FRONTLINE DEVOTION FOR MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2006 by Fritz Foltz

Jeremiah 31:31-34

A number of my acquaintances say they never intend to worship again, because when they did as youth they always came away feeling guilty. Their pastors preached fire and brimstone with God as a tyrant who insisted that anything but perfection was unacceptable. My friends say they have had enough of this. They are not going through life feeling guilty for being…human.

I have trouble understanding exactly how they feel, because I have never been the victim of such preaching. My pastors built me up rather than tearing me down. I have heard this fire and brim stone preaching from evangelists on television and sometimes when I read Jeremiah. I often hear the prophet shouting how lousy people are, so lousy that God is angry enough to bring suffering on them. You don’t get far into the book before you feel a certain fatalism. There does not seem to be anything you can do to please God, no matter how much you try.

But then you get to this passage and all is reversed. Suddenly God is not an angry tyrant but a frustrated lover. Suddenly God is not angry that we do not please him, but rather is discouraged that he can not please us.

God is a lover obsessed with his beloved. But no matter what he does, he can not win the heart of the ones he dearly loves. Even after he took them by the hand, weak and enslaved, to lead them out from under the fist of mighty Egypt, even after he taught them the lessons of a healthy life, they rejected his love. In this passage Jeremiah pictures God as a husband who can never win the heart of his wife.

But there is hope. God will start over, try again, as he has done so often. He will forgive the sins of his beloved. Rather than rely on good acts to impress, rather than issuing commands to force, this time God will change their hearts. Doing what is healthy will be natural, something people want to do. There will be no need for commandments such as

“Know the Lord” or “Have no other gods before me”, because God and his people will be living together as husband and wife, loving each other from the heart.

Christians claim that is what it is like living with the Risen Christ. At least that is how I feel. In my heart I want to fulfill God’s laws. It has nothing to do with demands. I simply do not feel those. It has everything to do with promises of the heart, returning love for love.

As you relive Holy week in the coming days, let Christ’s actions speak for themselves. Be sure to let the love of Christ’s actions speak to your heart. Certainly do not shut down your mind or conscience, but remind yourself you are witnessing the actions of an obsessed lover not an angry tyrant.

Let us pray: Almighty Lord, loving Father, prepare our hearts that we might respond to the love of Jesus in ways that warm not only our own lives but also those of the people around us. Bring preachers who offer your love to our young and pastors who act it out. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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