Hearts of Stone and
a New Heart Sprinkled Clean
In a way, it’s painful even to think about open-heart surgery. It is complex. It takes a team of skilled surgeons, doctors, nurses, and a lot of highly technical equipment – usually a heart-lung machine… and some cold water!
I have never met a perfusion technologist, but such a person is certainly critical to a successful heart surgery. During many heart surgeries, the work of the heart is transferred to a heart-lung machine. Instead making a trip to the lungs, the blood is sent from the right atrium to an oxygenator. It’s complicated! From the oxygenator, blood goes into the aorta, and the oxygenated blood travels through the body as it would normally. This process is monitored by the perfusion technologist who is part of the “pump team”! We are certainly all fans of the pump team during heart surgery.
Something else fascinating about open-heart surgery is temperature. Oftentimes the blood is cooled as it travels through the heart-lung machine, thereby lowering the temperature of the entire body. Also cold water is poured over the heart to slow it and eventually stop it from pumping. I guess that’s another way of thinking about people with a “stone cold heart.” In this cold, isolated state, a heart can be operated on for nearly 4 hours without tissue damage. It just gives me the shivers!
The book of Ezekiel is a fascinating book. Like Revelation, it has apocalyptic visions of heaven, a glorious New Jerusalem, as well as a blunt critical description of why Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. Stone cold hearts! But as in open-heart surgery, the heart of God’s people can beat again.
Ezekiel writes by the Spirit, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put on a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes…” (Ezekiel 36:25 – 27a)
This certainly sounds like heavenly heart surgery. It also sounds like baptism.
A New Testament parallel passage to this can be found in Hebrews. The writer says, “… We have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus… Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Like open-heart surgery, which literally pours cold water upon the heart, the writer of Hebrews is telling us that when the body is “washed with pure water,” the heart is sprinkled clean by the “washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit.” (Tit. 3:5a)
Our good and Godly efforts to strengthen our hearts, after coming to faith in Him, are encouraged by Scripture. But, in the end, it is Christ, our True Heart Doctor, Who cleanses our blood, washes our soul, and gives us a new heart. This is the justification of Jesus – through the surgery of salvation, He has taken away broken hearts and given us hearts that are new and whole. Only Christianity describes such a heart surgery.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for Your cleansing blood. While we lay on the surgical table of repentance, with a broken and contrite heart, You have removed our sin, and given us Your Holy Spirit. We pray that our response is to hold fast our confession, to stimulate one another to love, and to do good deeds. Thank You for the new heart and new strength that forgiveness through faith gives us! Amen.
