There is a simple poem by Louise F. Tarkington which goes in part this way:
I wish there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
And never put on again.
What has this to do with the return of the Jewish exiles from seventy years in slavery in Babylon? Everything! Because, as they left Babylon behind and turned their faces toward their homeland, they carried a lot of mental baggage along with them. They had the backward look. They had the memory of suffering through several generations - humiliation, painful separation from their religious centers, daily encounters with people who prized false gods and bowed down to idols, and the sight of a new generation of their own people emerging with the taint upon them of Babylonian culture, superstition and even lifestyle. And what was more: they were haunted by some basic questions - Why had their God permitted them to be carried off into slavery in the first place? What guarantee was given that it might not happen again? They were haunted by the old proverb: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" (Jeremiah 31:29). They wondered whether this maxim was still intact.
God seemed, however, at this point to do a turnaround, and happily so. It were as if a new reel were put into the machine and on the screen the future was forecast. And it was a joy to behold. God promised a healing process, and with it a new era was opening up. Note the verbs in these passages: "restore," "return," "renew," "rebuild," "forgive," and so on. Judah and Israel were to be restored to their own land, the Temple was to be rebuilt, a new age of freedom and independence was in the offing, and one of their own kin would rule them. "There is hope for the future, says the Lord" (v. 17). Blessings would be the new lot of Israel and they would become a blessing to others.
All these things, however, were not to occur or become theirs by mere fiat. True, God had declared his readiness to establish a new covenant with his people (v. 31). But, as you and I know, a covenant requires the commitment of two parties. God’s promise must be met by the honest avowal of every individual and not merely as a resolution passed by the people as at a mass meeting. This had been a fault in Israel’s religious life in the past. The priests ran the system and all the people had to do was to perform small ritual duties in order to keep their membership intact. Like the religion of the Pharisees or the pre-Reformation church, for example: Attend certain feasts or check in once a year at Easter or perform certain negotiations during Lent, and all would be okay. Religion was managed for these Israelites and all they had to do was inject oil into the machine. This is always a recipe for spiritual paralysis. As John Paterson remarked: "A religion of the book inevitably supplants the religion of the Spirit."1 Or, "You can’t make people right by an Act of Congress."
At this point God took positive action. A new covenant was to be initiated because the people were unable as a people to live up to the letter of the ancient Law. A totally new scheme of things was to become operative, different from the rigid legalism of the past; it was to be now a channel for God’s grace. The returning exiles were to become God’s own people, (v. 33) be shaped by his Word and live independently in his land.
What, then, did all this mean to the religion of Israel?
1. Each person was to be responsible directly to God. A new dimension was to emerge in Israel’s religion. It would forecast an era of personal religion. Up to now, religion had been apt to be an external thing, gauged and evaluated by the rule of Law, a matter of punching the clock daily and making sure it was done on time. But now God said through his prophet, Jeremiah, "I will put my law within them and I will write it upon their hearts" (v. 33). Changed lives would no longer come by Law, for hitherto such a process led inevitably to self-righteousness. Whereas with personal religion, each man or woman must stand as a naked soul before God whose grace would reach into the very depths of their being and reckon once and for all with their sin and pride. Personal religion, moreover, would be then a first-hand matter; it was not to be simply what had been told by others, but what each soul learned and felt for himself or herself (v. 34). Remember Jesus’ question of Pilate: "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" (John 18:34 RSV). This means that each of us must be touched individually by God and be able as a result to witness from his or her own heart. Each is constrained to do right, not because some Law requires it, but as the expression of one’s inner conviction and desire.
2. This leads us to a second point: The spirit in which Israel’s religion was to be lived and exercised. Do you ever wonder why many Americans obey the law? Because they are so morally good? Because they might harm someone else? No! They observe the law because they are afraid of being caught. It’s as simple as that! Something similar was inherent in Israel’s religion of the Law. Remember how Luke put it concerning the Pharisees and Jesus: "The Pharisees ... lying in wait for him, to catch at something he might say" (11:54 RSV). Religion ruled by the Law was rigid, creating suspicion and tempting people to snitch on one another. But with Israel’s return from exile and bondage, God’s new covenant spelled out religion as a liberating experience, no longer a matter of being dominated by rules. Hence a new factor was inserted: the element of joy. "Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains into singing! ... For behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former things will not be remembered.... But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isaiah 49:13; 66:17, 18 RSV). Can’t you sense in these lines the elements of happiness, enjoyment and the contagion of a new brand of fellowship with God? Begone to such warnings as "The goblins will get you if you don’t watch out!" Henceforth, with the words of the Psalmist, people would say, "I delight to do thy will, O my God" (Psalm 40:8 RSV).
And we who live on this side of the New Testament know how this religion in and of the heart marked the ministry and witness of Jesus. Of him and his company, Arthur J. Gossip wrote:
Always they stood upon the threshold of happy hours, always a door was opening upon such glorious things, and every day that dawned let in new crowding opportunities of ever gladder service.2
Then, a third observation: We must not overlook the "givenness" of it all. Emerson once said, "I did not find my friends; the good God gave them to me." So, with the nature of genuine religion. And this Israel was to learn: the fruits of true religion are realized not through the number of your cultic sacrifices, nor by the vicious circle of performing endless rituals in some rigidly appropriate ways, nor by standing before the world with a holy face and declaring, "Thou shalt not!" A great reversal was now afoot: prior to Israel’s offering of sheep and goats in ritual sacrifices, God had already given. His love and grace were already in the field, claiming these people as his own. This is why we see in Jeremiah 31 this new covenant as the closest the Old Testament comes to the gospel of the New Testament. It is the religion of the changed heart. And for the realization of all this, God would make the offering of his Son who through his ministry, his witness to eternal love and his life of reconciliation would see it finally by his Resurrection.
The old Gospel hymn puts it rightly:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hours I first believed! (John Newton, 1979)
Here, moreover, lies our Lenten obligation. You and I must, in response, dedicate to God our life. Lent is part of a larger and longer pilgrimage in which we go on seeking a city "whose builder and maker is God." The ancient Law written on tables of stone must be replaced by the law written upon our heart. Outer nature can be governed by rules, but our inner nature calls for harmony with the will of God. The elder brother in Jesus’ parable could run the farm efficiently by rules, but to come into the fellowship of the father’s home, his younger brother had to say, "I have sinned."
1. The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), pp. 149, 150.
2. From the Edge of the Crowd (Edinburgh: T & T. Clark, 1926), p. 153.