We, like the early Jews know the law as it is written. We have read it, we have recited it and we have memorized it (sort of), and we, like the Jews, have broken it. This law written on the heart is given to us by the presence of God, the Spirit. The God who moved over the waters at creation, the Spirit who filled Jesus at his baptism and led him into the wilderness and protected him.
This same God will protect us in our own personal wildernesses. The wildernesses of divorce, division, anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, jobs, and money. This God will be with us when we are angry and frustrated and envious of those who have more than we have. This God will be with us in our prejudice and contempt of those who are different from us or have less than we have.
This law comes from the God we experience. It is not a law written on stone or paper, it is written within our lives and on our hearts. It is the law of God, the Spirit, which moved over the waters at our baptisms. It is the law of the God who allows us to be buried with Christ in His death and raised with Him in His resurrection. This is the law that we learn through our experience of the living God.
Several years ago, when I was the Rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans, we welcomed a new family into the church. The couple had moved from Florida to New Orleans for better medical care for the young wife who had had breast cancer for seven years. When I visited them for the first time, I asked the woman if she would like to be anointed for healing. She responded that yes she would and that when she was in Florida, the priest had anointed her during worship. My first thought, was, why didn’t I think of that? I then responded that I liked the idea and that I believed we could make that happen. The first time we included this sacrament of healing in our worship, seventy-five percent of the congregation came forward for the sacrament of healing. This continued for the remaining eight years I served this congregation. The presence of the Holy Spirit was tangible. God’s presence was real and life changing. The experience of God, the law written on our hearts!
We also see God writing the law of life and salvation on our hearts through the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus says, “and now my soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I came to this hour. . . .and I, when I am lifted up from the Earth will draw all people to myself.” (John 12: 20-33)
I want to go out on a limb and suggest the possibility that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was designed to draw all people to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or to God as Spirit and Truth. Lent is a wonderful time for Christians to reflect on this possibility. I believe that God is bigger than we are. I truly believe that God loves all of creation and that Jesus’ life is a sacrament, an action of God that requires no action from us. If God truly loves God’s creation, then it makes sense that God loves all people.
Our baptismal covenant affirms what we read in scripture. In it we are asked, “will you seek and serve Christ in All persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” Next we are asked, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” We answer both of these questions, “I will with God’s help!” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 305)
As God spoke through the prophet, Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; I will be there God and they will be my people. I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
