Pastor Tom Johnson, March 25, 2012
Corporations have both been accused of misusing the vast amount of information about us—what we buy, what we eat, where we live, where we shop, where we travel, who our friends are, what our hobbies are, etc. etc. I often wondered how computers could so accurately map out traffic patterns during rush hour. I suggested to my wife that they were tracking peoples’ cell phones. I later found out that is most certainly a part of how they do it. In our church in El Paso, we had an FBI agent who offered some comforting words to me. He said, “We don’t have files on everybody like a lot of people think.” He brought it up, not me. I wonder what he was really trying to say to me.
Now imagine God’s filing system—the rows and rows of file cabinets containing the vast amount of human information. Imagine the hard drive on his computer—the limitless data he has on every detail of our lives. Jesus says God knows the number of hairs on our heads, the number of our days, the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, the words even before they leave our mouths. He knows the entire history of our sin. He knows the strength and weakness of our faith. All this information is at his anthropomorphic fingertips.
The most important part of God’s library is his Word—the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. In our reading from Jeremiah his Word is called “the covenant” or “the law.” This Word tells us that God created us and instructs
us on how we ought to live. This covenant was broken when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Years later, God sets apart the people of Israel. The words of the covenant (or the law) are what we call the Ten Commandments. Moses went up into Mt. Sinai. And God writes these words on tablets of stone: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This God, who already has saved them and emancipated them, outlines how they are to love him back and love their neighbor.
And the Israelites break this covenant with God. They fail time and time again. God forgives them. He restores them. He brings them back into the land he promised. God raises up prophets to remind them of those words written in stone long ago. They remember the tablets of stone that are kept safely in the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies in the Temple—these sacred words stored away in the most inaccessible place in the world—where only the high priest, once a year could enter. But one of these prophets says this cycle will end soon. It’s in our Old Testament reading that the prophet Jeremiah says the old way of doing things is almost over; a new way will soon begin. God is going to completely rearrange his library system.
Instead of writing on tablets of stone or on scrolls—instead of publishing his material that needs to into the eye or into the ear before it transforms our lives—God will write his Word directly on our hearts. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord.” In Jesus Christ, those days have surely come. God uses the quill of the Holy Spirit and dips it—not into ink—but into the blood of Jesus and the water of Baptism. He writes the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit on our foreheads and continues his loving scrawl onto our hearts.
And this is what he writes: “I am your God. You are my daughter. You are my son. I am yours. You are mine. You don’t need a prophet or preacher. For I myself, by the Holy Spirit, will be your Helper, Counselor, and Friend. You will know my presence and my peace. You will experience my grace. Those who are least will be built up and encouraged. Those who are great will be humbled but assured. I will publish my good news on your hearts—the archives of my Word will be the hearts of my people. As for your iniquity, sin, failures, and brokeness—I will keep no record. All those files go to the shredder. Because death of my Son on the cross, I will select those shameful and regretful files and permanently hit ‘delete.’ I will choose not to remember. I will not recall. I will not remind you of your shortcomings. I will assure you of my grace and impress it into the very core of who you are as human beings. In Christ, I have cleared the record of wrongs and now you are my published letters of hope, good news, and love to the world."
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