TEXT: Jeremiah 31: 2   “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness.”

There are two words here which focus our thoughts on the message of the Bible as a whole: wilderness and grace.

Wilderness stands for a place, a time, a situation, circumstances that are hostile to us.

Grace stands for the person, power, purpose of God in that alien environment.  This is the Bible message!

GRACE IN THE WILDERNESS

It reminds us

First – God IS THERE EVEN IN THE WILDERNESS.

Jacob (in Genesis 28) a fugitive in fear of his life found grace in the wilderness and it surprised him:  “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.”

This is a lesson Israel would have to learn in exile in Babylon.  Torn from home, country, Temple their world would come to and end, and they would say, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”  (Psalm 137: 4).  They would learn that God’s presence is inescapable.  (Psalm 139: 7-12).

God is everywhere present, even in exile, even in the wilderness, even in a manger, even on a cross!

This is the God of Scripture.

Secondly – The text teaches us GOD IS THERE TO HELP US EVEN WHEN EVERYTHING IS AGAINST US: there is grace in the wilderness.

There are two worlds:  the world as it is, and the world as we would like it to be – our dream world.  Our dream world is trouble free.  The real world is full of troubles.  False prophets promise that by becoming Christians we escape from reality!  Jesus did not so promise.

The Bible message is that in the real world there is grace enough.  As in the marriage vow, God’s grace is for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

Thirdly – The Good News is GOD IS THERE FOR US.

The story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, and their banishment from the Garden of Eden is in a very real way our story too.  We wander in what John Bunyan described as “the wilderness of this world”.  But there is grace in the wilderness and it is brought to focus in Jesus Christ.  He is the embodiment of grace: seen, touched; human flesh; grace incarnate.  (John 1: 14).

In a world where everything seems to have a price tag, as the poet put it, “Only God can be had for the asking”! 

That is what grace means: that which cannot be bought, or earned, or merited; that which is freely given.  (Romans 6: 23).

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3: 16).

Amen.

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