How do you live through the demise of a single paradigm, of one reality, and still have the necessary faith to grow as a Christian? How do you believe that God is continuing to watch over you when the physical evidence all around you suggests that this is not true?
These are the questions that Jeremiah’s people, and perhaps Jeremiah himself, are struggling with on a daily basis. The Israelites are in exile. Jerusalem has been burned; its walls torn down. Judah, like is northern brethren, have been conquered. All the while the prophetic voices have cried out to the people with one constant refrain: repent, return to the Lord, and we might be spared.
Yet the people continued down a pathway that led them away from God and away from trusting in God to be their source of strength and provision. But they are not the only ones.
These questions might also be the same questions that the people in the church and community are grappling with today as we look out at the landscape where God sends us.
How can we remain faithful when the evidence suggests that God is not at work around us?
We know that God takes us by the hand, holds us in our time of grief and pain, but what does it look like when that paradigm shatters? How do we find, or how do we remember that God is going to establish a New Covenant with us when the pain of losing something previous is so strong and so stinging?
Move 1- an active God
As we begin to address and confront that struggle, we come to the familiar words of Jeremiah 31 that we hold so closely to. So, the first task that we try to undertake is one of memory. Yet that too does not mean this work is going to be easy. Memory. We attempt to bring to mind the truth God is still active when the evidence others put before us suggests that God is not.
If you remember, way back at the end of August, we read and considered the story of Jeremiah’s calling together. In chapter 1 God tells the young prophet that he is destined, called, as God’s servant and mouthpiece, to bear witness to “pluck up and break down/to destroy and to overthrow/to build and to plant.”[1]
Those words are powerful and young Jeremiah probably had to take a step back when God said them to him.
As we thought about those words, we remembered how strong they sounded in our ears. How polarizing they can be. And we knew that they were probably stronger in Jeremiah’s called ears for he did not think that he was able to do this work that God sent him out to do. And yet again both we, and Jeremiah, are called to be God’s voice and God’s hands. For God is active in us and in the world around us.
Now here, over 30 chapters later, the active God speaks.
Jeremiah hears these hard words again, and in hearing them, they gain some added potency—some added passion in his heart. 30 chapters later God is still actively at work in Jeremiah’s live and in the life of the people—even if those people are not convinced that God is still listening and still present.
Even if those people thought that God abandoned them as the Holy City fell and the culture of the day laxed, God is still there. . . still listening. Still calling us outward.
In verse 28 God says these words… “to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy…”[2] And here we feel and hear the call of Jeremiah repeated.
Again, they are harsh words from God. Yet also words that demonstrate that God is actively around His people. Not to harm them—do not make that mistake. But God is actively around the people—and around the prophet—calling us forward. Calling us to seek Him. Calling us to respond to Him. Calling us participate in the work of the Church. Calling us to be faithful to the Covenant that God begins yet again.
Move 2- taken by the hand
But in the face of this call, the people let go…
This conclusion cannot be forgotten. It is vitally important as we think about the New Covenant that Jeremiah presents, and that you remember so clearly, In the face of this familiar passage to these exiles, and to us, the people, let go.
Jeremiah 31 contains some of the most memorable wording in all of the prophets. The New Covenant being spoken about; being offered. Such beautiful language. You probably said the words in your heart as I read them out loud in worship today.
Jeremiah 30-31 begins the section of Jeremiah’s message that is considered to be the Book of Consolation. For here God is consoling His people when they think that all is lost and that God is no longer actively-present and that God does not care for them any longer. God is consoling them when they need the Lord the most.
They are a long way from home. They cannot worship as they like—or where they would like. Their freedom is stripped away regardless of how they define that freedom. Their leaders have been taken from them.
God knows this and so the Lord offers them a word, a reminder, that He has not forgotten or forsaken them. God offers them a reminder that He is still as active as He has ever been.
This comes in the form of the reminder of their past. God reminds the exiled Israelites that previously the Lord has taken them by the hand and lead them from Egypt into the Promised Land. God reminds them that their cries, their prayers and petitions, were heard. And in that statement, all of the memories of travelling through Egypt, across the Red Sea, through the Sinai Desert, and into the Promised Land rush into them… but so does more memories of an active God.
But then a transition happens.
God reminds the people that He established The Covenant with them, and then, the power of the statement hits. The Lord says that this is a covenant that they broke. God did not break it. God could not break it. They broke it.
This is the moment where I am struck in the text.
For if God is holding these beloved people by the hand—which I take to be both a loving and yet firm embrace. How is it that the covenant is shattered? What has caused this break to happen?
We do not know. The audience is left to figure this out for themselves. And each of you will have a different response and image that comes to mind about how that covenant was broken. The people hearing Jeremiah say that they covenant was broken are also left to wonder how each of us break away from God’s hand ourselves in our daily lives. But it is a striking image to consider.
How do a people, chosen by God. . .marked by God. . . cared for by God. . . willingly let go of God’s hand and break off the relationship?
Because it is not just the people back then, the Israelites in Jeremiah’s day that do this, but by extension as we find and consider this message, the implication is that we do it as well. And again, there is great passion and power in this moment of Jeremiah 31.
To Break is not only a Jeremiah-based word but it happens through the entire cannon of Bible. It is word with a rich application and that richness helps us to apply it personally as well.
This verb, to break, occurs over 50 times in the Old Testament. It is in the Torah, it is the Writings, and it is in the Prophets.
So, this is not an isolated theme or concept that God, through Jeremiah’s voice presents to those Israelites from a time long ago. It is a message to the Church today. How, or why, do we break away from the One who takes us by the hand, provides for us, protects us, and calls us to be different? Why do we leave behind the active God who calls us to be different?
For regardless of the context, scripture is clear. The church does this.
Move 3- letting go
And knowing this, seeing this, God again acts. I believe it is in God’s very nature to act. To reconcile the Divine nature to the human nature. Rather than just taking us up again by the hand like an irritated parent might do to a child. And rather than just dusting us off and getting us moving again back on the road of life, God decides more drastic steps are needed to help us heal and be restored.
For God will not let us go.
If God tried the first time simply to hold our hand and move forward with us, this new steps in the form of New Covenant, is more involved. God will write His very message upon us in a place that it cannot be forsaken or forgotten. It will be imprinted upon us in a profound way. Try as we might the message will stick upon us. Sinful choices and moments will not erase it from us. The call sticks in us and for us.
And we, like the children of Israel, we will be different. We will be saved for in the New Covenant God will not let us go.
Conclusion
This is truly the message of hope and gospel that the people around us need. For we find countless moments every day—and this is not hyperbole—where that is what is needed the most.
There are more moments each day where hope can be forgotten. Moments where the people that you meet need a reminder that tried to simply hold their hand, and when that was not enough, God wrote the very message of the Word upon us for God is active and present, and God will not let us go.
And we call that revelation: the New Covenant.
I hope today that you will seek out someone who needs to hear and learn of that new covenant and I hope that you will share it for everyone, from the deepest of faith outward, needs to be reminded about it right now.
DM
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