Jeremiah 31:31-34
Reformation Sunday - 30 October 2016
Rev. John Derme
We all make promises every day. We promise our spouses, "I will be home by such-and-such a time." We promise our kids, "I will spend time with you tomorrow." We promise our parents, "I will clean my room this weekend." We promise ourselves, "I will stop eating junk food and lose weight." Sometimes we keep our promises, but sometimes we break them. If we would realize how many of our promises we have broken, we would probably be surprised. And we would probably feel guilty.
On this Reformation Day and over the following three Sundays, we are going to hear some promises that God made. He made them all the way back in the Old Testament – over 2500 years ago! Yet all of the promises that we will hear contain meaning for us. And when God makes a promise, you know that he will keep it. Today we find comfort and forgiveness as the Lord promises, “I will make a new covenant with you.”
That promise was the Lord's, but he used the prophet Jeremiah to deliver it to his people. Jeremiah had the unenviable task of preaching God’s Word at a time when the nations of Israel and Judah had obviously broken their covenant with God. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed because of its people's wickedness, and the southern kingdom of Judah would soon be defeated, as well.
The covenant with God that the people had broken was nearly 1000-years-old by the time of Jeremiah. God had made this covenant with them after he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. He defeated Egypt's pharaoh and army and led them through the Red Sea and to Mt. Sinai. There they heard the 10 Commandments that God himself spoke to them, as well as the rest of the law that Moses delivered to them. They made a promise to do everything that God had said. This was the old covenant: they would obey God, and he would bless them.
Unfortunately, they were not able to keep their end of the covenant. Shortly after they made their promise, they broke it when they worshiped the golden calf. And the people broke their promise again and again afterwards, even though God was so good to them. Of course, when God made that covenant with them, he knew they were going to break it. That was actually the main purpose of the old covenant, to show them that they couldn't keep God's law, no matter how much they promised they would do it. Yet as time went on, for some reason, people misunderstood the purpose of God's law and thought that they could keep it, and that God would bless them because of all they did for him.
The Lord spoke through Jeremiah to show his people how they had broken the covenant between himself and them. When you and I read or hear God's law for us in the 10 Commandments, we realize that we have broken the same law that they broke. By nature, we think we are able to keep God's law. We think that he ought to reward us for all the good things we do. But if we can't keep all our promises to other people, do you think we can keep the covenant to do everything that God says perfectly? Even when we've promised that we wouldn't break this, that, or the other Commandment, we have failed. We have sinned.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't try hard not to sin. It is a good thing when we strive to keep God's commandments to the best of our abilities. But if we think that we can do what we need to do to earn God's blessings, then we have missed the point of God's law. The main reason that you and I need to hear the law is not that we would keep it. The main reason that we need to know God's law is so that we will see that we have not kept it. God's Word tells us that we are, by nature, lost and condemned creatures. We need to understand that, otherwise we will keep trying to save ourselves or stop trying because we think that we already have. But once we confess our sins to him, then we are ready to hear the rest of what God's Word says: God has saved us.
That is what God was promising to do in our First Lesson, when he said, "I will make a new covenant." The new covenant is not about what we do or earn. It is all about what God does for us. Though the old covenant shows us that we have not kept our promises to God, the new covenant says that he forgives our sins for free through faith.
The forgiveness of sins is not God's way of saying that it really wasn't that big of a deal that you broke his law. It was. It is also not God saying, "Let's just pretend that never happened." Since you and I couldn't do it, the Lord did something about our sins. Therefore, God the Father sent his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus did keep God's law completely perfectly. He never broke any of God's Commandments even once. Then Jesus suffered and died to pay the price for all of the Commandments that we and everybody else have ever broken.
Jesus keeping God's law is now credited to your account. The payment for sin that Jesus accomplished is now credited to your account. God the Father makes those blessings yours through faith in Jesus – when you hear and trust his promise. And now he does say to you, "I will remember your sins no more." It is not that God has forgotten about the bad things that you have done. God knows everything and forgets nothing. Rather, he has chosen not to remember your sins, because Jesus took care of them for you. Because he has washed your sins away in Baptism and because he keeps forgiving you in what Jesus called "the new covenant in my blood," that is, Communion, your sins are gone. If God has put them out of his mind, they no longer need to cause you guilt, either.
Today we are celebrating the 499th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation. Today begins the countdown to the 500th anniversary! We are working on some plans to make our 500th anniversary special. But why do we make such a big deal about the Reformation? Why do we celebrate it every year and why should we get excited about the 500th?
Martin Luther knew what it was like to live under the old covenant, even though he was not an Old Testament Israelite. He was taught that he had to earn God’s righteousness by what he did. But he realized that he couldn’t. Because the law worked on his heart and he was not told about the new covenant, he saw God as only an angry judge.
But when Luther studied the Scriptures, he read God's promise of the forgiveness of sins. He found comfort for his own life. He proclaimed this good news to others, so that many more have been released from guilt.
We do not celebrate the Reformation because it is some ethnic holiday, and not even because it is a Lutheran holiday. We celebrate the Reformation, because in so doing we hear the gospel. We celebrate the Reformation, because God has forgiven our sins. We celebrate the Reformation because it teaches us to trust in what he has done for us. Isn't that the most important thing in the world to celebrate?
The Lord made the promise 2500 years ago, and he has fulfilled it in Jesus' work and by bringing us to believe. Though you have broken your promises to God, God has kept his promise to you to forgive your sins. Just as he brought comfort to Luther, he has brought it to you. Jesus did it all. Rejoice in the Lord's promise! He has made and fulfilled his new covenant with you!