… but it will be said, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors. – Jeremiah 16:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 12, 2017): Jeremiah 16

Cloning is a bad idea in science fiction, and not because of any moral considerations, but because of a buildup of errors in the cloning process. The idea is that no clone is identical – there exist errors in the DNA code. Therefore, the best we can accomplish in the cloning process is an imperfect copy of the original. Therefore, a clone of a clone increases the genetic mistakes. Every mistake might be small – but over several generations, the clone would no longer be able to live – or at least the clone wouldn’t be healthy.

But that is only in science fiction. Except that it isn’t. The way that science fiction depicts the cloning process is a pretty accurate way of describing our normal reproductive process. Our kids may get what is right about us – but invariably they seem also to take what is wrong about us – and over time (and generations) families seem to begin often to mirror what is wrong more than they get what is right. We wish that it was the reverse and that they would pick up our good characteristics – but it doesn’t seem to work that way.

And I think that is precisely God’s message to Jeremiah. They way that things are going are only going to get worse. Your father’s rebelled, you rebelled more, and the next generation will only rebel more. Your only hope is that someone will break the cycle.

So God gives this message to Jeremiah – I will be the one that will break the cycle. I will restore them to the place where I intended them to be. No longer will they just speak of the God that brought them out of Egypt; I will be the God who brought them out of the land in the North – I will bring them out of Babylon.

We sometimes think that we have everything together in our lives. But the truth is that we are still just children in need of restoration. This need for recovery is the reason why family religion doesn’t work. We need one who will come in, break the cycle and restore us. And God is still the one who restores.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17