Jeremiah 31:31-33
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Every Sunday when we gather at the table — or most any time that Disciples gather for that matter — we hear these words or words similar to this: “Take this cup and drink from it. This is the cup of the new and unbreakable covenant poured out and given for you.” When I saw what this week’s Old Testament reading was I recognized its link to events that come at the end of Jesus’ human life.
There are multiple covenants in the Old Testament There is the Noahic Covenant, the sign of which is the rainbow, given after the Great Flood. It is God’s promise never to destroy all life by flooding, again.
Then there is the Abrahamic Covenant, between God and Abraham, and the Mosaic Covenant, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. These two, sort of merged together form the Old Covenant – the "I shall be your God and you shall be my people” one referred to here in Jeremiah.
To find out more about Covenant and it’s meanings and applications in scripture I turned to one of my favorite sources, writer/Presbyterian minister/theologian Frederick Buechner. As he puts it, the "Old Covenant," is the old agreement that was arrived at between God and Israel with Moses at Mt. Sinai. This, again, is the one Jeremiah referred to in the reading I just read.
There is also a Priestly Covenant and the Davidic Covenant in the Old Testament, but these are aimed at specific segments of the people and not as wide-ranging as the Old Covenant.
The "New Covenant," was given us by Jesus, in an upstairs room in Jerusalem, gathered with his disciples, when Jesus offered a cup of wine and said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood."
Both covenants were based on the assumption that if the people (that’s us) obey God, God will love and care for them, but the Old Covenant had a further stipulation — that if the people did not obey God, God was no longer obligated to love them or care for them. This covenant was broken by the repeated faithlessness of the people, hence the need for a “new” one.
The New Covenant shares the part about "I shall be your God and you shall be my people,” but in this New Covenant, it will not be broken by humanity’s failures. God’s covenant will hold, but it will now be a suffering love — one that bleeds for the brokenness of humankind. A love that over and over again tries to lead us to the choices that make us whole. Choices that lead us to life in the fullness of God’s love. Always a new chance to get it right.
Jesus is the glue in the covenant that holds God and humanity together. We fail — we always fail — but God goes on loving us anyway because Jesus is the promise that binds us.
And if we're looking for the love in this reading, as we've been doing throughout Lent, here is it. We are bound to God in covenant because God loves us. And Jesus holds that bond unbreakable because Jesus loves us. And that, my friends, is where the love is.
There are multiple covenants in the Old Testament There is the Noahic Covenant, the sign of which is the rainbow, given after the Great Flood. It is God’s promise never to destroy all life by flooding, again.
Then there is the Abrahamic Covenant, between God and Abraham, and the Mosaic Covenant, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. These two, sort of merged together form the Old Covenant – the "I shall be your God and you shall be my people” one referred to here in Jeremiah.
To find out more about Covenant and it’s meanings and applications in scripture I turned to one of my favorite sources, writer/Presbyterian minister/theologian Frederick Buechner. As he puts it, the "Old Covenant," is the old agreement that was arrived at between God and Israel with Moses at Mt. Sinai. This, again, is the one Jeremiah referred to in the reading I just read.
There is also a Priestly Covenant and the Davidic Covenant in the Old Testament, but these are aimed at specific segments of the people and not as wide-ranging as the Old Covenant.
The "New Covenant," was given us by Jesus, in an upstairs room in Jerusalem, gathered with his disciples, when Jesus offered a cup of wine and said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood."
Both covenants were based on the assumption that if the people (that’s us) obey God, God will love and care for them, but the Old Covenant had a further stipulation — that if the people did not obey God, God was no longer obligated to love them or care for them. This covenant was broken by the repeated faithlessness of the people, hence the need for a “new” one.
The New Covenant shares the part about "I shall be your God and you shall be my people,” but in this New Covenant, it will not be broken by humanity’s failures. God’s covenant will hold, but it will now be a suffering love — one that bleeds for the brokenness of humankind. A love that over and over again tries to lead us to the choices that make us whole. Choices that lead us to life in the fullness of God’s love. Always a new chance to get it right.
Jesus is the glue in the covenant that holds God and humanity together. We fail — we always fail — but God goes on loving us anyway because Jesus is the promise that binds us.
And if we're looking for the love in this reading, as we've been doing throughout Lent, here is it. We are bound to God in covenant because God loves us. And Jesus holds that bond unbreakable because Jesus loves us. And that, my friends, is where the love is.
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