2022 Evening Prayer Homily "God's Promises"

 2022-11-16     Evening Prayer      Jeremiah 31:1-17, 23-34      Matthew 27:1-10

God’s Promises

In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

One commentator I read says this about Jeremiah, “Compared with a prophet like Isaiah, Jeremiah offers less consolation.  However, the arrangement of his book is such that the overwhelming darkness of his oracles amplifies the brilliance of God’s grace.” 

He certainly has that right. Jeremiah is dark because he is unrelenting in reporting the Lord’s condemnation of mankind’s perpetual trust in self (17:5-6) who’s heart is deceitful and wicked (17:9-10).  God threatens the people regularly with catastrophic discipline that includes war, famine, pestilence, and exile. Jeremiah reports on the Lord’s anger with the repeated moral and spiritual failures of an unrepentant leadership.  The call to repent is repeated regularly and in the strongest terms.  And, such calls are ignored. 

One of the results of the dark character of Jeremiah’s writing is that when we finally come to today’s text, we receive the grace and promises that are stated here with relief.  Finally, a blessing, a grace, a beautiful ray of light shining in the midst of darkness.  

Chapter 31 is part and parcel of what scholars call Jeremiah’s Little Book of Comfort. In chapters 30-33, the good news of a new covenant and the promises of new hearts is received with joy. Amidst the gloom and the criticism of the long series of self-centered, short-sighted decisions that God’s people insist on making, God offers the promise of a new day and new way of being in the world.  

The reason God sends the prophets and bothers to discipline His people is because of his commitment to us.  Even as his people move through periods of appreciation and  obedience to self-indulgence and disobedience; the reason for the covenant has not changed.  God loves His people.  Jeremiah proclaims the LORD’s words: “I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” (31:3) 

The LORD promises that what is broken down due to God’s discipline in order that the people may repent, the LORD will build back again. The people will return to the Promised Land and their lives will be blessed. 

In those better days to come, life will be full, abundant, joyous. “Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry.  I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” (31:13) 

Take comfort in this promise O Judah, “There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country...” (31:17)  

Then, there is the promise of the new covenant to come. 

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares 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.” 

The new covenant is fulfilled in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is born for the sake of all of mankind. He comes first to the Jews, then to the rest of us. The Father and the Son send us the Holy Spirit to create faith within us.  The Holy Spirit resides within us and becomes the conscience of the faithful.  The Holy Spirit puts God’s law within us and writes it on our hearts.  The Holy Spirit leads us into confession that Jesus has died for us on the cross so that we may receive our Heavenly Father’s righteousness. The Holy Spirit leads us into a Christian life. 

Philip Melancthon explains in Article V of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. “...When we have been justified by faith and regenerated, we begin to fear and love God, to pray to Him, to expect aid from Him, to give thanks and praise Him, and to obey Him in times of suffering.  We also begin to love our neighbors, because our hearts have spiritual and holy movements...”  (Ap V, 98) 

Jeremiah prophesied from 628 - 580BC. The promised new covenant came in Jesus five centuries later.  Verse 34 is a promise for the faithful that will be fulfilled when we are all living in the Promised Land of heaven. “34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 

We are all grateful for God’s mercy toward us in Jesus Christ and that through faith we are justified by His cross. Yet, we cannot help but notice that we are still sinners.  We live with and are strengthened by God’s promises of mercy and forgiveness.  We receive with thanksgiving, the announcement that we are forgiven.  

I am certain that I speak for all of us when I say that I look forward to the day when the words, "I am sorry" and “please forgive me” no longer need to be a part of my speech to God or any of my neighbors. 

As the prophet Jeremiah teaches us, we continue to look forward with faith in God.  We look forward to that time when our redemption is complete and we are completely whole. Delighting in the fullness of God’s shalom.  

In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

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Quote from p769 of Lutheran Bible Companion: Volume 1: Introduction and Old Testament. (2014)