Peace Like A River
In Peace Like A River, Jeremiah Land is described in great detail throughout the book. The author has written the book from his son, Reuben’s perspective, but Reuben pays careful attention to the details surrounding his dad’s character. Through Reuben, the reader is given the insight that Jeremiah represents a Christ-like figure. This realization is seen throughout the book and if a reader doubts whether this correlation is really true, they will no longer have any question about it when they read the final scene involving Jeremiah and Reuben. Reuben describes in great detail all of the miracles he has seen his dad perform throughout his life. Even though Reuben was just a baby and cannot recall the first miracle that he was a part of, he has heard the story. He had been born and had not breathed for twelve minutes. The doctors all thought that he was dead, but not Jeremiah. He said to me, “Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.”(pg. 3) Then Reuben starts to breathe. While Jesus was on earth he preformed many miracles and he would always perform them in the name of God, just like Jeremiah is performing a miracle in the name of God. God gave Jesus the ability to perform miracles here on earth and now God is giving Jeremiah the ability to perform a miracle in his name.
As the novel begins, an attack has just taken place on a girl named Dolly, who is Davy’s girlfriend. Jeremiah shows up during the attack and Dolly says that his face was light up, even though the rest of the room was in complete darkness. Just like Jesus shines in even the darkest places for all of the world to see, Jeremiah is shinning in the light of God because of the great work that he is doing for the kingdom of God. One night Reuben decides he needs to go outside and use the bathroom and when he does he comes upon his dad praying and walking with his eyes closed. Reuben watches for awhile and is amazed when his dad keeps on walking right off of the pick-up truck. His dad seems to float on air above the ground. This miracle could easily correlate with the miracle of Jesus and Peter walking on water. In order for Peter to stay above the water, he had to have faith. Jeremiah defiantly has faith in God while praying and that is the reason why he continues not to fall, even though he is walking on air. Swede, who is Jeremiah’s daughter has a birthday and for her birthday, her brother gives her a saddle that he has restored back to perfect, except for one tear. Later on in the story Jeremiah trips over the saddle and then Reuben suddenly notices that the saddle no longer has a tear on it. Jeremiah has just preformed another miracle.
Later on in the story when Davy is arrested and thrown in prison for murder, the family is devastated. When Davy escapes prison and goes on the run, the family decides to leave their house and travel around in their car with their Airstream trailer attached, trying to find Davy. While they are driving several miracles occur. Jeremiah prays, asking God not to let them run out of gas. He also asks Swede to pray and ask God the same thing. Amazingly the car never runs out of gas, until they make it where they end up staying. This miracle correlates with the feeding of the five thousand. Even though there should not have been enough food to feed everyone, there was. Likewise, there should not have been enough gas to last that long, but there was. Also while they are traveling, they pass by the police who are obviously looking for them. Even though they drive right by them, none of them seem like they have even seen the family. Their presence was so obvious as Reuben describes when he says, “we tiptoed through that town like a fat boy through a wolf pack.” (pg. 167) This shows that God’s grace was with them and he was protecting them, just like he protected his son, Jesus.
The family meets a woman named Roxanna and she lets them stay at her house. This woman herself is a miracle for these kids because after the death of their father, she takes care of them, raises them, and is always there for them. At the end of the story Jeremiah and Reuben are both shot. Jeremiahs wound is not too bad and he should have recovered from it, but Reuben’s wound is serious and deadly and should have killed him. Even though Reuben should have been the one that died, he was not. Instead Reuben’s dad Jeremiah dies. Jeremiah talks about how he would take Reuben’s place if he could all throughout the book. He would rather suffer, than watch his son suffer. In the end Jeremiah takes the place of his son and dies, so that his son can live. Jesus died for the sins of everyman because he loved us enough to take our place. Jeremiah died in the place of Reuben because he loved him enough to take his place. Jeremiah represents a Christ-like figure in this story and the sacrifice he makes for his son out of love reminds people of the sacrifice that God made for his people out of love.
Refrences:
Enger, Leif. Peace Like A River. New York, 2001.