I came into Lent kind of jokingly thinking that the song, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," provides a good overarching theme for the season. The repeated refrain of "turn around." The little reminders throughout of how we have fallen short and how we rely on someone outside of ourselves to help us through. It started as something of a joke, but each week seems to fit the part of the song that follows the previous week.
When I was initially planning out my themes for the season, I settled on the Jeremiah reading for today (Jeremiah 31:31-34). I felt like this readings helps to give some context to everything else going on in Lent. Jesus is saying and doing these things because God is making a new covenant with us. Jesus shows us what a life lived with God's instruction written on our hearts can look like. God lives in us.
And when we show the rest of the world the grace that God has given us, we make the world a better place.
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For our journey through Lent so far, we have focused on the gospel stories that either tell us about the events of Jesus’ last days or show us his teachings related to what is to come. Jesus knew, where the disciples did not, where his path was leading. He knew that his teaching would lead to a confrontation with the religious authorities. Jesus knew where that confrontation would take him.
This week, we go even further back in time to hear from the prophet Jeremiah. To understand all that Jesus is teaching and doing, we have to look to the prophets as well. Long before Jesus came, the prophets shared God’s words with the people. They pointed out the ways in which the people had fallen short in their relationship to God and to each other. They shared the words of God’s promises, of what God would do. They predicted the coming of the Messiah, one who would be sent by God to lead the people into the ways they should be in the world.
As we approach the end of Lent, as we draw closer to what we know is coming in our story, we turn to Jeremiah to better understand why Jesus came into the world. Why is Jesus doing the things he is doing and teaching what he is teaching?
Jeremiah shares the words that God has spoken to him in order that he might share them with the people. “The time is coming, declares the Lord…” (Jeremiah 31:31, CEB). Jeremiah makes it clear that this is God’s pronouncement. Jeremiah is directly sharing what God has told him to share.
And what God is declaring is a message of hope. “The time is coming…” God says. Of course, we must remember that time to God is different from the way we experience it. To God, the events of creation, which took millions of years from our perspective took only seven days. So when God says that the time is coming, it is all but impossible for us to nail down an exact date. As it is, Jeremiah lived approximately 600 years before Jesus. The message of hope that Jeremiah shared was a hope for people that would live hundreds of years in the future. And, yet, it is still a message of hope for the world, for the future, for all that will come after.
It reminds me of present day concerns over things like pollution and global warming. For many of us living now, we can perhaps recognize that our interaction with the natural world is not sustainable long term. And yet for most of us living now, we will never really know the fullness of the negative consequences. We will be long gone before the region where we now live turns into a desert and the seas rise to overtake our favorite coastal destinations.
That is one reason I see those who work to protect the environment today as prophets in the way that Jeremiah was. They plan for a future that they themselves will likely never experience. But their work is hope -- hope for the future, hope for people who will come after, hope for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Hope for those we will never know.
So what is this hope that God spoke of through Jeremiah? “The time is coming...when I will make a new covenant with the people…” (Jeremiah 31:31, CEB). In the ancient middle east, covenants were an important part of life. Covenants are like contracts or treaties, a type of binding promise made between people that specifies what both parties will do as well as the consequences of breaking the covenant.
In Hebrew, the root of the word for covenant is connected to a word meaning “cutting,” with Strong’s Concordance suggesting that this refers to the practice of those entering a covenant by passing between the cut halves of a sacrifice as a sign of sealing the pact between them. As sacrifices were usually burned, this might look something like two groups of people passing between two burning fires. Some scholars have even suggested that the act of passing between the sacrifices to seal the covenant is a way of indicating what will happen if the covenant is broken. “If we break the covenant, may we be split asunder and destroyed by fire.”
It is important to note that the commitments made in the covenant apply to all parties of the covenant. As we look back at the story of God’s relationship with the people, we see multiple examples of God entering into covenants. God makes a covenant with Noah. God makes a covenant with Abraham. God makes a covenant with David. In all of these cases, God makes a commitment to the people.
As we continue reading our verses from Jeremiah, we see that God is here referring specifically to the covenant made with the Israelites as they are led out of Egypt. God made a promise to save the people from slavery and to lead them to a land of their own. In this case, the sign of the covenant was in the passage through the waters of the sea that was split in half for the people to pass through. For the ancient Hebrews, the waters of the sea represented chaos and disorder. By passing through the waters, the people of God affirm that if they break the covenant, they will enter into a period of chaos and turmoil.
How long did the people spend in the wilderness before they broke the covenant? How long did their commitment last?
Even so, God does not break the covenant. Not only does God hold to the covenant that was made, God promises here a new covenant. Under this new covenant, the Laws will no longer need to be taught. No one will need to be taught to “Know the Lord.” This is because God will reach into our hearts, the very center of our capacity to love, to write what we need to know there. Under this new covenant, the people of God will know in their hearts what they are to do.
When this new covenant is made, God “will forgive [our] wrongdoing and never again remember [our] sins” (Jeremiah 31:34, CEB).
This is at the heart of all that Jesus lived and taught. Jesus came to show us what this covenant looks like in practice. If we hold God’s instruction in our hearts, we will love God. If we hold God’s instruction in our hearts, we will love our neighbors as ourselves. If we hold God’s instruction in our hearts, we will feed people when they are hungry. If we hold God’s instruction in our hearts, we will offer healing to those who are sick.
But these teachings can cause conflict when the specific written rules are not followed precisely. If God’s instruction is written on our hearts and all our wrongdoings are forgiven, what is the place of the Temple? How are those who are served by the status quo going to react to being shown a new way? Jesus knew where this path would lead. Still he points to a God found in the love we share with one another rather than that solely in the external forms of religion.
My youngest son has difficulty going to sleep each night. It’s not entirely clear if it is anxiety or fear or some combination of factors. It has been like this pretty much his entire life. Right now, the adults in our household take turns sitting in the room with him so that he can relax enough to fall asleep.
Part of this routine involves playing Disney songs for him to help relax his mind. Several of these songs have really stood out for me over the past several months, some of them new to me coming from Disney movies I’ve never seen. One recurring song comes from an album of music inspired by The Lion King. It was originally written for the stage production, was used in the direct to video Lion King 2, and makes an appearance during the credits of the recent remake.
The song is called “He Lives in You,” and in the context of the story it speaks of the ways in which the kings of the past live on in the present. But every time I hear the song, I am reminded of these verses from Jeremiah. God promises to live in us, to write the law of love on our hearts, to always be with us. God promises to watch over us and guide us in all that we see and do. God lives in us.
This is part of what Jesus is telling us in his teachings and his actions. God is not some distant and uncaring absentee father. God is not some cosmic butler, there to do our bidding as long as we say the right words and offer the right forms of payment.
God is waiting within us, written on our hearts. God is the love that prompts us to care for the person in need. God is the love that encourages us to feed the hungry and heal the sick. God is the love that points us to give so that others do not go without. God is the love that gives us compassion for those who are suffering.
God’s covenant is written on our hearts so that through our love for the world, others may see the love of God at work.
And for those that haven't heard the song referenced in the sermon before: