Dying to Forget

The fifth sunday in lent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹ “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
³² It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. ³³ “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴ No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (NIV)

The number of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease may be as many as 5 million.  Many more are expected to suffer from it in the next several decades.  Even though it cannot be officially diagnosed until after death with an autopsy, there are many conditions and symptoms that are so commonly associated with the disease that they allow doctors to quite accurately diagnose a person with it.  These symptoms most often involve a loss of cognitive functioning in the brain, leading to decreased abilities in the area of thinking, remembering, and reasoning.  While no symptoms of Alzheimer’s are desirable, it might be assumed that the greatest fear people often associate with the disease is the loss of memory and recognition.  We’ve all heard tear-jerking stories about loved ones who have gotten to the point of being unable to recognize family members or friends.  It’s frightening for us to consider the prospect of having to live in an isolated world in which we have no recollection of cherished childhood memories or significant events in life; one in which we cannot remember what happened in the last thirty years, let alone the last thirty minutes.  What a terrifying thing to forget everything.  Most of us would do just about anything we could if it meant avoiding a life of chronic forgetfulness, a life of not being able to remember.

But God took measures to do exactly the opposite.  He wanted to forget.  He didn’t want to remember.  Why?  Because more tragic than the onset of any disease is the reality of sin in every human being’s life, and God simply couldn’t stand an eternity of such sin on his mind and filling his every memory.  So he was willing to do whatever it took to ensure an eternity of amnesia when it comes to sin.  He revealed through the prophet Jeremiah the very steps he would take to erase iniquity from his memory, or, as Jeremiah wrote, to “remember their sins no more” (v.34).

Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry was not an easy one.  In fact, he is often referred to as “the weeping prophet,” and perhaps that characterization is best described early on in his book, in the first verse of the ninth chapter: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.”  Decade after decade Jeremiah faithfully preached the word of the Lord to his people, warning against backsliding and impenitence, and promising judgment and defeat at the hands of enemies.  With the exception of King Josiah early on, all the kings that followed loathed Jeremiah and his consistently depressing message.  He was persecuted by his own people for it.  Nevertheless, Jeremiah had such a heart for his fellow people that it crushed him to see them fail to heed the Lord’s warnings.  It tore him up inside to see his fellow countrymen destroy themselves by their sinful straying and refusal to take his preaching to heart.  It wasn’t unlike the family member of a person who suffers from alcohol addiction having to watch it slowly destroy a loved one’s life.  No matter how many warnings the family member gives – and all of them out of sheer love – he or she is helpless to force the alcoholic to get help.  So Jeremiah was helpless in forcing his people to repent and get the help they needed from the Lord.

So what does the Lord do?  Does he write off his people in their stubbornness?  Does he completely wipe them out and erase them from the pages of history?  No, that wouldn’t be the God we’ve come to know from Scripture, would it?  Such courses of action wouldn’t be becoming for Yahweh, the God of free and faithful love.  No, instead of completely cutting ties with his people, the Lord unveils a new plan, a new covenant, though really no different from what he had established all along back in Eden.  However, it was different from the old covenant he had established with Israel after delivering them from Egypt.  “‘The time is coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’” (v.31).

Now normally most people don’t do well with change.  We don’t always like different or new stuff, because it’s not what we’re familiar with or used to and it can be unsettling.  Change for the sake of change is often times unwelcome change.  But it’s different when something hasn’t been working, or never worked in the first place.  When the car we’ve had for as long as we can remember stops running, as much as we’ll miss it, it’s time for a change; time to get a car that runs.  If we open the box we just brought home from the store and the newly-purchased item doesn’t work at all, it’s time for a change.

The covenant the Lord established with his people was broken from its inception, not because there was anything wrong with the covenant itself, but rather because there was something wrong with the people with whom the covenant was established.  Remember the covenant promise God had established with his people at Mr. Sinai? 

Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’  These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together, “We will do everything the LORD has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD (Exodus 19:3-8).

The covenant failed to work because the covenant involved an obligation from Israel’s end.  They were to keep the laws God would lay out for them, and as long as they did so, they would remain treasured in God’s sight.  But God through the prophet Jeremiah was reminding his people that they hadn’t kept their side of the covenant.  Speaking of the new covenant in light of the old, God said, “‘It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD” (v.32).  So the Lord desired to establish a new covenant, because his people had broken the old one.  It was time for a change.

The people of Israel weren’t the only ones who needed a change in that established covenant; so do we.  Our daily lives serve as all the evidence necessary that we do not fare any better.  In fact, if one wishes to major in minors, it’s easier to understand how difficult it would be fore the Israelites to keep the covenant, since in addition to the Ten Commandments, they had hundreds of rules for how they were to carry out even the smallest details of daily life at home, in the community, and in worship.  What do we have?  We have Ten Commandments, and we can’t even keep those.  We fail to show perfect love to God in breaking the first three Commandments; we fail to show perfect love to others by breaking the rest.  That, dear friends, would be enough to disqualify us from the old covenant.

So God established a new one. Unlike the old covenant, the new one would be one-sided – all God’s doing.  Unlike the old, law-based covenant, the new one is grace-based.  The old was conditional; the new, unconditional.  The old covenant was for the Israelites; the new covenant is for all people.  Moses relayed the terms of the old covenant; Jesus put into effect the new covenant.  The old covenant had to be passed down to each generation by meticulously teaching every detail of every custom, practice, and ceremony; the new covenant is passed down by telling each generation about Jesus. 

Only through Jesus could God pronounce the blessed closing words from Jeremiah this morning, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (v.34).  Yet that promise could only be put into effect on one condition.  Something had to happen in order for God to forgive wickedness and remember sins no more.  Both of our other two Lessons this morning pointed it out: as our perfect high priest, Jesus had to offer himself as the ultimate one-time sacrifice and die for our sins.  In order for the old covenant to be replaced with the new, Jesus kept our side of the covenant for us.  His was the perfect obedience God demanded at Mt. Sinai.  So in Jesus the old covenant has been fully replaced with the new covenant, a covenant which allows God the Father to do what he has always wanted to do with regard to our sins: forget them.

One can’t help but notice how different God’s forgiveness is from man’s.  When we speak of forgiveness, it is so often conditional or temporary.  We forgive “if such and such happens,” or we forgive “until it serves our purpose to resurrect somebody’s past offense against us in a future argument.”  We’ve all heard it, and have probably also thought it or said it ourselves: “I can forgive, but I won’t forget.”

How different is God’s forgiveness!  His forgiveness isn’t conditional; it isn’t partial; it isn’t temporary.  It is neither given nor withheld based on who we are or what we’ve done – it is fully applied because of who he is and what Jesus has done.  How intent was God in forgiving our sins?  He forsook his own Son so that forgiveness could be ours.  Jesus suffered the anguish of hell itself for us and was willing to die a convicted criminal’s death in place of the real culprit – you and me.  How intent was God in seeing that our sins were forgiven?  You might say he was dying to forget them.  Amen. 

 

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)