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The word came from what might have been seen by some in that
day as a surprising source...Jeremiah. By this point in the
prophet's career (probably 40+ years by now), he was fairly well
known. He was NOT famous for bringing words of comfort and hope.
If anything, he was seen as sort of a curmudgeon who was a
constant gadfly to both the religious and political
establishment. He had attacked the nation's religious hypocrisy
that saw folks look on Temple worship as a national good luck
charm - "As long as we go through the motions, all will be well,"
appeared to be the attitude. He saw injustice rampant with the
oppression of those less fortunate. He foretold the coming of
the forces of Babylon and recommended national surrender, and
called Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's emperor and Judah's most
despised foe, the "servant of the Lord." He even incited his
compatriots to desert to the enemy. He was hated by his family
and friends; he was forbidden to preach in the temple; he was
arrested and placed in stocks; he was threatened with death; he
was beaten and imprisoned; he was dropped down into a cistern
that had nothing in it but gooey muck; finally, he was carried
off into exile in Egypt against his will. Jeremiah's ministry
spanned a half-century, one of the most difficult half-centuries
in the history of his nation. No wonder he became known as "the
Weeping Prophet."
At the time of our lesson, Judah was already conquered and
all but a small remnant had been carried off into exile - away
from home, land, family, and, in the minds of some, even God -
more or less as Jeremiah had predicted. They had broken every
covenant that God had established, and now were experiencing
captivity once again - a once-proud nation now reduced to a life
of slavery in a foreign land. Now the prophet's words to them
were concerned with how to get along in this new environment. In
an open letter to the exiles, he suggested that they make the
most of the situation - go along to get along: Jeremiah went on to let them know that this would not be a
short-term situation: they were looking at seventy years, time
enough for an entire generation to be born and die. Yes, they
WERE away from home, land, family, but not God, and God had plans
for them, "a future with hope" in Jeremiah's words.(2)
"I will put my law within them" - not on tablets of stone.
"I will write it on their hearts" - it will not be an external
set of rules, but an internal motivation. People will do right
just because it is right. Wow. What is envisioned is a dramatic
end to the cycle that has been repeated so often. The people
receive a covenant from God, follow it briefly, fall away from
it, are punished, then return to the covenant with God...only to
cycle through again. Now, the vision is for a covenant which
will be kept naturally, without a chance of cycling through this
awful experience.
Someone has suggested that the old covenant is like a posted
speed limit and a traffic cop. We obey it because we fear
getting a ticket if we do not. The new covenant is driving a
speed based on respect for the conditions of the roadway, the
residents of the neighborhood, the safety of other drivers, as
well as our own need to get from one place to another (which
presumably all went into setting the posted limit in the first
place). In either case the speed of travel is the same, but the
difference is in the motivation.
I would love to report that soon after Jeremiah's words were
spread abroad among the exiles that their fulfillment came, but
we know such was not the case. In fact, by the time we hear
again of a "New Covenant" more than five-hundred years had
elapsed - you remember: "This cup is the New Covenant in my
blood."(3)
Jesus. It can truly be said that, until the coming of
Jesus, the handwriting on the heart was part of Jeremiah's
"future with hope."
According to the Gospel lesson, the word had begun to get
around about Jesus. This was Palm Sunday afternoon now - crowds
had already greeted his entry into Jerusalem. In John's
chronology, this was hard on the heels of his raising Lazarus to
life after four days in the tomb. Jesus was beginning to attract
significant crowds, and they were even bigger than normal because
this was a festival week, and folks had traveled from all over
the known world to celebrate the Passover here.
Word about Jesus had apparently spread to the visitors in
the city. Some of these Gentile converts ("God-fearers" as they
were known) got wind of this incredible rabbi. Perhaps they had
even heard of what he had done in cleaning out their part of the
Temple precincts from all the commercial traffic, the selling of
sacrificial animals, the money-changing, that was constantly
going on. They wanted to meet him. OK. They came to the
disciples and asked for an appointment.
We never hear whether or not they get their audience;
instead we get this bolt from the blue about, "The hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified." OK! A certain tingle of
excitement must have raced through those who heard him. This was
exactly what a lot of folks had been waiting for for three years.
NOW, Jesus would throw off the Judean "Clark Kent" disguise and
become Israel's "Superman" Messiah. YES! Glory!
But wait. What follows in the Gospel account is almost a
stream-of-consciousness monologue which we who live on this side
of the crucifixion and resurrection can understand, but it must
have left his original hearers in a fog. Put yourself in their
place. There was that statement about the grain of wheat having
to "die" in the ground before it can bear fruit. What has that
got to do with the conquering Messiah? That was followed
immediately with, "Those who love their life lose it, and those
who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Then he says, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am,
there will my servant be also." Uh huh. Finally, he takes a
deep breath and sighs, "Now my soul is troubled." And those who
were standing there listening probably whispered, "Ours too."
Suddenly, he lifts his eyes upward and begins a conversation
with heaven that is punctuated with what some hear as a clap of
thunder and others insist is the voice of an angel. One way or
another, it is most disquieting. Finally, he says, "I, when I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." Yes,
you and I know what he was talking about, but you can be sure
that those who first heard him were confused.
Notice something: confused or no, THEY STAYED. There was
something about Jesus that did indeed draw people to him. It had
been so since the night of his birth - humble shepherds and
learned magi. As a boy in the Temple, there were rabbis and
scholars. As a man there were folk from all walks of life - from
fishermen and tax-collectors to men like Nicodemus, the cream of
Israelite society; upstanding women and fallen women; the little
children loved him enough to make such a nuisance of themselves
that the disciples tried to shoo them away. Even a hard-bitten
Roman governor would be mesmerized enough by him to disavow any
blame for his execution.
Why were people so attracted to Jesus? Scripture says he
was not particularly handsome. He came from no family of
influence. He had no money. Was it the miracles? Perhaps.
There are always some who want to see a magic show. But on a
deeper level, what Jesus must have embodied for folks was a sense
of hope, the same kind of hope that ancient Judah felt when they
heard the words of Jeremiah: "The days are surely coming, says
the LORD," - in other words, you can take this to the bank - a
"new covenant...I will put my law within them, and I will write
it on their hearts;" - this one will be automatic; no way for us
to blow it - "and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people." Hope.
Several years ago a school teacher accepted the volunteer
position of visiting and teaching children who were patients in a
large city hospital. One day the phone rang and she received her
first assignment as a new volunteer. She took his name and room
number and was told by the his teacher that this boy was studying
nouns and adverbs in his class before he was hospitalized.
It was not until the visiting teacher got outside the boys
hospital room that she realized that he was a patient in the
hospital's burn unit. She was prepared to teach English grammar,
but she was not prepared to witness the horrible look and smell
of badly burned human flesh. She was not prepared to see a young
boy in great pain either. She wanted to hold her nose...to
turn...and leave faster than she came. But she could not just
walk away. So she clumsily stammered over to his bedside, and
she simply said, "I am the hospital teacher and your teacher sent
me to help you with your nouns and adverbs."
The next morning a nurse from the burn unit asked her, "What
did you do to that boy?"
The teacher began to apologize profusely, but before she
could finish, the nurse interrupted her: You don't understand.
We have been really worried about him...his condition has been
deteriorating over the past few days, because he had completely
given up hope. But ever since you were here with him yesterday,
his whole attitude has changed and he is fighting back, and
responding to treatment. It's as though he decided to live!
When the nurse later questioned him about it, the boy said,
"I figured I was doomed...that I was gonna die...until I saw that
teacher." And as a tear began to run down his face, he finished:
"But when I saw her, I realized that they wouldn't send a teacher
to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy...would they?"(4)
At this time of the year, the country thinks of Duke
University primarily for the excellence of its basketball
program. Coach K notwithstanding, there are some other programs
to recommend the school. For example, a few years ago the
psychology department carried on an interesting experiment to see
how long rats could swim. In one container they placed a rat for
whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments
and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container they
made the hope of escape possible for the rat. The rat swam for
several hours before finally drowning. The conclusion of the
experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We
usually say, "As long as there is life, there is hope." The Duke
experiment proved, "As long as there is hope, there is life."(5)
If we read the newspaper, we might feel we are living in a
world devoid of hope. The nation of Albania is about to destroy
itself in civil war. A Jordanian soldier goes on a rampage and
shoots and kills Israeli school girls. Dozens are dead,
thousands are homeless, the damage estimates are almost too large
to imagine from the flooding in the midwest. Add to that the
countless other homes where dreams are crushed down and hopes are
snuffed out each day and you begin to think that what is being
cloned out there is not sheep or monkeys but misery and pain. We
wonder how anyone survives in this life.
We survive by the measure of our hope. The exiles in
Babylon found their hope in the gracious words of Jeremiah and
his description of the handwriting on the heart. The hope of
your heart and my heart is Jesus.
1. Jeremiah 29:5-7 2. Jeremiah 29:11 3. Luke 22:20 4. Bill Adams, Trinity Episcopal Church, Sutter Creek, CA, via Ecunet, 12/29/96 5. Bruster & Dale, How to Encourage Others, quoted in Bible Illustrator for Windows, diskette, (Hiawatha, IO: Parsons Technology, 1994)
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat
what they produce. Take wives and have sons and
daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your
daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and
daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But
seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into
exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its
welfare you will find your welfare.(1)
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the
house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that
I made with their ancestors when I took them by the
hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant
that they broke, though I was their husband, says the
LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I
will put my law within them, and I will write it on
their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people.
Amen!
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