MARRED AND MADE AGAIN
One of the pleasures of being away from home on holiday is to have the opportunity of just standing and staring at interesting sights, such as a craftsman at work - perhaps a potter. The prophet Jeremiah did this once. He tells us what he saw: "The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him" (Jer 18:4).
Jeremiah’s potter was having "one of those days" when the clay just wouldn’t come right - perhaps something we can sympathise with. He may have been tempted to give up for the day and hope that his skill would return next day. But we can be glad that he didn’t do that, but persevered because it was just the time when God wanted to give the prophet Jeremiah a fresh insight into his divine plan and purpose.
The potter was a familiar part of the Eastern scene, but on this occasion Jeremiah took special note of what happened because God told him that his message would be found in this common place setting. It’s not difficult to visualise the prophet watching the craftsman more purposefully than every before, anxious to grasp what God was saying to him. What struck him forcibly was the potter’s failure on his first attempt to fashion a vessel. We’re not told what went wrong so it can’t have any bearing on the message. Whatever it was, the potter persevered and eventually he moulded the stubborn clay into a vessel of such a quality worthy of the skill he knew he possessed. He had created something with which he could be satisfied.
Jeremiah wasn’t left to draw his own conclusions for he became aware of the divine voice speaking to his, "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? … Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel" (6). In other words, God is dramatically telling Jeremiah that what has been marred can be made again. This is the glory of the Gospel.
The key to understanding this acted-out parable is found in God’s words: "Can I not do with you as this potter does?" It’s clear that the question expects the answer "Yes, what has been marred can be made again." What impressed Jeremiah in this little drama he’d witnessed was the fact that it was the potter, not the clay, who was in charge. When this is applied to the human life situation the inescapable conclusion is that God is the sovereign master of man’s destiny. "Can I not do with you as this potter does?" God asks of Jeremiah. What has been marred can be made again. Our God is the God of the "Second Chance".
The prophecy is addressed to the house of Israel, the people with whom God had a special relationship. Christians are now in that privileged position, but like Israel, all too often you and I fall short of God’s expectation of us. Christian - yes, but marred, so let’s hear what God has to say.
They were dark days for the nation of Israel when Jeremiah uttered his prophecy. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been devastated and her people taken into captivity. At this time the Southern Kingdom of Judah was under the threat of invasion. Why had such a sad state of affairs been allowed to come about, one might ask, in view of God’s special covenant with his people? The answer is that the people had forsaken the God of their fathers. Someone wisely said that God has "no grandchildren - only children". Relationship with God must be personal and first-hand.
It’s true that some religious observances were still being performed but they were merely an outward show and didn’t make a slightest difference in God’s sight. The people’s hearts were not right with God and in that condition all the sacrifices they offered were quite invalid. The nation, which had begun with such high hopes, was marred. "Marred" - it’s a word that conveys the impression of something spoiled and useless. When you call in at a pottery you sometimes see a shelf marked "Seconds" - pieces that aren’t quite perfect and so are being sold at a discount. But God isn’t in the business of producing "Seconds".
God’s standard is one of holiness. Jeremiah says this in terms of the Law written not on stone but inscribed on the people’s hearts. Under the New Covenant of Jesus we find God’s standard as taught in the Sermon on the Mount. But what does the all-searching eye of God find? In the book of the Revelation we see Christ pictured surveying seven of the churches of Asia Minor towards the close of the first century. The apostle John is instructed to write letters to the churches telling them of the results of Christ’s searching scrutiny.
In these letters we find described conditions which occur, not in one particular age of church history, but again and again. Let’s be receptive to hear what Christ says to the church of our time. But let’s be more specific than that: we need to apply the message, not even to our neighbour, but to ourselves as individuals - myself! Another generation had arisen. The children didn’t experience that determination to follow Christ.
The church at Ephesus had begun well. They’d had their problems because evil men had tried to infiltrate the fellowship but they had resisted them and had seen through the false teaching. The trouble was that something had got lost in the process. “I have something against you” says the Risen Christ, “that you have lost your first love.” There had been a wonderful honeymoon period, but the first flush of enthusiasm is past. It can happen in our relationship with Jesus just as in married life. Heresy hunting had killed love and orthodoxy had been achieved at the cost of fellowship. The point is that our first love for Jesus can decline, with complacency and forgetfulness of what he has done for us.
The book of the Revelation also refers to the church whose people had compromised with worldly attitudes, trying to have a foot in both camps. Another had a good reputation that it no longer deserved. It had a great spiritual tradition but had succumbed to the temptation of looking backwards in pride. There was activity but nothing was being achieved because it wasn’t being done in the right spirit. And then there was the church that was lukewarm. Its members were half-hearted, indifferent and listless. It’s recorded that our Lord wasn’t grieved, nor angry, but disgusted. Their religion was phoney, just so much hypocrisy.
Despite this pathetic catalogue of failure the Lord hadn’t despaired. Like Jeremiah’s potter he’s willing to refashion the marred vessel. "Can I not do with you as this potter?" we can hear him ask. Yes, what has been marred can be made again. That’s the explanation of the revivals of religion, the renewal of spiritual life, and the reformations in the history of the church. It’s something that is needed again. How does this come about?
Our God is the heavenly Potter. He is ever at work seeking to mould these shapeless lives of ours into things of beauty. When you watch a potter at work, what is it that attracts your attention? It’s his hands with which he applies the gentle pressure that enables the clay to take on a beautiful form and symmetry. Many of us have been on the wheel of life for many years as Christians and if we are at all responsive to the pressure of the hand of God we can recognise how he does it.
It can come inwardly through conviction. Have there been times in your life when the Lord has spoken to you by his word? You knew that word was for you. It might have been a word of direction, pointing to some call of action or decision, or a word of correction or warning. The question is: what do we do about it?
But God isn’t limited to speaking to us through Scripture. He can do so through circumstances. The psalmist tells us that "my times are in your hands" (31:15). God frequently moulds our lives through the pressure of circumstances, very often those over which we have no control. It could be the influence of a Christian home or a church fellowship for which we should be profoundly grateful.
There are other circumstances not nearly so pleasant but can be equally beneficial, such as the hardship of change. When an eagle wants to teach its young to fly, it finds that the eaglet is very reluctant indeed to leave its nest - it’s far too comfortable. The mother eagle has to quite disrupt the nest, get rid of all the covering of soft dried grasses and expose the youngster to rough sticks and prickles, and even nudge it over the edge.
Take the example of Israel. The process that God had chosen to remould his people is that of exile from their homeland. Sometimes the only way up is down! The hope was that by being uprooted from their homes they would repent and return from their waywardness and find that even without the temple and sacrifice they would be able to worship God. If the nation responded to God, the promise was made that they would be gathered out of the countries of exile to return in safety to their homeland and out of the people would come the Messiah. Yes, the trials of life are all part of God’s training programme for us, often uncomfortable, even downright unpleasant, but wonderfully good for drawing us closer to the Lord.
What a picture we have of God’s dealings with us. A vessel marred in the hand of the potter but not rejected. "Marred, so he made it again. Doesn’t it speak to us of God’s love? Why does he do it? Someone once said, "God loves us … because he loves us." There’s no explanation apart from his grace, his unmerited favour towards us. The story of the potter reminds us of God’s infinite patience with mankind. God, the divine potter, has a purpose for the nations. Israel in particular had been chosen to be a light to the nations but she failed miserably.
The salvation that Jesus made possible wasn’t given because of Israel’s faithfulness but rather despite it! Yet in God’s mercy and longsuffering, in our lifetime, God has brought the nation back to her homeland in a miraculous way and we can but await the working out of his purposes although the present situation is bleak. Many Christians believe that God’s ancient people will yet come to recognise Jesus as their Messiah. "O house of Israel" asked God, "can not I do with you as this potter does?" The answer must be "Yes, what has been marred can be made again."
Mankind is a marred creation. There’s a similarity in the language of the creation story with the words of Jeremiah. Just as the potter used his creative talents in making the vessel, so in an infinitely greater sense God, as the supreme craftsman fashioned man in his own image. But what was made as perfection became marred by sin and in so doing man severed his relationship with his Maker, bringing upon himself misery and death. But in the moment when Satan appeared to have triumphed God disclosed his plan of redemption to fallen man. He declared that the Seed of the woman would overcome the evil one.
The initiative for our salvation is entirely with God. Left to ourselves we would be just as helpless as the lifeless, deformed clay of the potter’s vessel. But thanks be to God, as the hymnwriter expressed it so well, "O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, a Second Adam to the fight, and to the rescue came." God chose Israel as his vehicle to be his witness to the nations of the earth. She failed miserably and the remnant he had chosen was narrowed down to one man, Jesus. He came to the world - but at what cost! He came as the Lord’s Servant, the Suffering Servant predicted by Isaiah.
Think again of the marred vessel on the potter’s wheel. It can’t help itself, and no more can we by our own efforts. But God, the divine Potter can and does it through the loving atonement made by his Son who was marred for the purpose of providing forgiveness. What has been marred can be made again. That’s essentially what salvation is - being born again spiritually, being the recipient of forgiveness and eternal life. It begins in a definite act of commitment and then a continuous process of being changed, as the hymn says, "Changed from glory into glory, ’till in heaven we see his face." God calls on each person individually to close in on his offer of mercy, to come to Jesus in repentance and faith.
In the hands of the divine Potter even the disasters of life that threaten to ruin everything can be worked into his finished design, so that in the end they are seen to be part of it. All our circumstances, all the facts about us, including the setbacks are taken up. God works all sorts of threads into his tapestry in such a way that even what is ugly can be transformed into something beautiful. We can trust him for it. It will take the rest of our lives before the final pattern emerges. What has been marred can be made again. This is God’s offer of life.
God will not force himself upon us. He will only appeal as he did through Jeremiah, "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" Choices have to be made by all of us at some time. A poet (James Russell Lowell) put it like this: "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight; Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right; And the choice goes by for ever, ’twixt that darkness and that light." We need to come to him, freely admitting our need of forgiveness, or correction and direction. If we do that we will find that, like Jeremiah’s potter, it will be said, "What was marred can and has been made again."
