Julie Merritt, Pastoral Resident
Let me tell you where I’m stuck. I’m at White Rock Lake, laptop in front of me, and I’m staring at the screen that’s staring back at me—empty. I try to think of some profound introduction to a sermon that I’m to preach today, and all I feel are sweaty palms and an elevated heart rate. The words won’t come. “It has to be perfect,” I say to myself. Though I don’t actually say those words, they’re just always there. “I have to follow the steps of some amazing pastoral residents that came before me.” No pressure. The screen is still staring at me. “Excellence, excellence, excellence—there’s no other option.”
And if I think writing sermons gets me stuck, you should see me in relationships. As a perfectionist, I believe I have to be good enough for people or God to love me. So what do I do? I protect myself from getting too close to people, because if I get too close, then they’ll see that I have flaws—big flaws. Isn’t that what we are all afraid of, that if people really knew us, really found us out—they’d see that we’re just big fakes? So I live in fear and anxiety, afraid to get too close and yet longing for intimacy that always seems beyond reach.
I’m getting tired of being stuck. I’m weary of these cycles but am afraid that change is too good to be true. After all, these cycles have become thought patterns—habits stuck like dry river beds. No new river beds can ever be forged, it seems, because the water that rushes down lands first in those deeply entrenched places. I know that God can break in and bring a new story. But something has to happen for that new story to take root—there must be an excavation of the old. A tearing down, a destroying.
Let’s look at the Israelites in the time of Jeremiah. They were stuck, too. Their story had gotten into such a rut—the patterns of idolatry, blaming, and forgetfulness. They were about to experience a breaking down—a destruction of everything they held dear—what they thought would be their salvation. They were still holding on to a God that was located in the Temple, in Jerusalem, and their whole world was about to be rocked as Jeremiah hits the scene speaking judgment and doom to Jerusalem.
At this point in their story, Jerusalem has just been destroyed and people are being carted off by the hundreds to exile. Every symbol of their identity as God’s people was destroyed—their priests, their feasts, their land, their temple.
Imagine the turmoil and torment of these people. No longer did they see any sign of being God’s people—all they knew was that they were beyond stuck. They didn’t even have anything to be stuck to. Everything was being torn down around them, and though they probably believed this was their darkest hour ever, God was about to bring about something new. Look at what Jeremiah says in the text for today: “And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant.”
But before God could build and plant, he had to tear down. Jeremiah had prophesied this from the beginning. God knew that the walls that had been stuck in their lives for so long had to be torn down. God had decided long before the people knew it that a new covenant was necessary, a new story needed to be created.
For Jeremiah says, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says 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.”
See, God had made a covenant with his people at Mt. Sinai after bringing them from slavery and bondage in Egypt. At Sinai, God gave his people the law, the Ten Commandments, on tablets of stone. This was a covenant that had conditions. Both parties had to do their part to fulfill the covenant. If the people would obey the laws of Yahweh, they would experience God’s hand of blessing and true fulfillment. If they disobeyed, they would experience judgment—and sure enough, the nation of Israel was now suffering judgment, as nations all around them invaded and forced them into exile.
So what does God do? Does he let the people stay stuck? Does he let the pattern just stay the same—letting the relationship be broken time and time again—distancing the people further and further away? NO!
God breaks in and says, “I’m making a new covenant.” This is the only time in the Old Testament that this language of “new covenant” is used. God has chosen to renew the community again—to restore His people with a covenant that can’t be broken. Hear that again, a covenant that can’t be broken—one that is written on their heart.
But in reality this new covenant isn’t really that new. God had always been in the business of changing hearts in the past and today. Remember, Saul turned into Paul, changed from Christian killer to Christian martyr; and Zacchaeus, changed from the vertically challenged tax collector to the horizontally gifted alms giver? What about you? Can you remember a time when you began to manage anger better, feel less lonely, obsess less about your body, or forgive in a new way? 1 Samuel speaks this promise to future King Saul and to us today: “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy and be changed into a different person.” Change is possible.
See, the new covenant that God is making with his people is still about transformation. Like the old covenant, it is still God’s initiative and sovereign grace that reach to restore relationship with humankind. Like the old covenant, there is still a dynamic relationship between God and humanity—what God does affects humanity, and what humanity does affects God. Like the old covenant, the promise, “I will be their God, and they will be my people” will be fulfilled. The covenant itself hasn’t changed, but how the covenant will be fulfilled has. The covenant can now be seen as a promise. Former covenants were made but not promised. But “the days are coming” when now God promises to fulfill this covenant because he writes it in our hearts.
What does “written on their heart mean?” It means that the covenant is no longer external—written down on tablets of stone. It means that God’s presence is not to be viewed as located out there, in the Temple, but in here. That’s where we get the language that Christ dwells in our hearts. Because God’s presence resides within us and within the people of Israel.
This is a powerful movement to say that God is choosing to seal His Spirit within them, abiding within them to affect the heart toward obedience so they can keep the covenant. God is transforming them from the inside out. For now it is God who works in them—in us—to will and to act according to his good purpose: his promised covenant.
Don’t get me wrong—the relationship requirement is still the same. It’s still demanding. But God doesn’t demand what He can’t provide.
God says this another way through the prophet Ezekiel “I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.” It is interesting that though the Israelites and we are still the same people, still made of flesh, still prone to make mistakes, God knowingly takes the initiative to create a new covenant, changing the heart of stone to a heart of flesh that beats with new sensitivity—feeling pains, feeling joys, ultimately transformed by the Spirit of God within them.
So God is giving us a new heart, a new song, new hope for change that will break us out of our patterns. Literally the word covenant means testament. God is giving us a new testament, a new story. And when they used the language in Hebrew to make a covenant, the word “to make” literally meant “to cut.” God is cutting through—breaking in, leveling down—destroying the old, only to build and to plant anew. Yes, writing a new narrative requires changing the old tapes. And I don’t just mean pulling out the old tapes and gingerly putting in the new ones. I mean taking the old tapes out—and you know where the two holes, the two slits on the bottom are—yeah, you pull out the tape and string it all out until it is destroyed.
And guess what the best news of all is. It doesn’t rely on our perfection to change these tapes—to keep the covenant. In fact God says you can’t keep it; that’s why I’m in you—helping you. This is a gift, and forgiveness is attached unconditionally. For he says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” This is good news.
So when we feel our old patterns surface, remember that God has placed a new covenant within us, written on our hearts. But the ground has to be leveled, tilled, broken down before God can build and plant, or there will still be remnants of the old story trying to creep in and take over. So as for me, the perfectionist, God surveys the ground of my heart, and if he detects a little junk pile of “You’re not good enough,” or a little soil deposit of “You’re not lovable,” or an overgrown hedge of “You’re not smart enough; you’ve failed before,” he’s going to level it to the ground.
Ultimately, his leveling process, his covenant-keeper is fulfilled in Christ. He is the embodiment of the new covenant. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the divine act of salvation and seals the covenant. This is the word that Christ tells the disciples the night before he is handed over to be crucified. When he offers the cup to his friends, he says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” He points to a new story—that through him true change can occur. Having him written in our hearts, abiding in our lives, transforms our old patterns—renews us, redeems us, writing a new story from the inside out.
How do we take hold of this new covenant? What’s my hope for change or your hope for change? How do any of us know Christ and the freedom he gives? Guess what? It’s already been given. Jeremiah says, “No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD, for they shall all know me.’” God has given us clues, pointers to what will truly satisfy. It is Christ. But some of you see Christ like you see a glass of water. You look at it and say it looks refreshing—it can truly satisfy; it will quench my thirst. But until you take the water and drink it down, you will not experience freedom from the inside out. Newness, change, the promise of the covenant will still be on the outside, still external, still on tablets of stone that can be broken. You’ll still experience those same patterns that keep you stuck, and you’ll wonder why things never change. Sometimes it’s as easy as crying out, “Lord, help me.”
Let Christ in, let him pummel you to the ground—let him pluck up, break down so he can build up and plant in. Let him affect your heart from the inside out. This is a divine gift, and it’s a covenant that he’s not willing to break. It’s new. Change is possible. Old patterns can be broken. You’ve heard almost my whole sermon, so you know the words finally came, and with ease. And as for relationships, I have made a breakthrough; I guard myself less and trust more.
He will write it on your heart, and He will be your God, and you will be his people. Forever. Even when you make mistakes. He will be your God, and you will be his people. Even when you forget, he will be your God, and you will be his people. In fact, it is when you are broken that you have created space so he can restore you from the inside out. For His covenant is true: “He will be your God, and you will be his people.” Amen.
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