Faith Looks Forward

Jeremiah 31.31-34

Unlike the song that my generation knows so well, Jeremiah was no bullfrog. He was more like a horned toad. Jeremiah was a bit of a troublemaker. Jeremiah’s relationship with his fellow Israelites is probably best described as a wee bit volatile. From Jeremiah’s lips came some of the most severe language ever directed at Israel — words of anger that made the people drive Jeremiah away, hard words that made the king toss Jeremiah in jail.

Jeremiah held nothing back. Israel had broken faith with the covenant made at Mt. Sinai, and such actions have consequences. God’s response would be severe; exile would be Israel’s price for its sinfulness.

But Jeremiah also loved Israel; the way a parent loves a rebellious child. Yes, Jeremiah spoke words of anger, but there were other words spoken by Jeremiah, words that must have made Israel’s heart sing and its hopes soar.

It’s been said that you can’t drive forward if you’re looking in the rearview mirror. That’s what Jeremiah is telling the Israelites in this passage of scripture: Faith looks forward.

The people of God are told, time and time again, to remember what God has done for them in the past — and we certainly should remember. But faith looks forward. Just as a safe driver looks in the rearview mirror from time to time, we need to remember the past. However, we don’t need to dwell on the past too much.

Jeremiah tells the Israelites, “The days are surely coming.” Jeremiah helps his people look forward to a time when their conditions would improve. Jeremiah promises a new covenant, a covenant that would face the people forward and help them to live life as it came toward them.

Scholars have pointed out that the life of Jeremiah bears a striking resemblance to the life of Jesus. Both Jeremiah and Jesus spent long hours in solitude; both drew strength from prayer. Each of them struggled with hostility in their hometowns; both spoke out against the religious leaders of their day. Both Jeremiah and Jesus wept over what they saw coming for Israel as the result of sin; and they each warned the people against placing too much confidence in the temple.

Jeremiah anticipated the Gospel – the Good News – in his teachings about the new covenant. Jesus, in the upper room, was clearly referring to Jeremiah’s prophecy when he told the disciples to “drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant.” The writer of the book of Hebrews quotes this very passage from Jeremiah in its entirety as the central argument that in Jesus all things have become new. Jeremiah was granted a vision unlike any other outside the New Testament – a vision of the perfect relationship between God and humankind.

Jeremiah teaches Israel that there is a faith that will carry them, as opposed to a religion that they will have to carry. Jeremiah’s words illustrate for the Israelites – and for us, today – the difference between law and grace, between works and faith. And, more importantly, Jeremiah is pointing to a faith that is personal. “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord.”

The day is surely coming when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be the God of every person, personally known and personally experienced. No longer will the people have to ask the priests to do their praying for them, as they have from the days of Moses and the law. God is going to set aside the old covenant. In its place God will give a new covenant, a covenant whose foundations will not be based on written laws and regulations. The Lord’s Spirit will be put directly into the hearts of people. The new covenant will be based on God’s nearness, on God’s love.

God’s love. Love is the most powerful thing in the universe. Love affects us in positive ways, while the lack of love affects us in negative ways. 1st John 4.16 says, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” God loves us, and God chooses to be near to those who accept God’s love. The new covenant is based on the love of God. The new covenant helps us to have faith that looks forward, because the love of God abides in us.

The new covenant described by Jeremiah is inviting and natural. People don’t have to work hard to know God; instead, they know God naturally, internally. Now, that doesn’t mean that disciplined study of the Bible and other religious matters is useless. It simply means that God wants to be known by people everywhere, regardless of their background or education. The knowledge of God has been given to everyone. In our Wesleyan tradition we call this “prevenient grace,” God’s grace working within us before we are even aware of God’s presence.

As we develop faith, and give ourselves to God through Christ Jesus, our knowledge of God grows inside of us, and we feel the desire to study and learn more and more about God. Knowing God through faith grounds us and strengthens us. In times of trouble we already have a relationship with God that we can rely on.

One of Aesop’s fables goes like this: A wild boar was busily sharpening his tusks against a tree when a fox came by. “Why are you wasting your time in this manner?” asked the fox. “Neither a hunter nor a hound is in sight, and no danger is at hand.” “True enough,” replied the boar. “But when danger does arise, I’ll have better things to do than to sharpen my weapons.”

When danger arises, when trouble strikes, that’s not the time to develop a relationship with God. The new covenant helps us to have a faith that looks forward, because we already have a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ.

Verse 34 is one of the most comforting sentences in all of scripture: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” Gaining God’s forgiveness isn’t a matter of following a bunch of nitpicky rules or cumbersome laws. It’s a matter of knowing and trusting God – a matter of faith.

And by the way, forgiveness is something that is absolutely necessary. Unless our sins are forgiven, we cannot be in our proper relationship with God. Under the old covenant, a sacrifice had to be made in order for forgiveness to be granted. But under the new covenant, the sacrifice is made for us. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world. Let me repeat that: for the sins of the whole world. Not just the sins of his disciples; everybody’s sins.

The new covenant helps us to have a faith that looks forward, because the sacrifice has already been made. The offer of forgiveness is already on the table. All that is required of us is to accept the gift from God – the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Accept Christ into your heart, and God will be your God, and you will be a part of God’s people.

Jeremiah said, “The days are surely coming.” Jesus told the woman at the well, “The hour is coming, and is now here.” The new covenant that Jeremiah spoke about has arrived. God has made the new covenant, in the form of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ. No longer do we need to look back, at the old covenant. The new covenant gives us faith that looks forward. The new covenant gives us a God who is personally known and personally experienced. Why is this so important?

There’s a story about a survey that was done. Three people – a college professor who is a confirmed bachelor, a 9 year old boy, and a teenager who has just kissed his girlfriend for the very first time – these three people are asked if they believe in romantic love.

The college professor says, “Yes, I believe in romantic love. It is a phenomenon between two persons that leads to the propagation of the species.” This is evidence by way of scientific observation. We might compare this professor to the Pharisees, who knew the scriptures inside out.

The 9 year old boy says, “Yes, I believe in romantic love, because my sister is in love, and she acts all funny and weird.” This is evidence by way of relational observance. We could compare this boy to the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracles and heard Jesus speak.

The teenager who has just kissed his girlfriend says, “Do I believe in romantic love? Oh, boy, you bet I do!” This is evidence by way of experience – like the disciples on the day of Pentecost; Paul on the road to Damascus, John Wesley at the chapel on Aldersgate Street. The professor knew the chemical reactions of love; the 9 year old boy knew what love did to other people; but neither of them really knew love, because they had never felt it.

Faith looks forward. Jeremiah looked forward and saw a relationship with God that could be experienced, be felt. Jesus came to earth – God in the flesh, the God with skin on – so that we might experience, feel, first-hand the depths of God’s love for us.

Faith looks forward. Jeremiah looked forward and saw a time when all God’s children would look to the future with hope. Jesus told us that he would return for us, that he would be with us always, and that if we would only believe in him we would be able to live with him for all eternity.

Faith looks forward. Jeremiah looked forward, and saw hope. Jesus gives us that hope. Jeremiah looked forward, and saw a new covenant. Jesus came to earth, and delivered it.

What In the World Are We Griping About?

Numbers 21.4-9

Has this ever happened to you: You slave away in the kitchen, working hard to provide a meal for your family. And not just any meal, a special meal, the likes of which your children have never had and which they will never forget. You spare no expense, you use only the best brand-name ingredients. You put out the finest tableware you own. And the whole time you’re cooking, the kids take turns running into the kitchen and asking, “Is supper ready yet? We’re starved!”

Finally, dinner is served. The whole family gathers around the table and piles food onto their plates. You sit there, beaming, knowing that this is the best meal you’ve ever prepared. The children take their first bites, and immediately spit the food back onto their plates. “Blech! I don’t like this stuff!”

You know what I’m talking about! After all that hard work, all the effort, all the attention to detail — all they can say is that they don’t like it.

That’s kinda what I think of when I read about the Israelites’ reaction toward God and Moses when they found themselves on the Exodus journey through the wilderness. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”

What I find really interesting about this particular episode is that it’s actually rather trivial. At other times when the Israelites complained about a lack of food or water, they had legitimate complaints. But this time there is no indication that their complaints are valid.

Before, when they’ve complained about having no water, God has shown Moses where and how to find water. But not this time. The implication is that the Israelites actually had water, they just didn’t have as much as they would have liked. Maybe they had enough to drink, but not enough to bathe. Whatever the case, nowhere in the following scriptures are we told that God led the Israelites to water, yet obviously they lived, so apparently they weren’t doing without.

And as for food, the Israelites themselves defeat their own argument. They say, “There is no food,” and then in the next breath, “And we detest this miserable food!” There was food all right, it’s just that they were tired of eating the same old thing.

In fact, that pretty much sums up the whole problem in a nutshell: the Israelites were just plain tired. They were tired of eating manna. They were tired of having to ration their water. They were tired of wandering through the wilderness.

I mean, think about it: the Israelites have been wandering through the wilderness for almost 40 years at this point. Many of them had been born on the road, so to speak — people in their teens, 20s, and even 30s who had never laid eyes on Egypt, never been slaves in Egypt. These Israelites didn’t really know just how bad it had been, back in Egypt.

All they knew was that they were tired, of everything. There’s an old Monty Python line: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” That’s about how the Israelites felt. They were down in the dumps, and so they grumbled and complained. Instead of looking up to God, they were looking down at what was going on around them. And what they saw upset them.

The journey of the Exodus parallels our own journey of faith. Who among us has not complained to God, and about God, when the going got too rough? What church family has not gotten caught up in the game of impatience, and complained because the church isn’t progressing they way they think it should?

The journey of faith is at times a painful and demanding pilgrimage. Do you remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? The hare was fast, and he knew it. He was always bragging about how fast he was, about how he could beat any other animal in the forest in a race. One day the tortoise got tired of hearing the hare’s boasts, and challenged the hare to a race.

The hare just laughed. This would be easy! In due time a race course was mapped out, and the tortoise and the hare took their places at the starting line. On the word “go,” the hare took off, and immediately opened up a huge lead on the tortoise. In fact, the hare got so far ahead that he decided to stop and take a little nap before he finished the race.

You know the story: while the hare was snoozing, the slow but steady tortoise plodded on by, and was almost at the finish line when the hare awoke. The hare made a furious dash, but too late; the tortoise won the race.

It seems to me that in the journey of faith, we humans are the hare, and God is the tortoise. We live in a fast-food society; we want everything NOW! Instant food, instant messaging, instant gratification. We want to race through life as quickly as possible, whereas God’s pace is more like that of a tortoise.

As a result we get bogged down, and rather than respond with gratitude for God’s guidance and blessings, we moan because nothing seems to be happening. We get bored much too easily.

If things aren’t always happening that are exciting, if things are not continually whetting our appetite for fun and excitement, we complain. “Why can’t we be like the church down the street? I’m getting tired of eating this spiritual food; let’s have something exciting! Now, do something about it, God!”

When they were younger Holly or Casey would come to Melissa and me and announce, “I’m bored.” When that happened, all I could think of was all the games and the gadgets that cluttered their bedrooms: the TV, the computer, the DVD players, the Nintendos, in Holly’s room the books, in Casey’s room the make-up. How can they ever get bored?

But what I would tell them was this: It’s not our job to entertain you. Our job, as parents, is to provide you with food, clothing, shelter, education, and love. But it’s not our duty to keep you from being bored.

And I think that’s the way God responds to us. God looks at all the things God has given to us, and God shakes his head. God has given us food, clothing, shelter, reason, and love, but instead of being grateful, we want God to entertain us, as well.

And God says to himself, “For by grace you have been saved, through faith … it is the gift of God … For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” God hears us complaining, and God wonders, “What in the world are they griping about?”

In this particular passage of scripture, God heard us complaining, and in response God sent poisonous snakes among the people, “and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.”

Now, I admit, I have a problem with this. I find it difficult to reconcile the loving God who sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, “but in order that the world might be saved through him,” with a vindictive God who would send poisonous snakes to punish people who had lost their faith.

Is this simply a parable, a story told to make a point? Or did it really happen this way? I honestly don’t know, but I have to come down on the side of faith. I believe that if God did indeed send the snakes among the people, God had a good reason for doing so, even if I cannot see that reason.

I have noticed, over the years, that God doesn’t ask my advice on what God should or should not do. Believe me, if God did, we’d all be in a lot of trouble! Oh, and by the way, God doesn’t ask your advice, either, so there. Anyway, to me whether this is a parable or an actual occurrence is irrelevant. What matters is that we understand the point of this passage of scripture.

And the point is this: the snakes were killing the Israelites, and when the Israelites repented of their sin — “The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned” — then God provided a means of salvation.

It’s no accident that Jesus compares himself to this bronze serpent. John 3.14-15, Jesus says, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

When one of the Israelites was bitten, that person had to look at the bronze serpent in order to live. And not just a quick glance, they had to gaze upon it. Instead of rushing around in a panic, the persons who had been bitten had to stop where they were, and turn and look at that bronze serpent.

In other words, they had to have faith. Faith in God’s promise, that looking at the bronze serpent would heal them. The Israelites had a choice: they could focus on the bronze serpent, and choose life; or they could ignore God’s promise, and thus choose death.

It’s the same for us, today. When we’re looking down at the world, at all the things that are going wrong, we need to stop right where we are, and turn, and look up to Jesus. I was eating breakfast one morning not too long ago, and I was talking to a man — not a member of this church — whom I talk with on occasion. This man was lamenting all the things that are wrong with this world, all the bad things that people do to one another. When I suggested that the majority of people are good and decent, he refused to believe it.

I felt sorry for this man, because his focus was on the bad, rather than on the good. We need to keep our focus on Jesus. We need to have faith in God’s promise, the promise that we have indeed been saved by the gift of God’s grace, through our faith in Christ Jesus. The promise that if we believe in God’s Son, then we will have the gift of eternal life.

We are not being bitten by poisonous snakes, but we are still dying in our sin. We need to repent of our sin, and turn our faces toward God. We need to keep our focus on God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace.

Whenever we are tempted to look down, to look around and see all that is wrong with our world, our church, our lives — whenever we find ourselves looking down at the bad, we need to remember that we are called to look up.

We are called to focus on God, on God’s rescuing and redeeming love. This will make all the difference in the world in whether we choose death, or life. God asks us — God asks you — to choose life.