August 28, 2005 Sermon

Heart Covenant
Jeremiah 31:31-34

Once in a blue moon what looks like a death sentence turns into news so good it makes us dance and shout.

Take the case of the young woman enroute to a university medical center for tests. Something in the first round of exams looked wrong. The preliminary diagnosis was carcinoma, but the home town doctor wasnÕt sure. In the car to the big city she felt a sense of dread. She remembers thinking she would rather not knowÑjust live whatever months or years were left to her without chemo and the other hellacious ÒtherapiesÓ.

But her boyfriend made her go. He drove her, in fact, and firmly escorted her into the hospital. They took lots of her blood, made her lie still through x-rays and C-T scans and MRIs. After a couple of eternal days the results came back unequivocally: there was nothing seriously wrong with her. Nothing. When the specialist gave her the good news she fainted. She does not even recall him telling herÑthe first time, at any rate. When the truth finally sank in she cried and jumped up and down like a child at Christmas.

Like a child at Christmas. GodÕs grace should fill us with that kind of joy. God takes the bad news that saturates this world and turns it into Good News. God has written His covenant with us on our hearts. We have Jesus Christ imprinted within us. We know about him. We know him. But do we believe in him? Ê

God has made a heart covenant with us. God has promised to love and to save us, and God has planted that promise deep in our souls. Hear the Good News: in Jesus Christ, God has forgiven your sins.

God has tried to spread the Good Word for centuries, often through prophets. Jeremiah lived about 2,600 years ago. He heard God speaking and then proclaimed GodÕs words to people who did not necessarily want to hear them. And why would they?Ê For decades virtually every message God had Jeremiah preach was threatening. His fellow Jews had stopped worshiping the Lord, their God. They had forgotten the miracles by which Yahweh had delivered them from Egypt . They had prostituted themselves to foreign gods. They trusted in pagan kings and armies, not in their God.

God told Jeremiah to warn the Jews. A paraphrase of that warning might go, ÒQuit sinning and God wonÕt destroy you!ÓÊ This message did not make Jeremiah any friends. Yet he proclaimed it for decades. The Jews ignored him. Their kings, trying to keep their heads above the quicksand of the shifting politics of mighty foreign nations, could not make themselves trust God and God alone. The people, caught up in the sexy ÒworshipÓ of pagan fertility gods and goddesses, could not be bothered with all the rules Yahweh, a stern god, demanded they follow.

The Jews did not heed JeremiahÕs warnings. Eventually, God punished their pigheadedness. Terribly. The Babylonians flattened Judah , ravished the women, killed the children, left the old to die, and carried the able-bodied back to Babylon as slaves. And at that moment, God gave Jeremiah a new prophecy to share. Bible scholars summarize this new message with one word: consolation. We read part of it this morning.

ÒÕBehold, the days are coming, says the Lord,ÕÓ our passage begins, Òwhen I will make a new covenantÉÓÊ Our verses end with, ÒÕfor they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,Õ says the Lord, Ôfor I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.ÕÓÊ Under the old covenant the people of God had one job and one job only: obey the rules. Keep the law of God. Behave. They failed. So would we. As human beings we cannot behave ourselves. We sin.

Did God set us up to fail?Ê If the old covenant required a perfect obedience we could not deliver, did God have a big olÕ joke at our expense?Ê I believe the answer is no. I believe that God has had a plan from the beginning of time. I believe that Jesus Christ was and is GodÕs perfect, saving gift to humanity. I believe that we have the knowledge of Christ written on our hearts. We know him. He knows us. He saves us. God had to drive us to admit we could not save ourselves. ThatÕs the reason for the old covenant. But the Good News trumps the bad.

Not one of us can earn GodÕs love. We cannot behave ourselves long enough or well enough. But we can accept GodÕs gift of Jesus Christ. We can believe in Him. We can receive new life because through him God forgives our sins. This is GodÕs new covenant, which Jeremiah proclaimed. Receive the gift of forgiveness. Live freely and joyously in the light of the love of God.

One year ago, Timothy Schubert peeled his SUV away from the stoplight on South Airport Rd. at the mall. In one tenth of a mile his vehicle reached 81 miles per hour. It then slammed into a small car driven by Adrian Morris, a student at West High School . The impact killed her and fellow marching band member Christian DeWitt.

On the anniversary of the tragedy the Record-Eagle carried a story by Ian Storey and Vanessa McCray. The reporters interviewed both girlsÕ extended families. They spoke of how the calendar now feels like a series of landmines: the girlsÕ birthdays, MotherÕs Day, Christmas, the start of this yearÕs band camp. Each date has become a cause of tremendous pain. ChristianÕs mom, Janice Lautner, told of driving by her old house on prom night (they moved some years ago). There in the front yard she happened to see a high school girl in a fancy dress. People swarmed around her with cameras and video recorders. Tears filled her eyes as a thought popped into her mind: ÒShe was all I had.Ó

Yet on Thursday Mrs. Lautner visited the cemetary with Kristi Schubert, the wife of the man behind the wheel. The two laid long-stemmed roses on the grave together. ÒIf I couldnÕt forgive (Schubert), I donÕt think I could heal at all,Ó she said. ÒIt has really helped me. You never get over the loss, but Christian would have wanted it that way.ÓÊ How does a mother forgive her daughterÕs killer?Ê The other girlÕs father, Richard DeWitt, told the newspaper, ÒI am not as forgiving as a lot of people. My daughter is gone. My family is shattered. (Schubert) still has hisÉ I will carry this forever.Ó

Which of us can condemn this man?Ê He has suffered a horrible loss. Yet forgiveness leads to healing. The forgiveness restores broken relationships. God has chosen to approach us through forgiveness. He has accomplished forgiveness for us already in the death and resurrection of his own Son, Jesus Christ. God understands how the families of Christian DeWitt and Adrian Morris feel. And God has chosen to experience this pain expressly in order to write his love on our hearts.

We have inherited a new covenant, a new sacred promise from God. In this new covenant God has promised to forgive us, no matter what we do. There can be no greater love than this: that our God would volunteer to absorb all the pain we cause Him. Accept the gift of forgiveness. Extend the gift of forgiveness. Learn from the example of God. Learn from the example of the mother who went with the wife of the man who killed her daughter to lay roses on her grave. Together.

Together. ThatÕs what God wants to be with us. He has done everything necessary to make it happen except the one thing he canÕt do: accept the gift. Accept the gift. Receive your forgiveness and revel in the healing it brings you. The Good News is already in your heart. Accept it.