Written In Stone
Sermon
Journey Of Stones
A Sermon Series For Lent And Easter
Dear friends in Christ, grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Have you ever made a promise, and then gone back on your word? I'll bet you have; and I'm not speaking of the minor agreements that we make to one another every day. Phrases like "I promise I'll brush my teeth at Billy's sleepover." Or "I promise to take out the garbage on Friday morning." Rather, I refer to the agreements that have significant and far-reaching consequences for our lives. Promises that, if we break them, turn our world upside down. Let me show you what I mean.
Mike and Helen were a couple very much in love. They dated for more than two years, and then decided to get married. Following months of planning and preparation, Mike and Helen stood in front of their pastor and hundreds of family and friends on a Saturday afternoon, and they made some promises to each other. A kiss sealed their commitment, the applause of their witnesses affirmed it, and they lived happily ever after. For about a year.
On their first anniversary, Mike discovered that Helen had been unfaithful. You don't need to hear the details, except to know that Helen did not keep her end of their agreement. Now Mike was standing before his wife, holding in his hands the covenant they had signed on their wedding day. He began to read it out loud:
Question: Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will you care for him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will you be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?
Answer: Yes.
With that, Mike tore their wedding covenant into tiny pieces and threw them into the air. And they never spoke again, except through their attorneys. Not ever. You see, when a covenant is broken, it is not easily repaired. When a promise is made, it is like a gleaming crystal vase. But when a promise is broken, the pieces lie shattered on the floor.
The story of God's covenant with you and me goes back more than 4,000 years, when a leader named Moses was called high on a mountain to meet with God face-to-face. Moses was already a hero, having been used by God to bring the people of Israel out of slavery and into a land of their own. Now God was offering these same people a promise, a relationship that was so special the people of Israel could only be called "chosen." These are the words that God used:
If you will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my special treasure among all peoples ... you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
When Moses brought God's offer to the people of Israel, the people were ecstatic. They immediately agreed to obey God's commands. "We will do it!" they shouted. "Everything the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." So Moses went back up to the top of the mountain and sealed the deal. It was not a kiss between lovers. It wasn't the applause of the angels. It was contract time, and God's expectations would be written in stone.
It's an interesting phrase, isn't it? "Written in stone." We use that idiom yet today to describe something that is secure and long-lasting, in fact, something that is to be permanent. That is exactly what God intended the Ten Commandments to be -- a covenant that would last forever. With his own hands, God cut the tablets. With his own fingers, God engraved the words. God's love for his people was written in stone.
But the problem was, it took God forty days. The people of Israel, who waited impatiently, finally began to get restless. They figured Moses wasn't coming back. And then Aaron had a bright idea! "Quickly" he told the people, "take off your jewelry; your rings, your bracelets, and your earrings. Let's make a golden calf, a god for us to worship that we can see and touch and believe in." And so they did.
By the time Moses came down the mountain, a party was in progress. People were singing and dancing and drinking and playing "ring around the rosy" at an altar with a golden god upon it. And Moses was furious! In anger, he threw down the tablets of God and they shattered into a thousand pieces. It was not a symbolic gesture; it was a sign that the covenant was ended. The deal was off! A special relationship no longer existed between God and the people that God loved.
In my mind's eye, I see the people of Israel, picking up small pieces of the tablets, with thoughts of what might have been. Holding these broken rocks in their hands -- some of which still held the handwriting of God -- must have filled them with grief and guilt and shame. It wasn't Moses who shattered the covenant, that much they knew. It was their own sinful, selfish lives and the breaking of the promise which they had made to God.
Four thousand years is a long, long time. It's long enough to remove the guilt that accompanies a broken promise. And it is certainly long enough to relieve us from feeling responsible for others disobeying God. What were those foolish Israelites thinking? How could they so blatantly and so intentionally break God's laws? But then, the honest ones among us realize that we wouldn't have acted any differently than they did, because we break God's laws all the time. Don't we? Don't we?
The Ten Commandments were not merely intended for the people of Israel, circa 1000 B.C. They're written in stone, remember? The Laws of God are timeless, changeless expectations. But you and I so often choose to violate them, or ignore them, or rewrite them to fit our own circumstances, and then we assume that God will look the other way.
We're told by God that he alone wants to be our God. Author Leith Anderson suggests that everybody has a center of life; it is that thing which is most important to us, and it controls everything about us.1 Well, if God is at our center, then that will be obvious by the way we live. But if our god is, say, wealth or power or popularity or our spouse or our children or our hobbies ... then we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God to honor our father and mother, and most of the time we do. But there are those times when we fail. "My old man says I have to mow the lawn." "My mom thinks I'm at the library studying, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her." "My parents are the stupidest people I know. Oh, I hate them!" And again, we have broken what was written in stone.
We're told by God that we are not supposed to lie, and we say we agree. But a recent poll revealed that 91 percent of Americans lie regularly, and only 31 percent believe that honesty is the best policy.2 Whenever we lie, or whenever we fail to tell the truth, we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God that we should not steal, and we say we will obey. But even religious people fudge on their income tax forms and think nothing of it. And academic cheating has reached epidemic proportions on our campuses, but students don't see the problem. "No blood -- no foul," they say. And again, we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God that we shouldn't commit adultery, and we think that's a good suggestion. But since 1960, there has been a 400 percent increase in illegitimate births in America. Ninety-five percent of the couples I marry are sexually active before their wedding day. And if you want to get technical, Jesus was quoted as saying, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery." Jesus also said, "Anyone who looks at a person with lust in his heart has already committed adultery." It is written in stone, but apparently it just doesn't matter.
The issue here is not that we have broken the Commandments, but rather, that we have become a broken people. We are guilty and ashamed of the things we have done and said. We have hurt others, hurt ourselves, and hurt God. Ultimately we come to this realization: we need a Savior who will save us from ourselves. The season of Lent is our time to ask God to forgive our foolishness.
Tonight, you hold in your hands pieces of stone. Notice that they are not smooth stones; rather, their edges are sharp and jagged, as if broken. We have a choice tonight -- and every Wednesday during the season of Lent -- as to what to do with those stones. We can hang on to them as a painful reminder of our sin, and it will continue to make us bitter, broken people. Or we can let them go; we can lay them at the foot of the cross, and ask God to give us another chance.
Before you leave this evening, I invite you to leave your broken stone with Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.
____________
1. Leith Anderson, Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, 1994, Bethany House Publishers.
2. James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth, 1991, Prentice Hall Press.
Discussion Questions
1. What promises are most frequently broken in the world today? Which promise is most frequently broken by me?
2. What is it about the gods of this world that are so attractive to us?
3. What did the pastor mean when we were referred to as "broken people"?
Have you ever made a promise, and then gone back on your word? I'll bet you have; and I'm not speaking of the minor agreements that we make to one another every day. Phrases like "I promise I'll brush my teeth at Billy's sleepover." Or "I promise to take out the garbage on Friday morning." Rather, I refer to the agreements that have significant and far-reaching consequences for our lives. Promises that, if we break them, turn our world upside down. Let me show you what I mean.
Mike and Helen were a couple very much in love. They dated for more than two years, and then decided to get married. Following months of planning and preparation, Mike and Helen stood in front of their pastor and hundreds of family and friends on a Saturday afternoon, and they made some promises to each other. A kiss sealed their commitment, the applause of their witnesses affirmed it, and they lived happily ever after. For about a year.
On their first anniversary, Mike discovered that Helen had been unfaithful. You don't need to hear the details, except to know that Helen did not keep her end of their agreement. Now Mike was standing before his wife, holding in his hands the covenant they had signed on their wedding day. He began to read it out loud:
Question: Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will you care for him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will you be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?
Answer: Yes.
With that, Mike tore their wedding covenant into tiny pieces and threw them into the air. And they never spoke again, except through their attorneys. Not ever. You see, when a covenant is broken, it is not easily repaired. When a promise is made, it is like a gleaming crystal vase. But when a promise is broken, the pieces lie shattered on the floor.
The story of God's covenant with you and me goes back more than 4,000 years, when a leader named Moses was called high on a mountain to meet with God face-to-face. Moses was already a hero, having been used by God to bring the people of Israel out of slavery and into a land of their own. Now God was offering these same people a promise, a relationship that was so special the people of Israel could only be called "chosen." These are the words that God used:
If you will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my special treasure among all peoples ... you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
When Moses brought God's offer to the people of Israel, the people were ecstatic. They immediately agreed to obey God's commands. "We will do it!" they shouted. "Everything the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." So Moses went back up to the top of the mountain and sealed the deal. It was not a kiss between lovers. It wasn't the applause of the angels. It was contract time, and God's expectations would be written in stone.
It's an interesting phrase, isn't it? "Written in stone." We use that idiom yet today to describe something that is secure and long-lasting, in fact, something that is to be permanent. That is exactly what God intended the Ten Commandments to be -- a covenant that would last forever. With his own hands, God cut the tablets. With his own fingers, God engraved the words. God's love for his people was written in stone.
But the problem was, it took God forty days. The people of Israel, who waited impatiently, finally began to get restless. They figured Moses wasn't coming back. And then Aaron had a bright idea! "Quickly" he told the people, "take off your jewelry; your rings, your bracelets, and your earrings. Let's make a golden calf, a god for us to worship that we can see and touch and believe in." And so they did.
By the time Moses came down the mountain, a party was in progress. People were singing and dancing and drinking and playing "ring around the rosy" at an altar with a golden god upon it. And Moses was furious! In anger, he threw down the tablets of God and they shattered into a thousand pieces. It was not a symbolic gesture; it was a sign that the covenant was ended. The deal was off! A special relationship no longer existed between God and the people that God loved.
In my mind's eye, I see the people of Israel, picking up small pieces of the tablets, with thoughts of what might have been. Holding these broken rocks in their hands -- some of which still held the handwriting of God -- must have filled them with grief and guilt and shame. It wasn't Moses who shattered the covenant, that much they knew. It was their own sinful, selfish lives and the breaking of the promise which they had made to God.
Four thousand years is a long, long time. It's long enough to remove the guilt that accompanies a broken promise. And it is certainly long enough to relieve us from feeling responsible for others disobeying God. What were those foolish Israelites thinking? How could they so blatantly and so intentionally break God's laws? But then, the honest ones among us realize that we wouldn't have acted any differently than they did, because we break God's laws all the time. Don't we? Don't we?
The Ten Commandments were not merely intended for the people of Israel, circa 1000 B.C. They're written in stone, remember? The Laws of God are timeless, changeless expectations. But you and I so often choose to violate them, or ignore them, or rewrite them to fit our own circumstances, and then we assume that God will look the other way.
We're told by God that he alone wants to be our God. Author Leith Anderson suggests that everybody has a center of life; it is that thing which is most important to us, and it controls everything about us.1 Well, if God is at our center, then that will be obvious by the way we live. But if our god is, say, wealth or power or popularity or our spouse or our children or our hobbies ... then we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God to honor our father and mother, and most of the time we do. But there are those times when we fail. "My old man says I have to mow the lawn." "My mom thinks I'm at the library studying, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her." "My parents are the stupidest people I know. Oh, I hate them!" And again, we have broken what was written in stone.
We're told by God that we are not supposed to lie, and we say we agree. But a recent poll revealed that 91 percent of Americans lie regularly, and only 31 percent believe that honesty is the best policy.2 Whenever we lie, or whenever we fail to tell the truth, we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God that we should not steal, and we say we will obey. But even religious people fudge on their income tax forms and think nothing of it. And academic cheating has reached epidemic proportions on our campuses, but students don't see the problem. "No blood -- no foul," they say. And again, we have broken that which was written in stone.
We're told by God that we shouldn't commit adultery, and we think that's a good suggestion. But since 1960, there has been a 400 percent increase in illegitimate births in America. Ninety-five percent of the couples I marry are sexually active before their wedding day. And if you want to get technical, Jesus was quoted as saying, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery." Jesus also said, "Anyone who looks at a person with lust in his heart has already committed adultery." It is written in stone, but apparently it just doesn't matter.
The issue here is not that we have broken the Commandments, but rather, that we have become a broken people. We are guilty and ashamed of the things we have done and said. We have hurt others, hurt ourselves, and hurt God. Ultimately we come to this realization: we need a Savior who will save us from ourselves. The season of Lent is our time to ask God to forgive our foolishness.
Tonight, you hold in your hands pieces of stone. Notice that they are not smooth stones; rather, their edges are sharp and jagged, as if broken. We have a choice tonight -- and every Wednesday during the season of Lent -- as to what to do with those stones. We can hang on to them as a painful reminder of our sin, and it will continue to make us bitter, broken people. Or we can let them go; we can lay them at the foot of the cross, and ask God to give us another chance.
Before you leave this evening, I invite you to leave your broken stone with Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.
____________
1. Leith Anderson, Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, 1994, Bethany House Publishers.
2. James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth, 1991, Prentice Hall Press.
Discussion Questions
1. What promises are most frequently broken in the world today? Which promise is most frequently broken by me?
2. What is it about the gods of this world that are so attractive to us?
3. What did the pastor mean when we were referred to as "broken people"?
