The Message on Our Hearts| 2 Corinthians 3:1-3
2 Corinthians 3:1-3
The Message on Our Hearts
If you were to go to the library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and search the files for books written by Jesus of Nazareth how many entries would you find? That is an easy question, isn’t it? The answer is zero. You would not find one book written by Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus never wrote any books, not a pamphlet or a track. Unlike John Wesley who wrote a lot of all of those. Of course, if you put Jesus of Nazareth as the subjects of books written, you find thousands upon thousands. And as the Gospel of John says, if we were to write down everything that Jesus did just between the resurrection and the ascension, the whole world could not contain the books describing the things he had done.
But Jesus did not write any books.
We do have evidence that Jesus could read and write. He read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in his home town synagogue in Nazareth just before he preached. He knelt down and wrote in the sand once when a group of scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to him they accused of committing sin.
Jesus didn’t write books because as I recently read in a commentary on this passage, the words of truth he did write were written on material more permanent than parchment. Jesus wrote his truth on human hearts.
Let’s look at our text again from 2 Corinthians. The words of the Apostle Paul:
Here is 2 Corinthians 3:1-3
Jesus wrote his truth and his message on the hearts of the people of Paul’s day and time,
And Jesus writes his words of truth on the hearts of people of our day and time.
And unlike the message he wrote in the sand before the Pharisees and Scribes that the wind blew away, the message he writes on our hearts stands forever.
So what is this message that Jesus writes on our heart?
It’s an echo of God’s promises we see in other places, like e.g., Psalm 40:1 where the Psalmist says: “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turns to us and he hears our cry. He lifts us up….out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire.”
So what is this message that Jesus writes on the hearts of human beings?
“I will lift you out of the mud and the mire.”
Some versions of the Bible translate that phrase. “mud and mire,” as “horrible pit.”
In the Hebrew, the phrase literally means “pit of noise.”
Have you ever felt like you’ve been trapped in a “big pit of noise, “ or am I just remembering that death metal concert my son talked me into going to once?
In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, after Lady Macbeth has died with whom he plotted to kill King Duncan, he cries out from what sounds like a horrible pit, saying:
“Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on the stage and then is heard no more. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury – signifying nothing!”
Jesus’ message written on our hearts is that life is not a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. Jesus’ message is, “I will lift you out of the horrible pit.”
That is awesome…but that is not all there is to the message because he goes on to say as we see in Psalm 40:2.
After he pulls us out of the mud and mire, he sets our feet on a rock and gives us a firm place to stand.
He pulls us out of the mud and mire and places our feet on the solid ground.
I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life when I have been desperate to find a firm place to stand.
The hymn that says “all other ground is sinking sand?” ….I could have written that song…..
I have been in the sinking sand.
There have been times when I have felt like I’ve been stuck in the sinking sand having to listen to a symphony before the conductor shows up. Have you heard a symphony before the conductor shows up? There is a reason the conductor waits until after the musicians have all tuned up. It is awful.
As my grandfather would say it is a racket. It is definitely a pit of noise.
If that is all you ever heard a symphony do, you wouldn’t think much of it, would you? But what happens?
The conductor walks to the podium and raises her baton and what was a bunch of noise becomes something so beautiful words can’t even begin to describe it.
There is no way to describe how beautiful it is.
That is what Jesus does.
He pulls us out of the mud and mire, he puts our feet on solid ground and then does something even better.
Jesus gave us a song to sing. He gives us a purpose for living, places to go and things to do, so that our life is not just a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.
The message Jesus has for us as we see in 2 Corinthians and the Psalms and so many other places, that is written on our hearts is that the Lord rescues us and makes a way even for those of us who lack confidence in ever accomplishing anything of any real significance.
I am going to touch on that a little bit more next week in our text on Palm Sunday as we give some thought to the significance of that donkey that brought Jesus into Jerusalem in what is sometimes called the triumphal procession, but for now I want to read the words of a song I had almost forgotten about that really expresses the heart of our text today from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
It’s called The Master’s Hand. (read Touch of a Master’s Hand)
The touch of the Master’s hand, the letter written not on parchment, but on material more permanent, the human heart. e it, that is Good News.