Jeremiah 40 - The next several chapters are very dramatic and show the chaos surrounding the whole broken Judaean region following the Chaldean conquest. Jeremiah is taken with the captives who are being led into exile with their Chaldean captors as far as Ramah, but is then told that he does not have to go into exile; he can go wherever he wants to go.  He is advised to go to Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon has named governor of Judah. Gedaliah comes from a family that was deeply associated with the reform movement started by Josiah; and his father, Ahiakam, had helped save Jeremiah earlier [see chapter 26]. So Jeremiah does go to him.

There are also some Judeaen military officers who had not surrendered to the Chaldeans who go to Gedaliah to seek refuge; and other people as well – Israelites from Moab, Ammon, Edom and elsewhere return to Judah, hoping that Gedaliah will be able to provide some security.

One of the Judaean officers  -- Johanan – tries to warn Gedaliah that the Ammonite king, Baalis, who has not yet surrendered to the Chaldeans, is resentful of Gedaliah and sees him as a puppet of the enemy. Johanan tells Gedaliah that Baalis intends to assassinate him, but Gedaliah refuses to believe it. Johanan even advises him to send someone to kill Ishmael, the man appointed to assassinate him, but Gedaliah will have none of it.

Jeremiah 41 – So the assassination happens—while they are all together at a dinner table in Mizpah. Ishmael and the ten men with him also slay many of those associated with Gedaliah. The day after--before anyone has learned of the assault--eighty men with beards shaved (under a vow of some kind?), clothed in rags and with gashes on their bodies, arrive to bring food offerings and incense.  Ishmael greets them, invites them in and then slays them as well—except for ten. He takes captives, including women left behind by the Chaldeans for Gedaliah and leaves.

When Johanan learns of the slaughter, he and his men set out after Ishmael, overtaking him at the Great Waters of Gibeon.  When the captives with Ishmael see them, they go over to the pursuers; but Ishmael escapes with eight of his men to the Ammonites. Johanan takes charge of the assorted “remnant,” but fearing what the Chaldeans will do now, they decide to escape to Egypt. 

Romans 8:1-17 – Paul describes a Christological understanding that is rooted in the Levitical sacrifices—the Law was powerless to completely deal with sin (bring it to a state of utter holiness), because the “flesh” in human makeup could not be brought into complete obedience to the Law but rather found in the Law ever new ways to undermine God’s will, which was to save through the Law under the Old Covenant.  So now it is flesh itself—in the person of Christ—that is condemned and handed over to God in sacrifice.  But only God can do this.  By joining ourselves to Christ through faith in his sacrifice, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the divine that gives us a spiritual power capable of overcoming the drag of flesh.

“For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness” (8:7-10). He says this a time or two again.

So we see the indwelling Christ proclaimed here, but also the expiatiatory nature of Christ’s incarnation and death—Quaker and not so Quaker aspects of the faith. I am very interested in the tension between the “fleshly” and the spiritual dimensions of the truths proclaimed in the Christian gospel.  The sacramental spirituality of the Catholic Church seems a two-edged sword – it is a vital reminder or teacher of the truths and the message of Christ’s redemption; but it seems to me too a snare that sometimes (maybe often) keeps people from passing into a real spiritual grasp of what that redemption is all about.   One could argue (and I do) that true sacramentality comes after the spiritual rebirth.  When the Spirit of Christ animates our mortal bodies and dwells at the heart of all we do in the flesh - our marriages, our friendships and our communities.