Jeremiah 31:31-34 * March 29, 2009 * Lent 5 * Pastor Pagels

In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:

First it was Bear Stearns. Then it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And then it was the big banks and the auto industry. All of the previously mentioned American companies were the recipients of government bailout money over the past several months, but none of them has drawn as much attention or as much criticism as AIG.

I don't know what AIG is or what AIG does, but I do know that the company has already received approximately $180 billion (that's billion with a “b”) from the U.S. government. When asked how this could possibly be, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke made the following comparison.

Let's say that your next door neighbor is careless with a cigarette and his house catches fire. You might think to yourself that he is getting what he deserves. He was careless. He was reckless. It's his problem, and he should be the one who has to deal with it.

But as the fire burns hotter and hotter, the wind shifts and the flames move uncomfortably close to your house. Would that be enough for you to change your mind? Even if he doesn't deserve it, wouldn't you want the fire department to come and save your neighbor's home because by doing so they would also be protecting your house?

That's the logic behind the government's decision to rescue so many companies from bankruptcy, but there are still some people who aren't buying it. They say that such drastic government intervention undermines the foundation of capitalism. They argue that private businesses should be left alone, and businesses that made bad decisions should be allowed to go under.

No matter where you stand on this issue, whether you are for or against the government bailouts, most Americans agree that we are living in very difficult times. That may be true, but I have a feeling that if Jeremiah were here he would call us a bunch of wimps.

When the prophet Jeremiah came on the scene the tiny nation of Judah wasn't worried about a recession. They were facing the prospect of complete annihilation. Dark storm clouds were gathering in the north in the form of the armies of Babylon.

The prophet called on God's people to repent of their sins before it was too late. The Lord warned his people that judgment was on its way. But in the middle of this message of impending doom, God offered his people a ray of hope. He promised to forgive them. He pledged that he would make a new covenant with them. And as we examine the terms that God was proposing, it will become evident that the Lord's offer is...

ONE BAILOUT PLAN WE CAN ALL AGREE ON

Let’s take a closer look at the language of this contract: “‘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’” (31). This isn’t a threat. It’s a promise. We can tell that God is looking to fulfill this promise in the future because he says “the time is coming.”

That’s fairly obvious, but the Lord is telling us something else in this verse that isn’t so obvious. He vowed to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, but the house of Israel didn’t exist. The nation had been destroyed and the people had been deported decades before Jeremiah was born (the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed in 722 BC).

So how could God make that kind of promise? If there was no nation of Israel then who was on the receiving end of this promise? The promise was meant for God’s people, for people who trusted in God regardless of their nationality, for people like us. And in order for us to appreciate the promise of this new covenant, we need to understand the problem with the old covenant.

The old covenant was almost a thousand years old at the time of Jeremiah. It can be dated back to the time when the children of Israel left Egypt (about 1500 BC). Technically Moses was the leader of the people, but it was God who “took them by the hand” and brought them to the promised land of Canaan.

On the way they stopped at a mountain called Sinai, and it was there that the Lord spelled out the details of what is sometimes called the Sinaitic covenant. In many ways the Sinaitic covenant was like a basic two-sided business contract. The Lord said: “If you obey me, I will bless you. If you disobey me, I will curse you.”

The people promised to obey God, but they didn’t keep up their end of the deal. While Moses was still up on the mountain, before the ink on the covenant was dry, they broke their promise and bowed down to a golden calf.

I wish I could say that this was a one-time incident. I wish I could say that the people didn’t fully understand what God expected from them. I wish I could say those things, but I can’t. They knew what they were doing. They knew that what they were doing was wrong, and they did it anyway. And hundreds of years later, their descendants were doing the same thing.

What kind of wickedness was the prophet up against? What was the extent of the nation’s idolatry? Listen to the Lord’s description of the situation in Jeremiah 11: “You have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah; and the altars you have set up to burn incense to that shameful god Baal are as many as the streets of Jerusalem” (13).

The Lord had been a loving husband to his people. He cared about them. He took care of them, but they had been unfaithful to him. They were guilty of spiritual adultery. And when they broke God’s covenant, it broke God’s heart.

I wonder if the people thought about their relationship with God in those terms. I’m guessing that they didn’t. I’m guessing that they thought that they were on good terms with God. The people were still bringing sacrifices. The priests were still offering sacrifices. Right up until the day it was destroyed the temple was a busy place.

And the people probably believed that they had good reasons for their idolatry. They probably didn’t even use the word “idolatry.” They did what they did because they didn’t want to offend the local deity. They were trying to be sensitive. They were trying to be inclusive. We can speculate about what they were thinking, but no matter what they thought they were still guilty.

None of us here has ever bowed down to a statue of Baal, but we do worry. We worry about our health. We worry about our jobs. We worry about our shrinking 401ks. We would never burn incense to a false god, but do we always put our trust in the one true God? Even Christians, even people like you and me, we have broken the first commandment. We have broken God’s covenant. We are guilty of spiritual adultery. And that breaks God’s heart.

But instead of divorcing himself from us forever, instead of smashing us to pieces like Moses smashed the stone tablets on Mount Sinai, the Lord did something else, something totally different, something totally undeserved. Tucked in between all those threats of punishment, God made a promise to his people. He promised to make a new covenant.

The Lord said: “‘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’” (33).

The terms of this new covenant are lopsided. In fact, this contract is totally one-sided. God is the one who made it. God is the one who fulfilled it. He gives us his Word. He gives us his Spirit. He even gives us the faith to believe and the will to obey.

And as we look more closely at this new covenant, as we examine the signature at the bottom, we notice something. This contract isn’t signed with ink. It is signed with blood, the blood of God’s one and only Son, the blood that Jesus shed on the cross for the sins of the world.

Because Jesus obeyed the law perfectly for us, we are now perfect in the eyes of God. Because Jesus willingly suffered and died in our place, we don’t have to be afraid to die. Because of Jesus we are God’s people. Because of Jesus God is our Father. Because of Jesus God says of you and me: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (34b).

Let those words sink in for a minute. If you have a hard time believing them, listen to them again: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” It has become a cliché to say that people are supposed to forgive and forget. It sounds like a good idea, but it’s just not possible, at least not for me. I have forgiven lots of people for lots of different things in my life, but I have a very hard time forgetting. My sinful nature wants to remember. My sinful nature wants revenge. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to forget.

What is not possible for you and me is not impossible for God. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). He created everything out of nothing. He counts the hairs on your head. He raises the dead back to life. And when he forgives, he forgets.

Remember that when Satan tries to bring up a sin from your past. Remember that when your sin bothers you so much that it keeps you awake at night. Remember that if guilt feels like a heavy chain wrapped around your neck. Remember that the Lord has forgiven all your sins. Remember that the Lord has forgotten your sin. And he has a signed contract to prove it.

We can expect economists and politicians to continue to debate the merits of the massive government bailouts. And fifty years from now when we look back on this time in our nation’s history, we might be able to tell if spending hundreds of billions of dollars made our economic situation better or worse.

But if we go back even farther, if we go all the way back to the time of Jeremiah, we fill find a different kind of bailout plan, a bailout plan that we can all agree on. The Lord has delivered us from certain death. God has rescued us from the pit of despair. Jesus has paid our debt of sin in full. If you have any doubts, lift up your eyes and look to the cross. Look at the cross and be assured that all is forgiven… and forgotten. Amen.