Jeremiah 31:31-34 (International Children’s Bible)
“Look, the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new agreement. It will be with the people of Israel and the people of Judah. It will not be like the agreement I made with their ancestors. That was when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt. I was a husband to them, but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
“I will make this agreement with the people of Israel,” says the Lord. “I will put my teachings in their minds. And I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives to know the Lord. This is because all people will know me, from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did. I will not remember their sins anymore.”
Jeremiah – Jeremiah, of all people – the man whose very name has come to mean a long, bitter lamentation or complaint – Jeremiah, in today’s reading, brings us a word of hope and good news!
When we read the writing of the Old Testament prophets – let’s call them writings, for convenience sake, even though these were spoken messages, only later transcribed from people’s memories of them and put into written form – the writings of the prophets, both major and minor, are almost always accusations and warnings to the people. You’re screwing up big time, now shape up or else bad things are going to happen.
And, of course, they rarely did shape up and disaster would fall, and God would end up saving them again. Jonah is the only story I can think of offhand where the people actually listened and changed their ways and retribution was averted.
According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah also authored the Books of 1st and 2nd Kings as well as Lamentations, but for Christians he is probably best known for the Book of Jeremiah itself.
Jeremiah was called as a prophet at a very young age – called to call the people to account. Israel had forsaken their singular relationship with God and had gone so far as to even set up altars to the foreign god Ba’al and sacrifice their children to him thereby breaking the previous covenant. Jeremiah preached and warned them that they would suffer severely if they did not change their ways. Josiah, the king, tried to implement reform, and succeeded for a while, but ultimately failed, and the people sinned even more.
In time, Israel was invaded by Babylon and suffered greatly for long years in poverty and exile. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed – the cultural and religious center of their lives. It appeared that God had finally had enough and forsaken them, as they had forsaken him. Jeremiah’s years of preaching repentance were rarely happy or hopeful.
That is why today’s reading comes as such a promise of hope. The people had repeatedly broken trust with God and they knew that they brought their suffering on themselves and deserved nothing better.
God, in the role of the stern parent, had allowed them to suffer in order to break their proud spirits and bring them to the point where they sought salvation from the very God they had insulted and rejected.
And yet, God promises them a way out – a shot at a new beginning. “I’ll erase the past,” God promises, “We won’t even remember their past sins.” A new covenant is promised – one that will be so deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of the people that there will be no thought of forgetting.
You’ll notice that this promise from God begins with “a time is coming” when God will do this thing. The time is not here yet. And that is why this Old Testament reading is so important in Christian thinking. For Christians, this promised new covenant comes to fruition in the person of Jesus.
This is our covenant – the one under which we live. The unbreakable, everlasting covenant sealed in the blood of Christ.
But while we claim this covenant, it is important to remember and acknowledge, as Walter Brueggemann reminds us, that “this text about ‘the new covenant’ God makes ‘is not about Jesus or the Christian faith’: it is a promise to Israel and Judah, ‘this failed people, this time to make it new and to make it right.’”
Next Sunday is Passion or Palm Sunday followed by Holy Week with its long yo-yo-ing journey from loss to gain, abandonment to welcome, pain to hope, dying to living again. This is not the sole property of Christianity. The Jews of Jeremiah’s day as well as those today know this. Non-believers know it, too. And, yes, Christians know this journey.
And this is why we cling to the hope offered in this promised covenant – this promise that the word of God truly is so deeply written on and in human hearts that one day the time will come when, in the words of this reading: People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives to know the Lord. This is because all people will know me, from the least to the most important.”
Two chapters before today’s reading, God had spoken through Jeremiah to tell the people this: I say this because I know what I have planned for you,” says the Lord. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me. And I will listen to you. You will search for me. And when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me! (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
This is why we’ve been talking so much about covenant this Lent – to remind ourselves when we are discouraged or frightened or exhausted or just too overwhelmed by the world’s demands that we still are held within this covenant – whether it feels like it at the moment or not. God has not -- God does not abandon us.
The covenant exists. The promise is made and sealed. God is with us always, even when we forget – and one day we will all know it in our hearts and minds and bones -- and we will live together in the peace of God.
When we read the writing of the Old Testament prophets – let’s call them writings, for convenience sake, even though these were spoken messages, only later transcribed from people’s memories of them and put into written form – the writings of the prophets, both major and minor, are almost always accusations and warnings to the people. You’re screwing up big time, now shape up or else bad things are going to happen.
And, of course, they rarely did shape up and disaster would fall, and God would end up saving them again. Jonah is the only story I can think of offhand where the people actually listened and changed their ways and retribution was averted.
According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah also authored the Books of 1st and 2nd Kings as well as Lamentations, but for Christians he is probably best known for the Book of Jeremiah itself.
Jeremiah was called as a prophet at a very young age – called to call the people to account. Israel had forsaken their singular relationship with God and had gone so far as to even set up altars to the foreign god Ba’al and sacrifice their children to him thereby breaking the previous covenant. Jeremiah preached and warned them that they would suffer severely if they did not change their ways. Josiah, the king, tried to implement reform, and succeeded for a while, but ultimately failed, and the people sinned even more.
In time, Israel was invaded by Babylon and suffered greatly for long years in poverty and exile. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed – the cultural and religious center of their lives. It appeared that God had finally had enough and forsaken them, as they had forsaken him. Jeremiah’s years of preaching repentance were rarely happy or hopeful.
That is why today’s reading comes as such a promise of hope. The people had repeatedly broken trust with God and they knew that they brought their suffering on themselves and deserved nothing better.
God, in the role of the stern parent, had allowed them to suffer in order to break their proud spirits and bring them to the point where they sought salvation from the very God they had insulted and rejected.
And yet, God promises them a way out – a shot at a new beginning. “I’ll erase the past,” God promises, “We won’t even remember their past sins.” A new covenant is promised – one that will be so deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of the people that there will be no thought of forgetting.
You’ll notice that this promise from God begins with “a time is coming” when God will do this thing. The time is not here yet. And that is why this Old Testament reading is so important in Christian thinking. For Christians, this promised new covenant comes to fruition in the person of Jesus.
This is our covenant – the one under which we live. The unbreakable, everlasting covenant sealed in the blood of Christ.
But while we claim this covenant, it is important to remember and acknowledge, as Walter Brueggemann reminds us, that “this text about ‘the new covenant’ God makes ‘is not about Jesus or the Christian faith’: it is a promise to Israel and Judah, ‘this failed people, this time to make it new and to make it right.’”
Next Sunday is Passion or Palm Sunday followed by Holy Week with its long yo-yo-ing journey from loss to gain, abandonment to welcome, pain to hope, dying to living again. This is not the sole property of Christianity. The Jews of Jeremiah’s day as well as those today know this. Non-believers know it, too. And, yes, Christians know this journey.
And this is why we cling to the hope offered in this promised covenant – this promise that the word of God truly is so deeply written on and in human hearts that one day the time will come when, in the words of this reading: People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives to know the Lord. This is because all people will know me, from the least to the most important.”
Two chapters before today’s reading, God had spoken through Jeremiah to tell the people this: I say this because I know what I have planned for you,” says the Lord. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me. And I will listen to you. You will search for me. And when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me! (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
This is why we’ve been talking so much about covenant this Lent – to remind ourselves when we are discouraged or frightened or exhausted or just too overwhelmed by the world’s demands that we still are held within this covenant – whether it feels like it at the moment or not. God has not -- God does not abandon us.
The covenant exists. The promise is made and sealed. God is with us always, even when we forget – and one day we will all know it in our hearts and minds and bones -- and we will live together in the peace of God.
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