a good exchange

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Jer. 2:1-13; Rom. 1:16-25; John 4:43-54

my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
(Jeremiah 2:13)

In this passage God laments that his people, his priests, shepherds, and prophets have not asked:
"Where is the LORD who brought us out..., who led us through..., who brought us in to a plentiful land...?" (v. 6f)
God wants them/us to seek him, even asking "where is the Lord?!" (Of course, we've already heard that it was they who left him, not God who left them and made an exchange... cf. 5).

What they had done (what we do) is not seek the Lord, but complain and grumble - believing that God is not for us, nor with us, demanding our own way, our own "devices and desires," to fulfill our needs, wants and lusts. It is the original sin - God is not good; God is not for us; God designs for us to die, and not live.

What they did (and we do) was to exchange our glory for what is worthless, what does "not profit." Or in a more graphic image, forsake God who is the fountain of living water, and dig out cisterns, broken cisterns, for ourselves that cannot hold water. Living water ("mayim chaim"), is fresh, flowing water - a river or a stream. It is great for drinking, and is the first choice for cleansing by immersion. One would never prefer even a good cistern to "living water," let alone a broken one. But this is in fact the very image God uses with regard to his people's waywardness.

How often I make my own way; I invest my hopes, my trust, my security... in "devices" that cannot contain my hopes, cannot support my trust, cannot provide security.

Yet in the gospel story we've just finished Jesus invites an all-star non-Jewish sinner to drink of the living water he offers, that will satisfy even unto life, now and without end.

Oh, let us forsake our broken cisterns. Let us seek the Lord and live, and drink deeply of him who satisfies.