The quote is variously attributed to the likes of Will Rogers, H.L. Mencken, Mark Twain, and even Al Capone:

“Whoever called it near beer was a poor judge of distance.”

The January 8th edition of the online version of the Bryan-College Station Eagle includes a column by Rev. Kip Gilts of A&M United Methodist Church entitled, “Accept the fresh start that God’s love offers.” It’s a nice thought, as far as it goes. But it seems like near beer to me.

Let me make it clear from the start that I do not know Rev. Gilts, although from his picture he looks like a decent enough fellow. And he grows a nice beard, something I cannot do (the curse of genetics or radiation poisoning or something). I do not know Rev. Gilts’ theology: I searched the A&M UMC website for a link to its statement of faith or a “What We Believe” section, but couldn’t find either. I did read several of his online sermons, but it’s difficult to ferret out someone’s beliefs based on what they don’t say.

Which brings me back to the newspaper column. Having spent 10-12 years as a journalist/copy editor/regional editor for a daily paper about the same size as The Eagle, I know that one cannot cover everything within a dozen or so inches of type, even online. Still, it’s not so much what Rev. Gilts doesn’t say that is problematic (although there’s a some difficulty there, too) as it is what he does say.

Rev. Gilt uses as his text Lamentations 3.22-24 and Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, for his translation. It reads,

“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.”

Beginning with this snippet from Jeremiah, Rev. Gilts goes on to expound a message about new things. “There is something enticing about new,” he says. Well, OK, I suppose. Not much to find fault with here. Just a few sentences later, however, Rev. Gilts gets to the heart of his sermonette:

“Is it any wonder that in the middle of the saddest book in the Bible, a book titled ‘Lamentations,’ newness is offered as an expression of hope? Lamentations are expressions of sorrow, mourning or regret. Yet in this book we find a glorious word: new. God’s merciful love, God’s loyal love is new every morning. The prophet was writing to a people who were under a dreadful siege. They were in the darkest hours of their lives. There the prophet offers hope. In the morning comes God’s love: a fresh start.



“We all could use a fresh start. There are times when our lives become like my old coffeepot: too slow, too sluggish, too bogged down with the same thing day after day until it can barely function. We can get that way. We need a fresh start. We need a new day, a new year.

“Well, happy new year. That day is here. What will you do with the fresh start? The prophet and other authors of the Scriptures agree that newness is most discovered not so much in the turning of the calendar as in the returning of the heart.

God gives us a fresh start as we come before him with a sincerity that accepts the newness he has to offer. The theologians call this grace, God’s incredible love that wipes the slate clean, smiles broadly as only a loving parent can and says, ‘Let’s start anew.’

“May you experience all the wonder of a happy new year filled with possibilities and promises of days in which God’s love is new every morning.”

Hmm. Is this really what Jeremiah is telling us? Is he talking about the hope of the new year and the hope of a new morning with a new, hopeful beginning? Well, not exactly. Just as importantly, what about the comment about grace, “God’s incredible love that wipes the slate clean, smiles broadly as only a loving parent can and says, ‘Let’s start anew.’” A wonderful thing only if it applies.

Let’s take the last one first. It must be understood that God is speaking here to His covenant people, to those to whom He has committed Himself. We are not all children of God in the sense that we belong to Him: we are all His creation, of course, but only those who by faith have left the race of Adam and become a new creation in the race of Jesus Christ are God’s children in a saving sense. To give the impression – intentionally or not – that everyone experiences God’s grace in the same way and to the same extent without saving faith is simply heresy.

But let’s return to the passage itself, not any fanciful notions imposed upon it. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations after the fall and razing of Jerusalem and the Temple, not during a siege (Jerusalem was under siege some years earlier, but it was by the Assyrians and not the Babylonians. There is little question about this among reputable Old Testament scholars. But this is perhaps a “minor” point.).

More importantly, the purpose of the Book of Lamentations has to do with suffering: it is essentially a funeral dirge for a past that has been lost and will never be recovered (Ellison in the Expositors Bible Commentary). As the Book of Job (and, I would argue, Ecclesiastes) deals with the suffering of one of God’s followers, Lamentations addresses the matter of national suffering for God’s elect people, i.e., the Jews. The residents of Jerusalem and the surrounding lands of Judah and Benjamin had believed that their city would never fall because the Temple of God was in its midst. Surely God would not allow His own house to be defiled, would He?

Yes, He would. And Lamentations is a collection of five laments describing the deep pain resulting from the destruction – or, more accurately, annihilation – of Jerusalem.

In the midst of these laments, however, Jeremiah introjects a brief message about individuals. It is an aside, almost, a parenthetical word of encouragement to God’s faithful. Here is the context of Rev. Gilt’s quotation:


“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,


the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all – oh, how well I remember
- the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember
and, remembering, I keep a grip on hope.

“Yahweh’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great is your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with Yahweh (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.

“Yahweh proves to be good to the man
who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.

“It’s a good thing to quietly hope, to quietly hope for help from Yahweh. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times.

“When life is heavy and hard to take,
Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer.
Don’t ask questions: wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.

“The ‘worst’ is never the worst.”

Is there anything there about new years and new days and new beginnings? Not really. Jeremiah’s message is about hope in God, not in tomorrow. Certainly God will work in the coming day, but to have one’s hope placed in something new is near beer. Our hope belongs one place and one place only, and that is in God. Jeremiah is telling God’s elect then and now that we cannot lose sight of the eternal because of what might be happening in our temporal, day-to-day existence.

Our hope is not in this lifetime. This is what Jeremiah means when he says, “I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.” Or, as The New Living Translation puts it, “Yahweh is my inheritance; therefore I will hope in Him!” It is because we have stored up treasures in heaven and not on earth that we can live above our circumstances. Whatever we might forfeit or lose in this lifetime will be more than made up for in the life to come.

No, Jeremiah is not talking about new coffee pots, new cars, new days, or new opportunities. He is talking about the faithfulness of a God who never changes, and whose committed love towards His people is fresh every morning. And therein lies our hope.


2 Cor 1:13