Logos -- Jeremiah 2:3-14

One of the lectionary readings for this week is Jeremiah 2:4-13. It not an inspiring passage -- it's not one of those scriptures that you would quote to make you feel closer to God. It's an indictment of Israel by God -- and of us.

I thought the last two verses were particularly interesting:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

I thought it was interesting that God tells the people, through Jeremiah, that there sins are two-fold -- they are turned their back of God, but they have also tried to replace him with something else.

I think that the image of God being living water is of the New Testament. Here, God refers to himself as the fountain of living water. Sometimes I think that the God of the Old Testament is very different from the one of the New Testament, but doesn't the phrase, "fountain of living water" sound Ike something that Jesus might have said?

What do we do that is a replacement for God? What are our cracked cisterns that will not hold water? This is the question that the GBOD asks about the passage. Do we put our hope in money? In other people's approval? In security? In the church? What our own cisterns that we use to replace God? Cisterns that are cracked and will not hold water?