilated, and our fall into death don’t even slow down.

No, really, it is better to agree with the prophet and not look for excuses: we have sinned, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

Prophecy is born from tension, from the mismatch between what is and what ought to be. God expects from people "friendship as in youth" and "love as before a wedding," but receives unfaithfulness, rejection, and forgetfulness. Why does this happen, and what is to be done about it? These questions are the hardest to answer, because God does everything to draw the human person, while that person "leaves the fountain of water in order to make himself a dry cistern," like a woman who leaves her husband's house and looks for adventure in the camp of despair and death. Forgetting God cannot be explained rationally. It is madness, and yet it is reality.

And all that remains for God is to speak to people through His prophet: to warn about coming disasters, to denounce, to plead, to call them to Himself. And here God's success becomes the prophet's happiness, and failure, in turn, becomes grief. The prophet does not trade in ideology as "opium for the people" and does not engage in demagogy. He loves people with God's love and weeps over them with God's tears.