Reflection on the Word for the Sunday of January 30, 2022.
BEFORE OUR COMING TO EARTH
- Jeremiah 1:4-10 -
1:4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
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Many people are searching for a goal, an aim, a meaning of their personal lives, and in general as well. What is our direction in life, what is our destination, where do we go after this life. These are legitimate questions, and science can not answer them. Science is able to build a container carrier ship 300 m long to cross and criss-cross the oceans, circumnavigating the globe, from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro, from Cape Town to Edinburgh.
In ancient times the stars had shown the path through the waves, then they invented the compass, then the satellite guided GPS. However, how to reach from having a compass on board of a ship to having a compass in the heart, or moreover, how to gain compassion, it needs different skills, or let us say, different understanding, different approach.
Even, when ships will be really evolved into spaceships to criss-cross not only the solar system, but the galaxy, the question still stays with us, what should I do with my life, what goals should be set, what direction should be followed, what mission should be undertaken? What is my ultimate destination as a person, and our ultimate destination as humanity?
The Book of Jeremiah starts with an astonishing prophetical statement:
" Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." It gives a perspective, which is usually overlooked in our earthly race of surviving the elements, surviving the cruelty of the nations. We are so occupied with our temporary lives blinded by our five senses, that we hardly get a chance to contemplate over the ultimate questions.
The overlooked question, which has an ultimate answer in the beginning of the Book of Jeremiah, is the “where do we come from” inquiry. God told Jeremiah that before I formed you in the womb I knew You. It means that before his conception Jeremiah had already existed without having a body.
Some bishops think, that the similar statement of Jesus is not related to this, as the case of the conception and the birth of Jesus was different and distinct unique and divine.
Thus, they think the declaration of Jesus, he made in the Gospel of John, that “before Abraham was, I am”, does not apply here, but it does.
He speaks about the pre-existence of the soul, embedded in the New Testament tractate genre story, when some scribes argued with Jesus, when he said to them that “ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. ” When the disputed this by saying, that “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Then Jesus famously answered them, that “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
However the scribes did not pick the stones to stone him because he stated that his soul had pre-existed before his conception. That was a common belief as we can even see it in the book of Jeremiah, and most people also believed even in reincarnation.
They raged not over the pre-existance, but because Jesus, according to the Gospel of John, which writing was finalized in the 2nd century, used the I AM term, and that is, God’s self description, as it was given to Moses, that God or the Angel of the Lord said, that I Am Who I am.
Thus, the scribes accused him with blasphemy, deemed at that time a crime worthy for dead sentence, but they did NOT attack him for stating merely the pre-existence of his soul.
However, despite that it was a common belief of the ancient sages, we tend to overlook the pre-existence of the soul, so we miss an important answer for the profound question that where we came from. Because, in order to answer the question of what direction should we take, what destination should we aim, we should know not only the destination point, but also the departure, in order to choose well our aim.
So we came from a spiritual pre-existence, having a soul, but not having a body. Then we receive a mission to go the Earth, being born into a body, into a fate, in a family, in a nation, on a continent, into a culture of a society in order to develop compassion and mercy, and help others to develop compassion and mercy. Meanwhile the council of the Angels in Heaven keep writing the notes in the Book of Life, keep accounting every single thought, speech and deed occurred or occurring or will be occurring in the Universe, in the Solar system and on Earth, regarding pre-existence, birth, lifespan, death and Afterlife.
Only if we know that we came from Heavenly abodes, and we are here in a boot camp on Earth to work on ourselves to become worthy for entering Heaven in the World to come, then we have a proper compass of compassion and empathy, that directs us on the right path higher and higher on the ladder of Jacob.
According to the Book of Jeremiah, God consecrated him, with an other word, God commissioned him a prophet as it is written that “and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Being a prophet is a huge undertaking of dealing with the issues of whole nations, even occasionally with the issues of the whole world. The task might not be for everybody, but everyone is consecrated by God in the womb for the mission of life given specifically to the individual soul to fulfill it.
We are all commissioned to be a caring and loving family ember, a friend with empathy and compassion, a member of the society caring for justice and mercy in the same time. All these tasks are sacred and consecrated by God, even before birth. Jesus received the commission from God to bring the Good News from Heaven to Earth that there is salvation, there is redemption, there is forgiveness of sins, there is resurrection, there is eternal life in the World to Come, there is renewal of everything on Earth and in the Skies.
Jesus commissioned his disciples to share the Good News with the World, and the disciples of the the disciples formed a church, which is united by the Holy Spirit, which should be one, undivided spiritual body of the Christ, as well. However, from the beginnings the visible church is very divided over its temporary matters, in its physical appearance, in its institutions, and occasionally the required unity is lost time to time in endless disputes and debates, when we lose focus on the ultimate perspective, and we miss the narrow path of following Jesus, and only Jesus.
May God grant us to keep the narrow path in our sight always, being conscious of the extreme shortness of the Earthly life, and of that, that we finally have to go back to the spiritual realm to answer the questions at the Gate of Heaven, whether we fulfilled our sacred mission.
May God grant us, that we will be able to answer with a grateful Yes in our last hour on Earth, thanks be given to God for the grace of the Lord and for the enabling power of the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
