God's Promise is Forever
Lent 5 – March 25, 2012
Shortly before Andy & I were to be married, we went to meet with the interim pastor at his church, where the wedding was taking place. We had done our premarital counseling with someone else, but Pr. Jim wanted to meet with us once, since we were getting married in his church. Andy and I always remember that conversation, because among other things, Pr. Jim asked us to talk a little bit about our parents and our families, and how they had influenced our understanding of marriage. As we shared some of those stories, one of us concluded by saying that we both understood that for us, divorce is not an option. Pr. Jim then told us that he and his wife had a similar view, that marriage is until death do us part. And sometime after their 40th anniversary, as they were talking with someone about their long relationship, his wife said this: “We've been married for 40 years, and all those years, never once did I think of divorce. Murder – yes. But divorce, no.” Til death do us part. =) It's become a running joke for us...
I think of that story – about that kind of commitment to marriage and your marriage partner (not the murder part!) - when I read the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah for today. Because in this passage, God speaks of God's relationship with the people of Israel as a marriage: “though I was their husband, says the LORD.” And God's understanding of this relationship is of the “until death do us part” kind.
Certainly, if ever someone would have grounds for divorce, it's God in this relationship with Israel. They are unfaithful. Rebellious. Un-trusting. Always grumbling and complaining about something, even when God is taking good care of them. Always trying to do things their way instead of God's way. Though God sends them messengers in the prophets over and over again, a kind of ancient marriage counseling in some ways, the people refuse to listen. And God would be within God's rights to say, “That's it! I'm done with you people! I'm leaving you and finding some new nation that will appreciate me!”
It would be easy for God to say the same thing about us. In so many ways, we turn from God and the relationship God created us to have with God. We find it hard to wait for God's timing, so we hurry up and do things our way, thinking that we can show God how it's done. We resist God's call to trust, to obey, to put God at the center of our lives instead of someone we come visit once a week or month or year – whenever it's convenient or when we need something. We push God away, when all God wants is what is best for us. How many times do we put God through this?– and you know that we could almost understand if God would just give up on us after one too many times, that God would be sick and tired of being rejected and just walk away.
But that's not who God is. That's not what God is about. See, God is a God of the covenant. God is a God who keeps God's promises. God had made this covenant with Israel's ancestors long ago, when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. God has been making covenants with humankind since the time of Noah and the aftermath of the flood, and again with Abraham and Sarah and the promise of descendants more numerous than the stars. And even though the people had failed time and time again to live up to their end of the bargain, God would not give up. God's covenant, God's promises, are forever. And what that means is that God is willing to go to any lengths to restore that relationship, to heal what is broken, to draw us and all of God's beloved people back into the heart of God's love. God will do whatever it takes to keep the lines of communication open.
Which is not to say, of course, that God is a doormat or that God will let us just walk all over him and get away with whatever we want to do. That's not a very loving way to be in relationship. There are consequences for our sin, for our rebellion, for our turning away. We see it in the great flood, we see it in the delayed entry into the Promised Land (they weren't out there in the wilderness for 40 years because God didn't know the way!), we see it when the people of Jeremiah's time are led into exile in Babylon. We see in our own lives, in our broken relationships and regrets, in the things we wish we could forget – the things we wish God could forget.
But that exactly what God promises here – to forgive and to forget. God does not hold on to our sins forever. God does not let the ways we mess up push God away. God does not hold grudges, and God certainly doesn't hold our old sins, our old mistakes, our old “stuff” over our heads, always ready to bring up the past. No, when God forgives – God forgets. It no longer has the power to stand in the way of God's relationship with us. More than anything else, God longs for that relationship to be healed and whole and trusting. God is always seeking to be reunited with us, for us to experience and live into God's mercy and compassion and forgiveness for us, so that we might find new life in God's covenant with us.
Because when God said “I do” to us, it was forever. In sickness and in health, for better, for worse – til death do us part.
But it's even better than that, because even death cannot separate us from God's love for us. In death, Jesus' death on a cross, we see the full depth of God's love for us, how far God's love is willing to go to bring us back, to bridge the gap, to cross the divide that we so often create. Jesus, lifted up, is what draws us back to him, to God, to life. Jesus' life poured out is God's new covenant, God's promise to us that even death cannot part us.
May this new covenant be written on our hearts and transform our living.
Amen.
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