Jeremiah 20 – Jeremiah enters the court of the Temple to prophesy his message of disaster, and he is taken into custody, scourged and chained near the northernmost gate, the Benjamin Gate.  On his release the next morning, he prophesies against the chief officer responsible for his sufferings. Jeremiah is anxious about the hate closing in on him—as perhaps Jesus was too. “Whenever I speak, I have to cry out and shout, ‘Violence! Destruction!’ Lord, I am ridicules and scorned all the time because I proclaim your message. But when I say, ‘I will forget the Lord and no longer speak in his name,’ then your message is like a fire burning deep within me. I try my best to hold it in, but can no longer keep it back” (20:8-9).

How dreadful it must be to have a message so hard for people to hear from God that it undermines the prophet’s ability to live any kind of normal life with his people. Jeremiah knows the ultimate power of God to vindicate his (Jeremiah’s) reputation, and he knows that the tests God burdens us with are just in the long run, but the pain of it is overwhelming at times. For now, Jeremiah is desolate: “Why did I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days in shame?” (20:8)

2 Corinthians 3 - Paul commends the community for being such a great witness. But he actually doesn’t need to commend them. They themselves are “letters of recommendation . . . written on our [Paul’s and the church’s] hearts for everyone to know and read . . . [letters] not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts” (3:2-3).

Everything of importance for Paul rests on the Spirit – his commendation of them, his “qualifications” or credentials to be and “administrator of this new covenant" (3:6). He goes on to compare the salvation offered by Moses through the outward letter of the Law with the salvation offered by the Spirit.  He calls the one that came by Moses a “ministry of death” (3:7), not because it was bad — it wasn't. It was glorious (3:7). But it was transient, but the ministry of the Spirit lasts forever (3:11).

The understanding the Jewish leaders have of God’s will, their obsession with the outward Law, veils their minds in Paul’s view. But the “veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ” (3:14). When Moses “turned to the Lord” (3:16) – the Spirit – the veil was removed. This happens with all people, Paul assures us, not just with Moses. He ends the chapter with this: “Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit”  (3:17-18).

This language is beautiful, but it is also complicated. I think I get it. What we "turn to" to guide us in our spiritual journey, and the power of the Spirit that illuminates it for us, determines in large measure what we ourselves become. We are "the image" of that "looked-to reality," the mirror that reflects it. The eyes we bring to that reality have a large part in determining exactly how transformative the "reflective" experience is in our lives.