Readings: Psalm 51:1-12, Hebrews 5:5-10, Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 19:14-22
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, on March 21st 2021
O.K. Here is the situation. There is a husband. This husband is a great guy. He has gone out of his way to treat his wife fairly and look after her as best as he knows how. In fact, on numerous occasions he has risked everything to get her out of dangerous circumstances that would have destroyed their relationship.
But here is the problem. Time and time after time, she has been unfaithful to him. Time and time again she has gone after other guys, time and time and time again she has treated their relationship as though vows had never been spoken and the good times they had together (and there had been many of them) counted for nothing at all.
Their relationship has completely broken down. She, despite his warnings, has gone off with this other guy and it has led to total disaster. She has lost everything. She is miles from home. She is hurting like she has never hurt before. Her laughter has turned to tears and her dancing to mourning. She is trapped herself in circumstances that she knew could happen if she carried on the way she was but failed to believe that they would.
Now, lest there be any misunderstanding, I am not drawing a picture from any romance novel or something off the Hallmark T.V. Channel. I am painting a picture for you of what had happened between Israel and her God at the time Jeremiah spoke the words that we heard as our bible reading.
Jeremiah 31:32 “‘I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them’ declares the LORD”. The people of Israel are in the captivity of Babylon and at the mercy of powers that sought their destruction. But God is not willing to cast them off. God’s love refuses to call it quits and, rather than the expected rejection, Jeremiah speaks in these terms.
Jeremiah 31: 33 “‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I shall be their God, and they shall be my people”.
Returning to the husband and unfaithful wife picture, the husband is saying, “I’m not giving up on you. I am going to do something that makes you realize how much I love you. Something that changes the way you will feel inside about our relationship. It’s not going to be about rules, it’s going to be about desire.”
I called this message, 'Jeremiah and the Heart.' When we speak of the covenant of the heart, we are talking about desire. Desire is an emotion that we associate with yearning and longing and wanting. If we desire something, we want that thing so badly that it occupies our thoughts, captures our dreams, and causes us to take certain course of action.
I am not talking about just wanting something. I am not thinking about how it would be nice to have a Ferrari or a holiday in Hawaii or a new i-phone. Such things would be nice, and if you save up your pennies enough, one day you may be able to achieve some of them.
Desire is about what rests on your heart and guides your steps each day. Desire is an emotion that if it is not quenched it hurts. The Psalmist declares in his quest for the blessing of God."Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hidden from thee” (Psalm 38:9.) Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant, a covenant that will be expressed through the desires of the heart. Not the Old Covenant, which was “Hey, if you do this, I’ll bless you, if you don’t do this, I’ll curse you”.
As Christian people we have an opportunity that Jeremiah’s hearers never witnessed. They never witnessed the new covenant come into being. The New Covenant, the New Testament, the New relationship with God that would write itself on people’s hearts, was only fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.
Out of love God had established the old covenant as a way of blessing. 'Do this, I will bless you, and we will be in a relationship'. But the people kept walking out on that relationship. Something more was needed. Something that would break the hardness of unfaithful hearts. Something powerful that would draw out love and produce faithfulness.
That something, that expression of God’s desire for relationship, came in the shape of a cross. The Cross is the central symbol of Christian faith. The Cross. The place where we witness the love of God going to the ultimate depths of all that life can throw our way, to win our hearts.
The earliest history of the Presbyterian Church over in Wales, the church that personally led me to faith, was one punctuated by religious revivals. Now when I say revivals, I am not talking about putting a little tent up and getting together and having a good sing, and maybe a few people walking down the aisle and getting saved.
I am talking about a sovereign move of God’s Holy Spirit that rocked the nation. I am speaking about whole communities that were changed from places of despair to communities of hope.
There is a story told of a notorious district in one of the larger urban areas. To put it plainly it was an area where some of the menfolk would go to buy time with a lady for a while. Revival meetings were taking place in town, and the men stopped visiting the ladies, because they were attending the meetings at the church. So, the ladies, who depended on the men for their income, decided to go along and disrupt the meeting and entice the men to return.
It did not happen that way. When the ladies entered the church there was such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that they forgot what they had gone there for! The preacher was speaking about the Cross, as being the place where God desired to forgive sins and accepted all who would come to Him, and desired to establish a new relationship with those who accepted His love that compared to nothing else in this world.
These ladies? They knew a little about desire. Through the action of the Holy Spirit the shadow of the cross fell upon them and they became changed; and as a result, the whole district became changed and people’s desire was changed – faithfulness and living in a way that honored God and being people of hope and conviction – these things became foremost in people’s minds who for much of their lives had been strangers to the love of God.
On the day we call Maundy Thursday, we recall how Jesus met in the upper room with His disciples before He went out to face His torturous trials and death. At that meal He talked to the disciples of how the cup they would drink represented a New Covenant, a new relationship with God made possible through the Cross.
As Jesus sits down to share this moment, forever fixed in eternity, we read in Luke 22:15 (KJV) “He said unto them, 'With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” A lot of desire there! What is the desire of God? Revelation 3:20; 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”
Jeremiah’s vision is of a God who comes to us and shares in our lives, as we share in the life of God’s kingdom. It is all made possible through the Cross, upon which Jesus died to destroy the barrier that exists between people and God. It is made feasible through the Resurrection. This is not Romeo and Juliet. Although this is a love affair that gives itself up to death, this is a love that is stronger than death!
One of the features of the Welsh Revivals, a feature paralleled in similar movements throughout the world at different times, is that the Cross of Jesus Christ becomes a touching place. As people realized here is God, God giving all, God prepared to suffer, to allow His own Son to die for them, their hearts were melted. Something inside of them … moved... in such a way as their desire was to follow Jesus Christ whatever it cost, wherever He may lead, however He may touch their lives.
It is an action of the heart. Recall Jeremiah's words; “This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put my law within them, and on their heart, I will write it; and I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.”
We spend our lives running here, attaining this, doing that, thinking that we are getting somewhere. We play games. 'Lord, I promise I’ll be faithful... next time'. 'Lord, it’s not that I don’t trust You, I just believe that I need other things than You in my life right now'. ‘Lord, lead me not into temptation... well... just more time!”
All four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, invite us to recognize and realize the significance of what God has done for us at the Cross. They call us to reach a place where the brokenness of Jesus Christ breaks our own hard heart. It is all about the desires of our hearts.
Let us seek for God to win our hearts afresh as we realize that the love that was broken for us is the same love that seeks to heal us.
Let us ask God’s Holy Spirit today to place our lives under the shadow of the cross.
May the desire that is in our hearts be truly one of commitment to God, commitment to Christ who died for us, commitment to the Holy Spirit, who seeks to empower us to live Kingdom lives.
And to God be all the glory.
AMEN.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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