Jeremiah 31:31-34
31 The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
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 people 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 they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘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.”
The Reformation Requires a Change
Today we celebrate the festival of the Reformation. Embedded in that name is a word that means “change.” Tax reform changes the laws and practices and amounts of taxes that the government collects. Reform schools are meant to change troubled children’s behavior.
During the festival of the Reformation we celebrate a certain change that had to be made in the past and recognize that it still needs to happen today.
To illustrate that change, I’d like to paint you a picture of two pastors.
Jeremiah is sometimes called the “weeping prophet” in part because he lived at arguably the most wicked and desperate time in Israel’s history. The kingdom that David had built was in shambles – divided, split in two already for a hundred years, with 10 of the original 12 tribes captured and lost to history. The remaining two were sandwiched between two superpowers – Babylon to the North and Egypt to the South – and they couldn’t decide who would make a better ally or which was the bigger threat.
And, if the political situation weren’t bleak enough, the spiritual condition of the people was even worse. Fertility cults were common. The Temple that Solomon built now housed prostitutes. People dabbled in black magic, and even sacrificed newborn babies to false gods. Sure, they worshiped in God’s house every week, but they wore their allegiance to God the way a superstitious person might carry a rabbit’s foot for luck.
And it was in that setting that God tasked Jeremiah with preaching reform. A change had to take place or destruction would come. Jeremiah had reason to weep.
Martin Luther is often called the “Reformer.” He set himself to reforming, i.e. changing, the church of the Middle Ages, which didn’t sacrifice babies or hire prostitutes, but it had become power-hungry and greedy. Church leaders abused their authority, and their people with it. They held people’s consciences captive and sold forgiveness for a price. They dangled the common person over the fires of hell to coerce them into obedience.
Luther was no exception. Following a series of near-death experiences and tasting his own mortality, Luther dedicated his life to the Lord. He gave everything to God. He was the best monk around, but he was still terrified. He knew that death could come at any moment and he couldn’t bear the thought of standing before God with his sins. His church told him that he needed to try harder, but that just made things worse. The more he tried, the farther he felt from God. Luther recognized the need for change in the church.
On the one hand, you have a people who didn’t fear God enough, and on the other, people who feared him too much. In both cases, something had to change. In both cases, their focus was on their obedience. In Jeremiah’s day, as long as they went to church, they felt like they were good with God; they could still dabble in all these pet sins so long as they maintained the outward appearance of obedience to God. In Luther’s day, the only thing that could quiet a guilty conscience was burying it in a pile of good works; as long as you do more good than bad, you’d be good with God.
Both were wrong and for the same reason. It’s the same thing that threatens our faith today and requires this yearly focus on reformation. Whether the outwardly righteous but inwardly immoral people of Jeremiah’s day or the hopelessly conscience-stricken sinners of Luther’s, both were relying on the old covenant to find comfort in God’s presence. That’s what Jeremiah talked about in chapter 31:
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt…”[1]
He’s talking about the covenant God made with Moses on Mount Sinai. He’s talking about the 10 Commandments – the same commandments we study and follow today, e.g. “You shall have no other gods,” “Honor your father and mother,” “You shall not murder,” etc…
In Jeremiah’s day, they kept the letter of the law – they didn’t take anyone’s life or steal anyone’s wife – but they trampled on the spirit of that law and instead of using it to cultivate a loving relationship with God, they used it as a license to live however they wanted. They compartmentalized their lives, and once they crossed off the “godly” things on their to-do list, they felt free to do anything else.
In Luther’s day, the people were so terrified of God’s righteous anger against sin that they worked tirelessly to improve their morality. Luther beat and starved himself. He slept without blankets and went days without speaking, all to avoid and atone for sins he couldn’t stop committing. Every stray thought, every idle word, every missed opportunity to serve God was another nail in Luther’s coffin.
In both cases, their confidence came from their obedience. But there’s a problem with that. It’s what God says to Jeremiah as he finishes this sentence: “It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors… because they broke my covenant…”[2]
In fact, you could say that before the ink was dry on God’s first covenant, God’s people were already breaking Commandment #1. Moses hadn’t even gotten down from Mount Sinai to speak to the people before they were dancing around a golden calf as if that were their god – as if this hunk of metal they just created had been responsible for taking them by the hand and leading them out of Egypt. They broke God’s covenant.
But we’re no better. We fall into the sin of both Jeremiah and Luther’s day. We look at all the “good and godly” things we do and feel like that makes us good with God. We swell with self-confidence, which the Bible calls self-righteousness and is in reality self-delusion. If you think God loves you because you come to church and then turns a blind eye to what you do outside these walls, then you don’t know God. How often do you come here and nod your head in agreement about a particular way God wants us to live our lives, and before you leave the parking lot, you commit the exact sin that we talked about in worship?
And that can lead you to the opposite ditch. Once you realize how sinful you are and how often you break God’s commands, you can spiral so easily into self-doubt and despair and really want to dedicate yourself to becoming a better person who doesn’t fall into the same stupid sin over and over again. You feel that if you can just take it one day at a time you can slowly begin to right the ship again.
But we don’t. Each new day comes and we may experience minor victories or even overcome major obstacles, but they never stop coming and eventually we get tired and weary and unwilling to keep trying or unable to resist. And we revert to the self-loathing and hopelessness that Luther felt.
The answer is not what Luther’s pastor told him: “Try harder.” It’s what God says through Jeremiah: “The days are coming when I will make a new covenant… It will not be like the [old] covenant… because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “This is the covenant I will make… 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… I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”[3]
Reformation is not about reforming our behavior. It’s about changing our focus, from the old covenant to the new. The old covenant wasn’t working, not because there was anything wrong with the covenant – God was still keeping up his end of the bargain; he was still being a husband to us, even while we were being unfaithful to him. The problem was with us, and our inability to keep it. So God made a new covenant, one that doesn’t depend on us or our obedience – a covenant of forgiveness and love.
Jesus talked about that covenant on the night before he died: And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”[4]
Jesus is the new covenant. He came into this world to fulfill the old covenant, i.e. to do what you and I cannot, to keep both the letter and the spirit of the law. Jesus came to live for you, as your perfect substitute, but he also came to die for you. His body and blood, given and poured out for you on the cross, mean forgiveness for all your sins. The Son of God gave up his life to save yours.
In God’s eyes, then, your sins are forgotten. He doesn’t hold them against you anymore. He considers you righteous – and not a self-righteousness we earn by our obedience. No, a righteousness gifted to us by faith, i.e. a “right-ness” with God earned for us by Jesus.
That’s what the Reformation is all about – killing whatever germ of self-righteousness lingers in our hearts, while at the same time lifting the burden of our sin from our shoulders. The change that Jeremiah needed in his ministry, the change that Luther championed in the church of the Middle Ages is the same change we need today.
We need to stop finding our confidence (or hoping to find it) on the basis of our obedience, based on how good we are. That can only lead to pride or despair. But the new covenant in Jesus’ blood gives us true hope and complete confidence, not based on anything we do, but resting solely on the forgiving love of our Savior Jesus.
When we change our hearts from focusing on our obedience to God’s forgiveness, then we can rejoice with Jeremiah and know the comfort that Luther rediscovered for the church of his day – that in God’s Word and in his holy promises we have hope and forgiveness, a mighty fortress and a loving God. May he be your refuge today and every day. Amen.
[1] Jeremiah 31:31,32
[2] Jeremiah 31:32
[3] Jeremiah 31:31ff
[4] Luke 22:19,20