Preparation for Renewal

Based on Jeremiah 31:27-34
First delivered Oct. 20, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            Back yard gardens for the most part are starting to look pretty shabby. Nothing’s growing anymore. There’s not much left to pick. Soon, we will have a killing frost and that will be the end of the tomatoes for this season. A little frost won’t hurt pumpkins and winter squash, but  eventually those will be picked, the vines will shrivel up, and the garden will be done for the year. Mine never really got started. I had every good intention. I worked over the sod, added mulch and compost, got some starter plants and put in some tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers. But then I got busy, before long the weeds were soaking up all the nutrients in that rich soil and the garden became overrun. The garden became a mess. No cucumbers, a few tiny peppers, a handful of tomatoes, and that was about it. And now, all the weeds and the other plants are drying up and soon will be breaking down and decaying. In a few months, the backyard gardens will be barren, perhaps under a blanket of snow.

            In the days of Jeremiah, the people of Israel and Judah were going through a time of decay and barrenness. Due to neglect and lack of discipline, the people had rebelled against God. The rebellion had overrun them like weeds in a poorly tended garden. All their resources were sucked up by their sinful living and their failure to follow God’s way. And the garden that was their land, the land that God had given to them, was lost. The cold freeze of God’s wrath blew over them, scattering them into exile. As a people, they were decaying and barren. Their life as a people was slipping away, becoming like a cold, hard, barren backyard garden in the depths of winter.

            They say the best time to plant trees are in the late fall or early winter. That might seem odd. You probably notice that once spring comes around, at the local greenhouse or the nearby Kroger you will find baby fruit trees for you to purchase and bring home to plant. But actually spring is not the ideal time. The best time is in late fall. The reason is that trees need a rich root structure. The roots need to grow, develop, dig down deep and spread out to soak up the nutrients in the soil. And a tree, like any plant, only has so much energy. So, if you plant a tree in late fall, the tree will go dormant. No buds. No leaves. No fruit. Instead, all the energy of the plant can be focused on the roots. During the cold of winter, when everything aboveground seems barren, those roots of that baby tree are growing, developing, digging down deep so that the tree can be well established in the ground. Then, as we move into spring, the energy of the plant can now be directed toward the production of buds, leaves and fruit, the root system having had a head start over the winter.

            I will always remember this experience from about ten years ago. We were living near Groveport at the time. Jadon and I spent an hour or so one fall afternoon planting crocus, tulip and daffodil bulbs. Jadon would dig the small holes in the ground. Then I would carefully put the bulb in just right. And then Jadon would get to cover it up and pat the dirt down. And I told Jadon, “Just you wait; in a few months, when it’s spring, all these bulbs we are planting will turn into beautiful flowers. We just have to get through winter first.” I told him that in spite of the coming cold, the frozen ground and the bitter temperatures, underneath there is the promise of glorious flowers. Things won’t always appear dead and barren. New life will spring forth in time.

In the cold winter of exile for Israel and Judah, Jeremiah experienced the bitterness with them. He cries out, grieving over the barrenness, the destruction, the loss as a consequence of Israel’s ongoing rebellion against God’s ways. They deserved their fate. But it hurt so. It broke Jeremiah’s heart just as he knew it broke God’s heart as well.

            But even then, during the winter chill of exile, God was at work planting seeds. Jeremiah says God is planting in the house of Israel and the house of Judah the seed of humans and the seed of animals. Before the exile was over, God was at work, preparing for renewal. There is reason to hope that the winter of exile will come to an end. New life will spring forth. There will be restoration. Everything will be made new.

            That’s what God says through Jeremiah. The time will come when God will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah, a new covenant that will be written on their hearts. This covenant will not have any new content. It is the same covenant that God established with Israel and Judah since the days of Moses. It’s just that the new thing that God is doing is that the covenant won’t be engraved on stones or recorded in law books. No, the covenant will be written on the hearts of the people. They won’t have to carry the commandments of God around in scrolls or stone tablets. The law will always be with them because it will be inscribed on their hearts. And by heart, Jeremiah isn’t talking about the organ that pumps blood. He is talking about the center of the will, the conscience, the place where we feel in our gut what is right and wrong. It is there that God will write God’s commandments for Israel and Judah. That day will come when everyone will know the Lord. They won’t have to be taught about God’s ways. They will know it already in their gut. That’s the new covenant that God has in store for Israel when the exile comes to an end.

            What else? In that day, people will suffer for their own sins. No longer will the children suffer from the sins of their parents. Those who eat sour grapes will have their own teeth set on edge rather than their children. It is simple fairness. Those who do wrong are to suffer the consequences of their actions and not future generations.

            This is how it had been. It was the older generation that had rebelled against God so much that God stepped back and allowed them to be swept into exile. And a whole generation grew up in exile. They had not done wrong. They had not even been born. The younger generation grew up in exile, suffering all the indignity and grief because they happened to be born in the time of exile. It wasn’t fair to them. So, God says that in the new day coming, these long exiles, where multiple generations suffer from the sins of their ancestors, will come to an end.

            What else? There will be a time when God will forgive them of their sins and remember them no more. Whose sins? The sins of the ancestors that triggered the exile. God is saying that the time will come that the exile will end, and the reason for the exile will be forgiven and no longer remembered. The past will no longer weigh on the people. It will be a fresh start, a new beginning for Israel and Judah in their relationship with God, who has always loved them and always will, even when they break God’s heart. These are all the words of comfort God speaks through Jeremiah to the people while they groaned through the bitterness of their exile. The time will come when the exile will end. There will be restoration.

What is revealed in this prophecy from Jeremiah is that for God exile, destruction and desolation does not have the final word. God does not leave God’s people to suffer. God does not abandon them or give up on them. Jeremiah says that God plucks up and destroys and God sows and plants, restores and forgives. God makes things new. The God of winter is also the God of spring. With God, there is always a future. Paul says in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” There is hope for the future with God.

            Have you ever seen aerial photos of cities that were decimated during World War II? My dad once showed me some photos of a city in England that had been bombed repeatedly by the Germans. You see block upon block of buildings that have been bombed out. There are piles of rubble everywhere. The pictures don’t do justice to the total destruction you would find closer to the ground: walls pocketed with bullet holes, blast craters that have torn up the streets, burned out cars and trucks, broken glass and splintered furniture. Devastation, similar to what we would find in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and too many other places around the world. And I imagine the residents of these cities in England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan and elsewhere looked around at the visible consequences of war and despaired if they would ever in their lifetimes see their beloved cities rebuilt and restored. But over time, with a lot of hard work, a lot of financing, and with determination, all those cities that were destroyed by the war have been rebuilt and are flourishing. The destruction of World War II did not have the final word. There was a great restoration, not only the rebuilding of cities but a new covenant if you will with the creation of the United Nations, an institution intended to bring the nations of the world together in one place to build relationships, work through differences, and tackle global challenges that will hopefully prevent another global war. And everyone was invited to the table, even Germany and Japan. War and strife were not the final word. Peace was achieved and remains to this day, seventy years after the madness of Hitler’s third reich was obliterated. Surely, in the harsh winter of war, God was already at work planting the seeds that would in time produce the fruits of peace and restoration. Surely it is God, inspiring and working through the efforts, small and great, of people that led to the fruition of the great global restoration after World War II. During the winter, God was making preparations for the spring, when the brutality of war would cease and everything would be made new. If only that spring time of peace could have been permanent. But that is a subject for another sermon. The point is that with God, even in the middle of the harsh winter of war, there is hope for a better future because God will make it so.

            What is true for nations and peoples is true for us as individuals. Each of us go through seasons in our lives. Just as fall is a time where everything is drying up and life is failing so we go through times where we feel spent, our vitality is waning, and our spirits are grey like a cloudy and chilly November day. And then there are times where our lives are like the bitter cold of winter. Our hearts are like frozen clay. We feel barren and exposed like the leafless trees whose branches are buffeted by the howling cold wind from the north. Our lives are shrouded in darkness and there is no warmth, no escape from the harsh realities of the problems and stresses of life.

            But in those harsh and bitter times, surely God is at work planting seeds in the hard places of our lives. The God who renews is already at work preparing the ground of our cold and barren hearts so that in due time new life will spring forth and our lives will blossom again. Fall and winter will pass. Spring will come again. And even if the bitter cold of winter takes our lives, we have the promise of an eternal spring, the life of resurrection, when death will be finally vanquished and there will be nothing but the bursting forth of new life. This is our future hope. As we hear in the prophecy of Jeremiah, as we have seen after the evil of war, as we have experienced in our own lives and seen in the lives of others, death gives way to life, destruction is replaced with reconstruction, barrenness is replaced with fruitfulness because that is what God is always about. With God there is always hope for the future. The restoration doesn’t happen overnight. It does not happen on our time table. It doesn’t magically appear. The restoration that God makes possible requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice, cooperation, and perhaps most of all, forgiveness and letting go of the past. And perhaps, depending on what needs restored, none of us will live to see it to completion. For us, in our God empowered efforts at restoration, it will be for us a promise that will be fulfilled for our grandchildren. But that time will come. God has promised to make all things new.

            So do not despair about the future. In the years to come we may, as a church, as a nation, experience a harsh winter. In our own lives, due to illness or tragedy, we will go through a harsh winter that leaves us feeling bereft of any life at all. And the cold reality of death will eventually take each of us. But with God, the source of life, the One who makes all things new, there is hope. Be encouraged and trust in God. The work we do to forgive, to rebuild and restore, to make peace and to reconcile, is not in vain because this is the way of God.