Out Of The Pit

In our First Reading, Jeremiah was thrown into a pit.

Illustration- A man fell into a pit and couldn’t get himself out.

A PHARISEE said: "Only BAD people fall into a pit."

A MATHEMATICIAN calculated HOW he fell into the pit.

BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind."

A GEOLOGIST told him to appreciate the rock strata in the pit.

An OPTIMIST said: "Things COULD be worse."

A PESSIMIST said: "Things WILL get worse!!"

JESUS, seeing the man, took him by the hand and LIFTED HIM OUT of the pit.

The moral of the story—This life is a time of mercy. DON’T JUDGE OTHERS WITH A CRITICAL SPIRIT OR IN SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

1. Jeremiah was thrown into a pit as a consequence of his prophetic ministry.

His rope of hope was the same one that’s available for us—The Bible, which provides inspiration and instruction to get us out of any pit that we find ourselves in. Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” King David said in Psalm 40:2, "God lifted me out of the pit and set my feet upon a rock. Praise also brings you out of the pit. God is looking for some pit praisers, people who praise Him no matter what happens.

In Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, looking closely at the detail we can see two souls being hauled up to heaven by what looks like a rope. However, on closer inspection we can see it is the Rosary. The Rosary has the power to lift us up to God. The Rosary works as a chain that pulls down to earth the graces that we need to live the Christian life. In times of tribulation the Rosary has the power to lift us up over our difficulties because Mary, Our Mother, intercedes for us. The Rosary is a prayer of intercession.

2). When Jeremiah hit the bottom of the pit, he sank into the mud.

The book, The Road Less Traveled, begins with the insight of “Life is Difficult.” The author admits that although this is not a very profound statement, it is very profound when we accept the fact that life is difficult, because then, all of sudden, it is not so difficult.

For us, even if you think that by the illness of sin you have already hit rock bottom: Be careful, there is mud at the bottom; there are trap doors. By God’s grace, a transformed self-consciousness says, “No, I don’t have to live like this!”--that is the only way out of a self-made pit.

Even then, the devil would love to drag you down again, even further. After all, Scripture tells us that Hell is described as a ‘bottomless pit’ of eternal damnation, and that until Satan is thrown into that pit forever, he has freedom of movement, and he wants to drag us there too.

As the saying goes, "He’s throwing a fit on the way to the pit!"

3. God is looking for Compassionate People--

Our First Reading says a Cushite, from Africa, saved Jeremiah from the pit.

Some people don’t care if others are at the bottom of the pit. They will just say: “who cares?” or “I have my own life and my own problems to care about.”

The Cushite took some old rags and worn-out garments and used them to save Jeremiah and bring him out of the pit. Use whatever you have and the Lord will bless you in order to save souls.

3. Jesus was also thrown into “the pit” beneath the house of Caiaphas, where Jesus was imprisoned the night before his crucifixion.

Jesus plunges himself into the depths of our alienation, so that we might rise.

Jesus speaks about the baptism of death

We spend our lives undergoing little baptisms, emerging from our pits.

Jeremiah was left for dead, but rose with help

Jesus died and rose from dead

We can die and rise, but we do not do this alone. In today’s Responsorial Psalm from Psalm 40, the second stanza says, “He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud of the swamp;… he made firm my steps.”

Concluding illustration: "This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

"A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

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"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"