Enduring Word

There was a man who passed away about two years ago who went by the name of Brother Andrew. He was born in the Netherlands in 1928. He became a Christian in his late teens. While attending a Youth Festival in communist Poland he met a Christian bookseller who shared with Andrew that there was a lack of Bibles in the Soviet Union. He eventually founded an organization named Open Doors and part of the work they did was to smuggle Bibles and other Christian literature into the countries of the Soviet Union. Brother Andrew personally smuggled countless Bibles up until 1967 when a biography about him came out which shared what he had been doing all these years. He would often pray that the eyes of the soldiers would be closed to seeing what it was that he was doing. In his book, Secret Believers, Brother Andrew writes, “Of course it’s dangerous. But it’s a lot more dangerous for all of us if we don’t do it. Even in a conquering army there are casualties. Safety is not the issue when we look at the Great Commission. The purpose of the church cannot be to survive, or even to thrive, but to serve.”

The story of Brother Andrew resonated with me as I was studying the story of Jeremiah and Baruch. To make a comparison, Jeremiah’s biography, so to speak had, by this time, already been known to King Jehoiakim so he was not able to travel and share the scroll himself. So it was up to Baruch to bring this newly written scroll to the be heard at the temple in front of all who would hear it that day. What happens next is exciting. There were some officials that heard what Baruch read and understood that it must have come from Jeremiah and while they tell Baruch to hide the scroll is shared with the king. It almost seems as if those officials were hoping that when it was brought to the king that he would accept the words and change. We don’t get these verses in our reading today, but part of the story is the original officials that heard the words of Jeremiah’s scroll were upset and begged the king not to burn the scroll like he had.

And I have to tell you that King Jehoiakim’s use of a scribes knife only underscores how much he didn’t want the word of God from Jeremiah to be in his country. There are several reasons why a scribe uses a knife as a tool when writing, but the one that resonates the most with me as pertaining to this story is that one of the functions of the knife was to cut out mistakes or extra marks on the papyrus. Essentially what it appears that Jehoiakim is doing is far worse than simply cutting up the scroll and throwing it into the fire. Admittedly that is already bad, but if we combine the fact that not only is he burning Jeremiah’s prophecy, but he is cutting out sections at a time as if to say that God’s prophecy from Jeremiah is a mistake to be erased, is just a powerful image of how much this king rejects what Jeremiah is trying to do for the people.

I am sure that any Bibles that were confiscated by officials in the Soviet Union that were smuggled across, whether from Brother Andrew’s Open Doors team or anyone else attempting to bring God’s word there, would have been dealt with in the same manner, they would be burned so that no one would have the opportunity to hear God’s word.

And yet what is so amazing is that Baruch is able to write the scroll down a second time to preserve God’s word. What is also amazing is how many times Brother Andrew crossed into the Soviet Union and his pray was answered and the officials never stopped him which would mean that his Bibles would be confiscated and burned and he would likely have been thrown into prison. Bibles made their way into the Soviet Union. And so did the scroll of Jeremiah, because here we are reading it thousands of years later. No matter what Jehoiakim did and no matter how hard Khrushchev tried God’s word endured.

And what is more amazing and more powerful than the scroll and the Bible’s surviving is the fact that faith survived. It wasn’t just the Bible’s that made it into the Soviet Union, but the people who lived their and held onto their belief endured the test of time as well. And so did God’s word in the hearts of the people despite Jehoiakim trying to suppress it. And it endured even when shortly after Jehoiakim’s reign the Babylonian captivity started. The faith endured even when they weren’t in their own land and may not have had easy or any access to the written word of God.

That is why I love the passage from Jeremiah 31:31-34 so much. God speaks through Jeremiah about the coming of a new covenant and that new covenant will be written on the hearts of the people. What I love about this phrase so much is that it doesn’t replace the need for the written word of God, because we clearly see God instruct Jeremiah and Baruch to write the prophecies again, but God wants more than just the written word to be what people hold onto. God wants the world to know that a relationship with God, God’s covenantal promises are not bound to the words written on a page, but that God’s promises, God’s love, God’s desire for a right relationship with everyone is in the very being and essence of the people themselves.

And we see that new covenant promise fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We also know that the Spirit lives in each of us and so we can say that we all know the LORD because the love of God is within each and every one of us. And God made it so that despite rulers like Jehoiakim or Khrushchev or anyone else in this world there is nothing they can do to take God’s word from us. God also made it so that the true ruler of this world is Christ Jesus our Lord. And that my friends is why we celebrate today as Christ the King Sunday. We remember that God’s love, God’s promises, God’s covenant are more important than any ruler, any law or any group that we may look to in this world. Christ is the one who we should focus on and listen to above anything else. God is the one who reigns forever and who’s promises are always kept. And for that and everything else God does for us today, and each day of our lives we give thanks and praise. Amen.