Fixed With Gold

Fixed With Gold

In our home there are a few dishes that are highly prized. They have value to us because of the giver. There are a couple of glasses that were gifts from my father-in-law to my mother-in-law. There are stories behind them. There is a candy dish Sister Burnett gave us recently. Somewhere is the bottom of a crystal candy dish that the late Nadine Wright gave us. The lid was broken and shattered a few years ago and we were unable to repair it. It was irreplaceable.

Living in a world of mass production and ease of obtaining anything we want we tend to discard of broken things. The products that we purchase are designed to become obsolete so that we will buy the new product when it finally comes out or what we have wears out.

This tendency to simply toss out the broken and the old can creep into our lives in other ways. When relationships are broken in some way, we can tend to toss them. Sometimes we do not even imagine that repair is possible, and if it is things will just never be the same. Sometimes repair may cost too much. I have a few broken computers that I have taken to repair shops. The technicians have said the same thing, "It would cost more to repair it, than it will to just purchase a new one. Try to get your data off of it, and toss it." We tend to toss broken things and our landfills are full.

The ancient world was full of pottery and when pottery was broken, it was usually discarded. Museums are filled with broken pottery from ancient cultures. Israel was no stranger to making, using, destroying, and discarding various vessels made of clay. The writers of Scripture used pottery as an image of humanity and human life.

Humanity is said to be made of clay originating from the dust (Gen 2:7; Job 4:19). We live in earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7-9).

The LORD uses a trip to the local pottery shop to speak to Jeremiah about what God does with human lives and nations:

Jeremiah 18:1-6 KJV

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

What a word of hope! When our lives are placed into the Hands of One Greater than we are, He can recreate us into something beautiful. But, Jeremiah's message about pottery doesn't end here. In the next chapter, he writes:

Jeremiah 19:1-2, 10-11

1 Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; 2 And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee... 10 Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, 11 And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

I can imagine Jeremiah's emotions plunging. There was hope in the hands of the potter when the clay was still moist and malleable, but now he had taken a vessel that had already gone through the fire and shattered it. There was nothing left to do, but discard it. Yet, if we use the biblical imagination, there is hope even in these verses. This broken vessel is buried and there is a "God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not" (Rom 4:17 NIV).

Ephesians 3:20 KIV

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us..."

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us..." (NIV).

Where we may see nothing that can bring about hope, the God of Scripture is able to redeem and restore. Don't throw it away until you bring it to him.