I remember the corny old song that says, "They've gone just about as fur as they can go." And it seemed just about right, too, at one time. They've gone just about as fur as they can go, when airplanes were invented and we could soar as on eagle's wings. They've gone just about as fur as they can go, when telephones made instant communication possible with anyone else who had such a device; even though at one time we felt we had to shout out our messages when the call was long distance, still we thought the ultimate had come, we thought that every thing that could be invented had been invented. In fact, the US Patent Office at one time was recommended for closing by one its directors, for, he said, “Just about everything that can be invented has already been made.” Therefore no need for a Patent Office. That was about 1910, I believe.
And in the world of medicine, I suppose some felt that there too they had gone about as fur as they can go. At least those of us who are not in the medical professions were so impressed by the marvels performed by physicians and surgeons that we ascribed an almost godlike quality to them; if a doctor said it it was true. If four out of five doctors recommend it, it must be right. If your nurse said not to move, you didn't move. We were impressed by medicine and we just imagined that they knew it all.
But then came a whole series of startling developments; then came a surge of new discoveries and new procedures that shocked us and amazed us. Drs. Salk and Sabin found vaccines to combat the scourge of childhood. Christiaan Barnard pioneered techniques of surgery for the heart. And, most amazing of all, they began to do organ transplants: not just repairs, but transplants -- livers and lungs and kidneys, and, the one which captured our imagination most of all, heart transplants. There were baboon hearts and human hearts, Jarvik 7 mechanical hearts, transplants with heart and lung together, an incredible array of experiments and procedures and cliffhanging patients, accompanied by television and newspaper and all the rest. We knew then that we were witnessing yet another step in the growth of science, in the development of the near-miraculous. Heart transplants; what a captivating idea! Because we, like the ancient men and women of the Bible, have the instinct that somehow the heart is more than a pump for blood, more than a device to circulate a cleansing fluid, that it lies at the very core of human life. The heart, for us, is still a symbol of all that it is to be human, and so when folks came out of the operating room and were able to talk to reporters, the questions were, “What does it feel like to have someone else’s heart beating in you? What does it feel like; are you somehow aware of that other person whose body grew this heart for you?” We have a funny instinct, you see, that the recipients of a heart transplant somehow, in a spooky way, had someone else’s life perpetuated inside his own life, inside his own body.
And so it may be that we are the first generation fully prepared to get inside of what the prophet Ezekiel was talking about when he proclaimed a God who would give us a new heart. It may be, you see, that we who have witnessed the actual, physical transplant of a human heart, snatched from the dying body of one person, plunged into the body of another – it may be that we are the first generation, having experienced that, who can get inside the feel of God's kind of heart transplant - who can understand the notion that a new heart, if there really can be such a thing – a new heart, might change us radically. A new heart might alter us forever. A new heart, in fact, might give us a strange and wondrous feeling that somebody else is inside us, and more than that, that we want to be grateful to that one who has given his own heart, that we might live.
A new heart: Ezekiel says that God offers this to His people: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannessses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
God's heart transplant: what will it involve? What is it like? What will I feel when I get it? And what difference will it make, God's heart transplant?
I
The first thing that will happen when God's heart transplant is to take place is that God will, like a careful surgeon, scrub up. Now stay with me, don't get bent out of shape, I'm not just trying to be cute; I'm going to quote the Scripture to you, how God the surgeon scrubs up to get a germ-free, infection-free environment. Listen, first to how Ezekiel puts it, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses.” Does that remind you of the operating room? And then he goes on to tell us what the infection is of which we must be cleansed: “From all your idols I will cleanse you.” From all your idols I will cleanse you.
Much as the surgical team must see to it that no infection is allowed to contaminate the patient, much as the physician, because he wants nothing to intrude which might ruin his work, must clean and clean thoroughly, just so our God is anxious to see to it that no idols infect us spiritually. Our God scrubs up, our God, before he can give us a new heart, will expose to us the idolatry that is in our life, he will show us how many false gods we have been following, he will tell us in terms clear and plain that we have taken into our systems all sorts of contaminating things: contaminating habits, destructive beliefs, unworthy allegiances. And these have become our idols, these have become the: things we live by; but these he must cleanse before we can receive the gift of a new heart.
A recent research article on the baby boom generation – that is, roughly, those between about 24 and 41 years of age, the Baby Boomers who are new young adults, showed that here is a generation which may still be in the church pews, but they remain unconvinced, uncommitted, and largely unconverted. If you are at all typical this morning of the baby boom generation, according to this study, you are here and yet you are not here. You've come for some reason or another, maybe because you do sense that need for a new heart, but, says the study, the baby boomer has some lifestyles that he or she doesn't want to give up. Maybe it's hanging on to the dollar; perhaps it's the hot pursuit of position and status; it may be a moral or sexual practice that seems to be too much fun to surrender. And so, says one interpreter of this study, "The Baby Boomers are not amoral; they just believe that the individual is the final arbiter of what is right and wrong."
Now I am afraid the Bible has a particularly ugly word for that. The word is idolatry; idolatry, worshipping something in yourself, worshipping a god, a goal, an ideal you've made with your own hands or your own mind. And if there is to be a new heart at all, if there is to be any kind of new direction and new life, if we are to survive God's heart transplant, then we are going to have to let our God scrub up, we are going to have to allow him to banish every idol and cast out every false value. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you". That's the first step in God's surgical preparation, preparing for God's heart transplant.
II
Now the second step will be somewhat familiar to anyone who has ever even visited a patient in the hospital, let alone be a patient. And that is the plumbing – the plumbing. You find that a hospital patient is hooked up to a bewildering array of tubes and pipes, wires and electrodes, white and red, black and blue – no, I guess it's the patient that's black and blue. Well, you get the idea. There are a whole host of connections that have to be made to surgical patients, some to monitor what is happening, some to assist natural functions.
So, for instance, there will sometimes be a machine which is designed to assist breathing. Years ago, certain patients who had suffered paralytic diseases were placed in large tank-like apparatus popularly called an iron lung; it assisted breathing. Today the equipment is not so cumbersome as that, but it still performs the same sort of function; for those with respiratory problems, for those whose own lungs and heart are impaired, there may be oxygen, or there may be a device which assures that breathing can keep on, even though many other functions do not. This is breathing assistance.
Now listen to Ezekiel describe our God's breathing assistance; you have to remember that in Hebrew the word for breath and the word for Spirit are one and the same: ruach, breath, spirit. Listen to Ezekiel's God: “A new spirit I will put within you." A new spirit I will put within you, a new ruach, a new breath I will put within you." Breathing assistance; that's a very vital part of God's heart transplant.
What is Ezekiel talking about? What does God mean when he says he will put a new spirit, a new breath within us? I believe He is saying that He is going to keep us alive, He is going to keep us going, through those critical times, until our transformation is complete. I believe that God is telling us that as he gave us the breath of life to begin with, surely now, in the waiting times, in the rough times, when it seems as though all is lost, when it appears that spiritually we are in limbo, we are nowhere – even then God is at work to keep us breathing. God is at work with breathing assistance. “I will put a new spirit within you.”
You see, the toughest times are the waiting times. When you know that something is going to happen, something has to happen in your life, but the time is not yet, it’s not ready yet, and all you can do is wait. That’s tough. That’s agonizing. Frankly, if you are as impatient as I am, then I know that the discipline of waiting is frustrating, to sit there, to lie there, to be able to do nothing to help yourself. That’s no fun at all; maybe on some occasion you have been a hospital patient, and they prep you, they get you all fixed up for your surgery, and then they wheel you out into the corridor and roll you right up to the elevator – and what happens? They leave you there: no explanation, no words of wisdom and comfort, just disappear behind some closed door to do their mysterious medical things, leaving you lying there under a thin sheet and clothed in one of those backless hospital gowns. Honestly, at those prices, you'd think they could afford something that wraps all the way around! And all you can do is wait and wonder. Did they forget me? Did something go wrong? Where is everybody? Waiting is tough.
And spiritual waiting is tough too. Some times we think God has abandoned us. Sometimes we suspect that He for whom the universe is but a footstool has taken his attention to another planet. But we forget something, we forget something vital; we forget that we are still alive. We forget that the providence of God means that He simply holds us up and keeps us from falling. And if we would like something more spectacular, well, it’s not time yet. First you need providential care, first you need breathing assistance while you wait. If we would like God to work on us and make us complete right away, well, He will do that, in good time; but first there is the discipline of waiting. And too often we do not recognize that even while we wait for God to do His work in us, still we are receiving His silent love, His underpinning care, that underneath are the everlasting arms. Quietly, lovingly, the breathing machine works, and God in order to give us a heart transplant is giving us a new spirit, a new breath.
Someone once commented that the sun does not rise every morning just because of some impersonal law of gravity – that the sun rises every morning because God says, “Get up and do it again.” The work of God's providence is quiet, hidden, unless you stop to recognize it for what it is. Wait; and see what God will do now, giving you a new spirit.
III
Finally, I want you to observe that when God gives us a heart transplant, when God gives us a new heart, like any good physician, he gives us some instructions about how we ought to take care of ourselves. When you are ready to go home after any kind of surgery, you want to hear your doctor tell you what you ought to do, and there are some things you don't want to hear, but you have to hear. When he says, watch out for the sweets and the salts and the carbohydrates and the caffeine and so on – when you are tempted to say, “Hey, is there anything I can eat?” – you know it's important. You know these are instructions designed for your own good, designed to keep you from more disease. And you listen pretty hard to them, you listen pretty hard because by now you’ve paid the consequences for your indiscretions.
Oh yes, you heard all along that smoking was bad for you, and you halfway believed it; but now the surgeon says, “Cut it out, or else.” And this time you are motivated to respect his advice.
Oh yes, you remember even sermons from a long time ago, when you could count on the Baptist preacher to inveigh against demon rum and to tell you that alcohol was the gate to the road of destruction. But, well, you got enlightened and a little bit liberated and after all, this is the 1980's, and you let go of that value. But now the physician says, “Next time you take a drink, don't blame me for what happens.” And suddenly that counts, that matters.
People listen, at least for a while, to what their doctors tell them after surgery; they follow instructions, because they know now that they are in the hands of' a master healer who knows what is best for them.
And so Ezekiel, in a masterstroke of teaching, presents us a God who says, “I will give you a new heart, I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and will give you a heart of flesh and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and to be careful to observe my ordinances."
When God gives you a new heart, he gives you disciplines, he gives you instructions, but you want to follow them, you want to obey them. Suddenly it is not burdensome any more to be a moral, an ethical human being. Instead it's a delight, because we know there's life in it. Suddenly it is not the old negative legalism any more; it's being aware that God's way to live is a way of life and not of death, a way of promise and not of threat, a way of joy and not of repression.
Someone has pointed out that it is not just that certain things are wrong because God says they're wrong; rather it is that God says they’re wrong because they are wrong, they will hurt, they will destroy. And in His love He is trying to save us from that hurt.
But now a heart transplant, radical surgery, and now you want to do, you delight to do what God asks. No longer a joyless burden, but now a life-giving delight.
One question remains; where will I get this new heart? How can it happen for me? Who is to be my donor? Will someone have to die in order that I may have a new heart?
Oh, my friends, exactly that has already happened. Precisely that: a new heart from Jesus the Christ, by whose cross the spiritual surgery you and I so desperately have needed has been performed. It's already happened. All is ready for the patient, for a new heart for you.
And you remember how I said that transplant patients often feel as though inside of them there is another person, another life somehow wrapped in their own? Then hear and rejoice with the apostle Paul, “I am crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"
“A new heart I give you.” So says our God in Christ Jesus; are you ready for a heart transplant?
