The Fifth Sunday in Lent

“Signs of the Times: Hearts!”

John 12:20 – 33

In these days following the death of my mother, our family has undertaken the emotion-filled task of going through her few possessions, deciding what to keep and what not to keep. That journey has led us to places of great joy, discovering things we never knew, and bringing to memory beautiful things we’d long since forgotten. It has also brought us to sad places, especially in those things of her possession that were precious to her for reasons unknown to us. Bundling up those things to be discarded has become for me almost an act of betrayal toward my mother accompanied by a sense of near despair over the transient nature of life. Things that meant so much to her yesterday, no longer have meaning for us today. There’s just something sad about that.

One of the gifts my mother left all three of us children was a copy of her book. My mother was a wonderful writer. A number of her articles were published in magazines like Women’s Day, and Ford Times, and the Guideposts publication Angels on Earth. Mom had a way with words, and she worked hard at developing the skill. In one of her notebooks I found a series of five or six hand-written paragraphs – all the same paragraph, mind you – just written in different ways as if she was looking for the one way of saying it that was just right. My mother valued words. And some of her best words went into the book she left for us kids.

It was not the only book my mother wrote. Among her possessions we found mysteries, children’s stories, life-adventures, complex character studies all neatly typed on an old Smith-Corona typewriter and bundled up. Along with the manuscripts, she left us the pitch letters she sent out to various publishers trying to sell her books. And along with them are the rejection letters that came back.

But the book my mother wrote and copied for us children to have after her death was a bit different. Her letter offering the book to three major religious publishers was greeted with a high degree of enthusiasm. They all wanted to see more than the sample chapter she sent. So whole manuscripts were delivered. The publishers were very impressed.

It is a book she titled “I Lay My Trophies Down” and it is the story of our father and God’s gracious work in his life. It begins with a beautifully written narrative of his death at a Christian life conference in 1973. Our dad had spoken to the conference about what the Lord meant to him in the everyday matters of life as a husband, father and businessman. It was a wonderful telling of God’s love in the life of an ordinary person. He closed his talk that night with the words he always ended with: “Praise the Lord.” Moments later, he collapsed.

The opening chapter of our mother’s book takes us through the events of that night and right into the hospital emergency room where she was left to wait all alone while the doctors worked on our dad. And while she waited, our mother beautifully writes:

My mind skipped and darted from one thought to another. I found a crumpled kleenex in my bag and wiped my face, tasted the salt from my tears and wet my lips over and over to get rid of the taste. I squeezed my knuckles white and dug my fingertips into my palms. Finally, I ran out of things to do. I collapsed in my chair.

As the minutes ticked by and I waited for the doctor, I drifted slowly back in time, letting memories flood up like a soothing balm. The hospital and the yellow cornflowers suddenly vanished, and with a deliberate turn of the mind I was back in another place.

Another time.

Then our mother went on to tell the story of our dad’s life.

Well, the publishers loved her book. But in the end, they turned it down. All three said it was beautifully written and deeply moving – a wonderful true-life story of faith. But it didn’t quite fit their publishing guidelines.

I think what they meant was that it didn’t quite fit their theology.

You see, my mother was one of those who saw the world in terms of a daily struggle over peoples’ lives between God and the devil. Sin had less to do with inflicting injustice on the poor than with giving in to drink a cocktail, or wager on a horse race, or go to a movie on a Sunday. To my mother, Jesus was coming back any moment now, and she could reel off the signs of the times proving it to be so. She prayed about everything, and claimed answers to prayer ranging from getting parking places on busy streets to losing Little League baseball games so our family could leave for summer vacation. My mother’s religious world was full of angels and demons, speaking in tongues, smelling the fragrance of God’s presence, and taking a “lucky dip” into the Bible to find specific guidance for a specific problem. Some people might say my mother’s theology was a little wacky. I think the chapter in her book about the three black demon-possessed dogs who went after our dog Casey who my mother believed was an angel in disguise is probably what did her in with the publishing houses! If she had only left out that chapter…!

My mother’s theology was rather…eclectic.

But I will tell you something more important about my mother.

Regardless of her theology, my mother and God were good friends, and knew each other well. My mother and God loved each other, with all their hearts. My mother’s life was full of the goodness of God, and that goodness flowed out of her life to others in a very natural and human way.

My mother may have had a sketchy theology. But there was nothing sketchy about her relationship…with God.

A long time ago, God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah. God said he was sick and tired of how religion was being misused. The covenant God had made with Israel to help people come into relationship with God was being used instead as a rulebook to keep people away from God. Do you know what I mean? It’s like that friend of yours who thinks you can’t possibly be a Christian because you don’t believe what they believe, or practice the form of baptism they practice, or interpret the Bible the way they do. How amazing it is that, for some, even the words you speak, or the church you attend, or the music you sing, or the way you worship is the measure of your faith.

And God, through Jeremiah, says, “Enough is enough!”

The Law God intended to lead people into abundant life was being used as an excuse for denying people their basic human rights. The Law God intended to build good neighbors and strong communities was being used to justify war and injustice and division. The Law God gave to teach people how to love was being used to turn people against each other.

So God, through Jeremiah, says, “Enough is enough!”

Listen to God’s words:

“’The time is coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forbears when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant even though I was like a husband to them. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my law into their minds, and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will anyone teach his neighbor…saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the smallest to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more.’”

God promised a new covenant – a Law not written externally on stone tablets or in a book on theology that must be explained through others. God promised a new covenant written internally on the hearts of people. And one Thursday night many, many years later, a man named Jesus broke bread and fed his followers, and then took a cup and said, “This cup is the new COVENANT in my blood.”

You may know that ancient covenants were always sealed with blood. And so in a few moments, when you and I take the Communion cup representing Jesus’ blood, we are entering into, and accepting, and sealing this NEW COVENANT WITH GOD!!

“I will put my law into your minds.”

“I will write it on your heart.”

“I will be your God.”

“You will be my child.”

“You will come to know me.”

“I will forgive you all your sins.”

This is the new covenant God is making with you. And I want to be sure you know what it means. Let me take the promises of the new covenant in reverse order.

It means, first of all, that you are forgiven. God remembers your sins no more. To drink the cup is to receive God’s forgiveness. Are you ready to be forgiven?

Secondly, it means that God is undertaking a process of revealing himself to you. God wants you to know how very much he loves you. God wants you to discover how very much he loves the world. God wants you to know the incredible meaning of the verse that says, “God is love.” Over the course of the rest of your life, God is going to lead you into discoveries of what God is really like! And best of all, God will help you move beyond knowing ABOUT God, to KNOW God personally and intimately! Are you ready to know God?

Third, accepting this new covenant means that God will take you under his wing and parent you as God’s own child. For the rest of your life, “I will be your God and you will be my child.” Are you ready to be a child of God?

And fourth, it means that God will fill your mind and heart with God’s law. The way the world will be changed is not by posting ten or twenty or a million commandments on a street corner somewhere out there and conforming to some religious code or theological mindset. The world will be changed when peoples’ hearts are transformed from the INSIDE OUT by the power of God’s transforming love. The world will be changed when we ourselves BECOME LIKE GOD – overflowing with love and mercy and justice. Jesus said all the laws are fulfilled in this one: “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.” God will create within you a mindset - and a heartset - to LOVE AS GOD LOVES! Are you ready to love?

All these promises of the new covenant are renewed every time we come to the Table and drink the cup of “the new covenant in my blood.”

And do you know what? All around us in the world today there are signs of this new covenant at work among us. Quite apart from theological correctness, or doctrinal purity, or any other form of religious mumbo jumbo, there are people out of whose hearts flow the new covenant of God.

People like you. People like my mother.

At the end of her book, there is an epilogue which I suspect she wrote especially for us children. She writes:

I thought that perhaps through the baring of my heart and soul, you might be able to trace the workings of God in the very fabric of life.

If I were God I would have given up on us way back, but He did not.

This is just one story of God's redeeming love. Perhaps when all of life is over, we will all be able to share the wonderful ways He wooed us to Himself, and will at last begin to see how all the events of this life were but the backdrop of the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

As we come to the service of Communion today, I invite you to seal the deal with God. Eat the bread, drink the cup of the New Covenant in Christ’s blood.

Be forgiven. Come to know God. Discover a Father who loves you. Let your heart become like God’s heart.

And then go and love the world in Jesus’ name.