Written on the Heart Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:1–10; Mark 10:32–45 

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you, from God our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Our theme today is written on the heart, taken from our Old Testament reading.

If your heart was an open book, how would it read? What would be written there, deep within your heart.

Would it be a testimony to those you love? Would it be a journal of all the joys you’ve had in life, and the hurts? 

Would it reveal the grief and loss you still carry in your heart? Or the betrayals you’ve never really forgiven and forgotten? Or the guilt you’ve never let go of?

It’s a little scary to think of what might be written deep within our hearts. 

But it’s comforting to know that when, by Baptism, the Spirit of God lives in your heart, then the Gospel is written there, inscribed by faith, imprinted by love.

God’s words of love in your heart, super cede any other words, any words of selfish sin or lonely grief or lasting pain. God’s words of grace believed, bring healing to your heart, and cleansing to your soul.  

In our Old Testament, God promises to rewrite our hearts with better words, better beliefs, better thoughts, better ways. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts… that He might always be with us. When we carry God’s Word in our hearts as we walk through life, then we never walk alone. 

During His ministry, as Jesus walked with His disciples, He taught them many things that were new and amazing to them; some things they had trouble understanding and accepting, so He patiently told them again and again, until it would finally catch in their minds, and they would accept it in their hearts. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus told His disciples what would have to happen in order for Him to redeem the world. He said, “we are going up to Jerusalem, and there the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

It was hard for them to hear this about their Teacher. They wanted Him to save the world, but not like that.

In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples who thought He was, and Peter answered with His great confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” 

And Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” 

This wasn’t something Peter could just know or figure out, it had to be written on his heart by the Holy Spirit. 

After that, Matthew says, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you.”

Peter said, “Yes, I believe you are the one and only Messiah, sent from Heaven to save the world, but I don’t want you to die.”

It’s understandable where Peter and the disciples were coming from. We would have felt the same way. 

Even Jesus didn’t want to have to be crucified, as no sane person would. So He prayed to His Father in the Garden if there could be any other way to save the world. 

And His Father told Him what He knew in His heart, that there was no other way. 

So Jesus submitted to His Father’s will, and did what His loving, obedient heart told Him to do, He gave His life for you. As the Son of God, the Messiah, it was written on His heart for Him to do that for you.

Our Epistle says, In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

Jesus prayed to His Father at many times, in many places, in far away lonely places, the Gospels say, and in Gethsemane before He died, and from the cross as He died. 

His prayers, the prayers of His heart, gave Him the strength to obey, and the courage to die. 

His Father heard Him. How do we know? Because His Father raised Him. God heard Jesus’ prayers and accepted His sacrifice, and lifted Him from the grave, to the sky, to His right hand in Heaven, to live and rule for eternity.

And to do one more thing: to send His Spirit, so that all He has done for you might be written on your heart, in other words, that you might believe, and share in His reward, a place in heaven for you, and a place on earth for you. 

We call that place on earth the Church. It’s more a relationship, than just a place; a relationship of grace with your God and Father, and love with your brother and sister in Christ. 

A place where the Spirit of God comes upon you and into your heart, through the water and the Word; and Christ Himself comes to you and enters your heart through the bread and the wine, His own body and blood, given and shed; and where the Word is proclaimed that it might inscribed upon your heart, and 

This is the place that our Old Testament speaks of, this place and time of grace. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. 

The Holy Spirit will be given, with the power to believe the Gospel of Christ, and to change the hearts of the people, that we truly want to obey His commands and follow His laws, that we truly love His Word.

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people, God promises. In this place, this relationship we all share, we are one family, brothers and sisters of the heart, bound together by one Heavenly Father we share, and the Word we believe.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. 

As our mission tells, God has made it possible for us to know Christ, and to make Him known, every one of us. Not just one of us, the pastor, or just a few of us, elders and leaders, not just adults, but all of us, young and old, together in this family of faith.

We’ve been made to know, not only about Christ, but to know Him personally, to have His love written in our hearts. 

Thanks be to God, through His Word and His Spirit, the Gospel is written in our hearts, in this gift called faith. God and His Word in our hearts, is our power and truth to live by, wherever we are in life. 

It takes a certain kind of heart to follow Christ in this world. Thanks be to God! He has given you that heart.

May God and His Word always be in your heart, and may your heart always belong to Him.

And may His peace, which passes understanding, always guard your heart and mind, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who lives and abides, deeply and strongly within us. Amen.