Saturday December 17 – Jerusalem

I remember that June day in 2003. A Sunday afternoon phone call from my older brother set in motion a few days of sadness and loss. I had to make the eight-hour drive back to my hometown to bury my dad. That was a long, lonely trip to make. You replay a lot of conversations and process a range of emotions. You categorize things into regrets, little mercies, and exquisite “gratefulnesses.” I had some regrets in how my dad and I related to each other after my parents’ divorce. I had some adult conversations with him over the disappointment of growing up in that dynamic that would comfort me deeply. These I referred to as “gratefulnesses.” And I was grateful in some details that his death brought to the surface and saw those as little mercies rather than difficulties because it forced my brothers and I to resume conversations and relationships that had sort of slid off the tarmac a bit.

However, that clarity came at the end of the eight hours. Preparing to begin that trip was sad. I remember sniffling as I exerted great effort to organize and pack everything, I thought I might need. One moment I will always recall clearly and thankfully was when, sitting on the floor of my office because I was getting something from a lower cabinet and then just being overwhelmed and leaning against the wall. I was just sort of staring off into the distance and trying to make sense of my dad not being there anymore.

In that moment, my co-worker Larry – the sixty-year-old music minister and dear friend – came in and just sat on the floor next to me. He didn’t say anything for a while. He just sat there. He was a de facto father figure and influence for me and in those moments, he saved his words and just sat in the ashes with me. And then he simply said, “You know, your dad loved you and was proud of you. Sometimes guys our age just don’t say that much. But know that he did. Go back and honor him well.” I had spent several conversations with Larry about that family dynamic and the rupture and dysfunction that fracture of divorce caused our family. He spoke to me from a place of insight, understanding, truth, and compassion.

In the sadness, those words crystallized for me both what I needed to hear and look to do as I prepared to make a long trip marked by grief and sadness.

Something New before leaving Jerusalem: The Messiah would bring in a New Covenant

Jeremiah 31:31 “Look, the days are coming” – this is the Lord’s declaration – “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

This promise of a new covenant was significant. The old covenant was one that the people simply were unable to keep. They were, as the hymnist wrote, “prone to wander” and in their rebellion consistently broke covenantal fidelity. The old covenant established in Sinai under Moses focused on external actions moving to change an inward disposition or motivation. Sadly, it is extremely difficult for the heart to be changed simply by doing things under obligation.

This new covenant promised was a completely new, different understanding of relating to God. This new covenant inverted the relationship. Instead of being pressed from the outside, now it would be possible to express faith from the inside out rather than the outside in. The Messiah would come, providing the perfect, once-for-all-time sacrifice and God would then be able to “write His words on our hearts.” The Spirit would bring about life change in our hearts. This would become the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. And all of this was made possible by Jesus Messiah, being born of a virgin in Bethlehem, living a perfectly sinless life, dying on a cross and raising from the dead in an act of buying us back as our kinsman redeemer, and then ascending to heaven where Jesus waits to return a second time.

As the people of Judah are being taken, chained up, and hauled away to Babylon in captivity, Jeremiah the weeping prophet shares this word of hope and future and love. God will not just edit or tweak the covenant as it previously existed. He would replace it with a new covenant. And that new covenant would be initiated by the Messiah.

For people who were making a hard and gloomy journey, this message was one that could provide hope and life and future promise. As they prepared to make the long trip in chains to Babylon, a trip made overwhelmed in grief at what was lost, they get this message of hope that reframes both the trip and the recover. Now they know what God will do for them and it helps shape what they should do and what they will become. For those of us who deal with sadness, loss, gloom, and hopeless feelings, this is a powerful reminder of the immense and overwhelming love that God has for us. God sent Jesus for us, to replace the Old Covenant with a New Covenant and then to provide the blood that would atone for our sins under this New Covenant.

“For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew 26:28

Father, thank you for Jesus and for the hope, joy, and peace He provides for us on the hard, difficult, sad, and gloomy journeys we have to make in life. Thank you for your grace, love, and power that encourages us and lifts our heads. Amen