Readings: Jeremiah 7:1-11 | Romans 9:30-10:4 | Luke 19:41-48
Text: Jeremiah 7:1-11
Law in the Text
The people were being duplicitous. It wasn’t their first time, either. Jeremiah was preaching to the Israelites about 150 years after the events of Elijah:
21And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.” Afterward, “37Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” (1 Kings 18:21, 37-39)
Had they listened any better than times past? Wasn’t it just another case of generational amnesia?
Jeremiah to this generation, calls:
“8Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?” (Jer. 7:8-10)
Who was it who responds to this word of rebuke?
Faith was given a choice: Those who were reiterating the promise that “This is the temple of the Lord!” and the word Jeremiah was sent, “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.” (Jer. 7:3-4) Outwardly, they both appeared the same. They had the merits of bearing the name of the Lord, they came from men who appeared prophet-like, and they were quite confident in their declaration.
Yet, for all their vehemence and appeal, what they spoke was presumptuous; it was not the Lord’s Word. Even if it were, that was not the fitting word for that moment. The people were entertaining idolatry and it was not the time for assurance. It was time for them to acknowledge their fault and repent.
It is those who hear this call to amend their ways and conform to the Word of God, who Jeremiah will later say have a “hope and a future” (29:11)
Gospel in the Text
Thus, the prophet Jeremiah is given this Word to those who repent and long for God’s Kingdom:
31“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares 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. 34And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:31-34)
Law for Us
We are products of our time, and more influenced by such factors than we’d readily admit
We have believed the voices that said the chief aim of life is being happy and healthy; that you can adopt a smattering of beliefs as sounds good to you (mysticism, reiki, zen meditation); that love means letting people do whatever comes to their mind.
The Church, instead of being a place where the truth of God is proclaimed, has become a self-improvement community, giving motivational lectures, providing childcare, and encouraging book studies over Bible studies. Her members leave teaching the Word of God to whatever time is left after jobs and school and recreation, not realizing how recognizing the impoverishment of their souls and the souls of their children.
No wonder the Lord gives the warning to us, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Matthew 5:13) As we stand baffled at why Christians are thought so little of today, we also have the shamelessness to come before this altar and say we have not sinned. Jesus weeps over such a church, because she plays the harlot and then expects the Lord to just excuse her.
This is the kind of duplicity which the Lord cannot tolerate in any generation, and His Word must prevail. There is no such thing as a people of God who are “good enough” or “at least better than some.” He Himself says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5).
Gospel for Us
Who is it who hears and takes to heart to this exposing of our wicked thoughts and deeds? It is they who are fit to receive His healing. The Lord on Mount Sinai continued: “but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:6) We who acknowledge the truth and holiness of God’s commands, also confess with tears that we have not kept them an deserve the wrath of God, are those who are fit to receive the Lord’s steadfast love:
“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... For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:33-34)
Even as He wept over the blindness of the people who ought to have known Him, Jesus had come to Jerusalem as the Atoning Sacrifice for the sins of the people. He was there to establish the new covenant in His blood. He was there to be their sin offering and yours.
The sin offering of the cross is more than a “get out of jail free” card. Jesus is also at work within to write His Word upon our hearts. We are undergoing a transformation on a daily basis, as we confess our iniquity and are sorry for our sin.
As those who have died with Christ and been raised with Him, we now recognize the emptiness and falsehoods of the age we live in. Our aim is not to pursue what makes us feel good, but what pleases our God and what would truly benefit our neighbor.
Far from a dwelling for hypocrisy and robbery, we want the Church to be what the Lord desires: a place for true healing of the soul and body, a place where we and our children draw water from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12), and together with renewed minds we look out for the good of one another and so fulfill the Law of Christ (Galatians 6:1-2).
The conditional promise that the Lord gave His people of old: “then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever” is eclipsed by the far greater gift that comes from the new testament in Jesus’ blood: “that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
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