Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-28 and Jeremiah 31:31-34
Jeremiah has a word from God for the king and the kingdom that the king doesn’t want to hear. Jeremiah is barred from the God’s house, so he sends a scroll with Baruch to the house of the Lord to read the scroll. The scroll makes its way to the king, and as the king has it read in his apartments, and after a few paragraphs, cuts the text off and burns it. Eventually the whole scroll is read and destroyed in this fashion. After this, God tells Jeremiah to write another scroll just like the first.
What is God calling to the people? A new covenant, to be written on their hearts. A new covenant, direct from God to God’s people, without a need for kings to intervene. Somehow, the people of God have to get out of the middle of the journey where they seem stuck, and move on.
God intends to get the people moving. God intends to reach out to the people and do something new. And the king is trying to get in the way. The people of God need to hear something from God. It will take the stubbornness of Jeremiah to get the word out. Now we know that this doesn’t really move the people of God. So God is going to have to do another new thing. As we move into Advent, as we prepare for God’s new thing, are we willing to get unstuck ourselves? Are these people of God ready to move out of the middle and listen to a new message from God?
