“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)  On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we have before us one of the most familiar passages in the Old Testament.  There is so much here but for our purposes, I simply want to focus on verse 34 and this topic of “knowing the Lord.”  It seems to me that one thing that both believers and unbelievers all too often have in common is that they do not really know the Lord as well as they think that they do.  I have a Ph.D. in Historical Theology so I have spent a good deal of time (perhaps way too much, some would argue) gaining a headful of knowledge about God’s identity.  I can both say and explain (and even believe) the church’s historic creeds.  Like I said a headful of knowledge.  And yet…I have so often found my heart unchanged, in Jeremiah’s terms, seemingly unwritten upon.  My life all too often does not square with my beliefs.  And yet again, when I quit focusing upon my own heart and remember again the heart of our Lord and Savior, Jesus; when I remember again that long before I asked for forgiveness the heart of God was fully revealed as committed to forgiving me and forgetting my sin.  When I contemplate those matters (as Lent invites us to do) I do find a softening of my own hard heart.  I discover in the great forgiving love of our God, the power to live a new life as a part of a covenant people; a power to act kindly and to walk in justice and righteousness.  You know, it is as if, Jesus has shared his heart with me.  In the end, is that not our greatest joy and a broken world’s greatest hope?  Have a great week!