March 14: Jeremiah’s Prayer and God’s Answer
♫ Music:
Day 29 - Wednesday, March 14
Title: Jeremiah’s Prayer and God’s Answer
Scripture: Jeremiah 15:15-16
You who know, O Lord,
Remember me, take notice of me,
And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away;
Know that for Your sake I endure reproach.
Your words were found and I ate them,
And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart;
For I have been called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.
Poetry: Prayer
By Czeslaw Milosz
[Translated by Czeslaw Milosz & Robert Hass]
Approaching ninety, and still with a hope
That I could tell it, say it, blurt it out.
If not before people, at least before You,
Who nourished me with honey and wormwood.
I am ashamed, for I must believe you protected me,
As if I had for You some particular merit.
I was like those in the gulags who fashioned a cross from twigs
And prayed to it at night in the barracks.
I made a plea and You deigned to answer it,
So that I could see how unreasonable it was.
But when out of pity for others I begged a miracle,
The sky and the earth were silent, as always.
Morally suspect because of my belief in You,
I admired unbelievers for their simple persistence.
What sort of adorer of Majesty am I,
If I consider religion good only for the weak like myself?
The least-normal person in Father Chomski's class,
I had already fixed my sights on the swirling vortex of a destiny.
Now You are closing down my five sense, slowly,
And I am an old man lying in darkness.
Delivered to that thing which has oppressed me
So that I always ran forward, composing poems.
Liberate me from guilt, real and imagined.
Give me certainty that I toiled for Your glory.
In the hour of the agony of death, help me with Your suffering
Which cannot save the world from pain
JEREMIAH’S PRAYER
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, a distressed and sorrowful Prince Myshkin writes a simple letter to his friend Aglaia: “Perhaps you have quite forgotten me now…but I felt an irresistible desire to remind you of me.” In moments of trouble, there is a comfort, something nearly intercessory, in the knowledge that there is someone who remembers, and sympathizes with us. For those who share the fellowship of Christ, remembering so often leads to the greater comfort and intercession of prayer (1 Thess. 1:3).
Through today’s reading, we recall the suffering of the weeping prophet. Like the visionary of Patmos, who experienced the sweetness of mouth yet sourness of stomach of eating God’s scroll (Rev. 10:9-10), Jeremiah knows the sweetness and bitterness of bearing God’s word. He knows the joy and delight of meditating on God’s word and of being “called by [His] name,” and yet it is for God’s sake that he endures reproach and persecution. There is a double-sidedness to the call to God’s service, for he calls us to closer fellowship with him, but he also calls us to suffer—he calls us to the cross. As Czeslaw Milosz’s poem tells us, God “nourishe[s] [us] with honey and wormwood.” Leonid Pasternak’s painting similarly depicts one entrusted with a powerful calling, as well as the cost and burden of the charge.
In his affliction, Jeremiah finds solace in the God who, in contrast to the faithless and forgetful people, understands, cares, and remembers: “Lord, you understand; remember me and care for me.” We, too, who are called by God, who know the delight of his word, and who, perhaps, even know the pain of holding fast to it when it may incite derision, even hatred, are invited to pray the prayer of Jeremiah.
When we, in the midst of challenge, ask God to remember us, we recall God, recall ourselves to God, and also boldly recall God to Himself, to His covenant promises concerning us, and to His mercy towards us. We remember the God who remembers us with compassion, “[a]s a father has compassion on his children…for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:13-14) And we pray, alongside the thief on the cross and so many others, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” with full assurance that Christ’s answer will ever be: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:42-3).
Prayer:
“Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ‘Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.’” (2 Kings 20:2-3)
“And she made a vow, saying, ‘Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me…” (1 Sam. 1:11)
“Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.” (Neh. 13:22)
“He remembered us in our low estate. His love endures forever.” (Ps. 136:23)
Dr. Jane E. Kim
Assistant Professor of English
Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University
About the Artwork #1:
The Passion of Creation
Leonid Pasternak
1899
Oil on canvas
This painting, sometimes called Throes of Creation shows artist Pasternak’s acute empathy with the writer who is struggling to find the right words. Pasternak is known for his illustrations of Leo Tolstoy's novels, so he understood what it was to be passionately engaged in the creative act as an artist and a writer. The prophet Jeremiah passionately knew God’s words and was willing to “endure reproach” because God’s words became for him “a joy and the delight of his heart.”
About the Artist #1:
Leonid Pasternak (1862–1945) was a Russian Post-Impressionist painter and father of the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak, the author of Dr. Zhivago. Leonid studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and at Moscow University, first in the Department of Medicine, then at the Department of Law. He then entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from which he graduated in 1887. He returned to Russia where he served the compulsory two years in the Imperial Russian Army, and then in 1889, he started a career as a full-time painter. Pasternak was a friend of author Leo Tolstoy and painted many portraits of the writer, also illustrating Tolstoy’s novels War and Peace and Resurrection. Pasternak was awarded a medal at the 1900 World Fair in Paris for his illustrations of Tolstoy's novels and was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1905. He also taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
About the Artwork #2:
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem
Rembrandt van Rijn
1630
Oil on panel
58 x 46cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Downcast, the biblical prophet Jeremiah leans his tired head on his hand as he mourns the burning city of Jerusalem by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar, the destruction of which he had foretold. The most important part of the depiction – the figure of Jeremiah – is painted with great precision, while his surroundings are barely worked out. In the distance to the left Zedekiah can he seen holding his fist before his eyes. Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was made blind by the soldiers whereas Jeremiah sees the devastation with great sorrow. Rembrandt utilized powerful contrasts of light and shadow in his composition to heighten the drama of the scene.
About the Artist #2:
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) was a Dutch painter considered one of the greatest artists of all time. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement known as the “Dutch Golden Age.” He is most famous for his portraits, but Rembrandt's greatest creative triumph is exemplified in the numerous scenes he painted from the Bible. He is often praised for his understanding and empathy for the human condition, which he observed in his hometown of Amsterdam. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate autobiography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity. Rembrandt's foremost contribution in the history of printmaking was his transformation of the etching process from a relatively new reproductive technique into a true art form. His reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was well-established in his lifetime, and has never been questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic while he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, and his wider reputation was initially based on them alone.
About the Music:
“Variations on "Trockne Blumen" D. 802 - Introduction” from the album Schubert: Variations On "Trockne Blumen," Arpeggione Sonata
About the Composer:
Franz Peter Schubert (1797–1828) was an Austrian composer. Though Schubert died before his 32nd birthday, he was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of Schubert's music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras, and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early 19th century.
About the Performers:
Emmanuel Pahud (b. 1970) is a Franco-Swiss flute player. The Berlin-based flautist is mostly known for his Baroque and Classical flute repertory. Born into a non-musical family, Pahud was captivated the flute at an early age. Classically trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, he leapt into the international orchestral and solo music scene when he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992. The Guardian reviewed Pahud’s versatility in musical styles over the years, saying that his virtuosity “signaled the arrival of a new master flautist.” He continues to play in diverse musical genres including Baroque, jazz, contemporary, classical, orchestral, and chamber music.
Éric Le Sage (b. 1964) is a contemporary French classical pianist. Le Sage is best-known for his interpretations of romantic music and Robert Schumann, but also for recording the complete piano music of composer Francis Poulenc in a unanimously appreciated version. His curiosity for the unknown works led him to play more than twenty rare concertos by Dvo?ák, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Britten, and others. Le Sage has been a guest of renowned groups such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Dresden Philharmonic.
About the Poet:
Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) was a Polish poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He ranks among the most respected figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania, where his parents moved temporarily to escape the political upheaval in Poland, Milosz left Poland as an adult due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II. He lived in the United States from 1960 until his death in 2004. Milosz’s poems, novels, essays, and other works were written in his native language, Polish, and translated by the author and others into English. A witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, his poetry deals with the central issues of our time including the impact of history upon a moral person and the search for ways to survive spiritual assault in the world.
About the Devotional Writer:
Jane E. Kim is thrilled to be a part of the Biola community and enjoys studying great books with the Torrey Honors Institute’s bright students. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in English and French, and received her MA and PhD in English literature from Cornell University. Her current research interests include 18th and 19th-century British literature and the Bible and literature.