Good
Morning All,
Ezekiel 36:26; “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit
I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
give you a heart of flesh.”
On Dec. 3, 1967, the world’s first human heart
transplant occurred. Dr. Christiaan
Barnard performed the procedure in South Africa on a grocer who had chronic
heart disease. He lived 18 days with the
new heart before he died of pneumonia.
That was an amazing feat some 50+ years ago; today some 3500 transplants
and performed yearly with the average survival time of 15 years.
A new heart, it was an incredible feat at
the time. The nightly news programs
counted each day that the patient survived.
Many people wondered if this was the end of dying (it wasn’t) but all
saw it as a definite change in the way we all would live our life.
In our verse, God promises his people a
new heart and a new spirit. The
interesting thing about this verse is how God refers to removing the heart of
stone and giving you a heart of flesh.
When God created man, he placed man in the garden to tend it and to live
in harmony with his companion and to live quietly and joyfully in the presence
of God. This is what we were supposed to
be but sin entered the world and it hardened man’s heart turning it to stone.
Some may wonder at this idea but look at
the nature of the sinful world. How else
can we explain the brutality that man will cause to another human being? We see the indiscriminate destruction, the
willful refusal to come to the aid and comfort of people in distress. Starvation and rape are viewed as
“legitimate” methods of war. Violence is
common and hatred is the norm. We must
have a heart of stone to act this way.
As God reveals the truth to us, we see our
abysmal failure in any attempt to live a God-pleasing life. Man simply could not overcome the sinful
desires which he had. His heart was so
hardened and so closed to what we were supposed to be that he no longer had a
human heart rather he had a heart of stone.
So God performed a heart transplant.
As we read this, we see it as baptismal
language or talk. Remember that through
Baptism we receive the Spirit of God and we drown the old Adam and become new
creations. Through Jesus’ atoning death,
Baptism now saves us. Because of the
work of Christ we receive this new heart and new spirit. God is restoring us to our original intent;
to be human; to live in his glorious presence and to live together with God’s
true gift of love and peace. We see this
promise given to us through Baptism. We
see God removing the stone heart and replacing it with a human heart filled
with his Holy Spirit. It is through this
gift that we can now live as God designed us.
We no longer need to fear the devil but we can look for ways to live our
life in harmony with each other in the presence of God and in his mercy. We receive many gifts from God through his
grace but receiving a new heart, which actually does end dying, may be one of
the greatest.
Gracious Father, your mercies are new to us every day. We thank you for the gift of a new heart and
our new life. Move us to live our life
in service to our neighbor as we live in peace before you. This we ask in Jesus precious name, amen
God’s
Peace,
Pastor
Bret
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