And here we are, the fifth Sunday in Lent, the end of this sermon series on Covenants, the point at which, if you’ve been following along with your bingo card, you can shout Bingo!
We’ve seen:
-how Noah and all the Earth came to terms with a God who has put down the bow, --how Abraham was met by a God who entered into the messiness of particularity and his peculiar family,
-how Moses and the people escaped from slavery into freedom because the God of Liberty and Commandment heard their cry.
-how then those same people who cried out to God for freedom then cry out against God because freedom is hard.
And now, today, we read Jeremiah’s promise of a New Covenant.
Let us pray
Now for the long jump forward
—after entering the Promised Land, the people conquer and assimilate in equal measure
—twelve tribes then unify under Saul, then David
—a coalition of chieftains becomes a Kingdom
—God promises King David a continual seat of power, with this comes the Palace under David and a Temple under David’s son Solomon
—then soon enough the fragile peace of two generations shatters and 10 Tribes separate to become the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the remaining two tribes in the south are called Judah, their Capital is Jerusalem.
Later the Assyrians swoop in, conquer, and then disperse the Northern tribes…
then 130 some years later the Babylonians break the walls of Jerusalem and raze the city—including the Temple and the Palace.
They carry off the royal household and priests, and anyone with much influence, and take them off into Exile in Babylon.
And that’s the historical situation in which we find Jeremiah
—faced with a people in Exile.
Exile—the defining moment for All those who look back to Moses and Abraham and Noah
—all those who take seriously holy writ.
Exile—an experience painted as a songless space in the Psalms:
How can we sing a song of Zion
by the rivers of Babylon?
In a foreign land,
our mouths go dry as cotton;
our only song is destruction.
Exile—which Jeremiah paints as incurable pain, wailing of women who have lost their children, horror!
Exile, from which both the Prophet Jeremiah and Isaiah extract hope.
Isaiah responds to this horror: “Comfort o’ Comfort my people” and Jeremiah writes chapters 30-31, which will be called, “The Comfort Scroll.”
They promise that the yoke of captivity will be broken,
that the devour shall be devoured,
the plunderer shall be plundered
—that a restoration is at hand!
The Exile in Babylon, these Prophets maintain, is like the Exile in Egypt
—God heard the people’s cry and brought them through the peril of the Red Sea
—so too God will bring them through the dangerous desert by way of a safe highway.
God will do a new saving act…
and more yet!
The problem with the Exodus, after all, was the Tablet that was broken, and the people’s urge to complain—like we read about in the Snake incident… The exodus covenant was breakable, conditional, transactional, and external.
This new salvation and the relationship that will follow—Jeremiah promises—will be internal, relational, absolute, and resilient…unbreakable.
This new thing God will do—it will re-member (put together again) the relationship.
In the Exodus God remembered the people’s sins and the people forgot God’s promises.
In this New Covenant—God will Forget the people’s sins and the people will Remembertheir God!
And in time, the people do return to the Promised Land
—yet the new temple is so uninspiring that the old folk weep,
they are a vassal state and have no King, let alone a Davidic one.
The people are divided, sin has not ceased…
Many wonder: “are we still in Exile, even when we are home?
—can we sing songs of Zion atop Mt. Zion, or is that still singing destruction?
And now, one last time, let’s go through the six features of a Covenant that we find: Strangeness, Problem, Character, Sign, Blessing, and Re-ordering.
Strangeness: Simply put, we’ve vaulted passed the bulk of Hebrew History. Reading Jeremiah’s promises without a sense of what has happened before can confuse our understanding of this New Covenant God is promising.
Problem: Jeremiah is sensitive and sensible enough to realize his people needed more than simply a New Moses—the re-membering of God’s people—putting it all back together after the trauma of Babylon
—would take more than breakable tablets and complaining people.
Facet of God’s Character: God describes Himself as a spurned spouse who now yearns for a right relationship.
Sign: This New Covenant replaces stone tablets with heart etchings—an unforgettable covenant.
Blessing: The people will be brought out of Exile, yes, but more vitally, they shall know the Lord, and God shall know their sins no more.
Re-ordering: What a relationship! Reconciled spouses! A New Covenant. An internal, relational, absolute, and unbreakable relationship! Praise God!
And finally—what does that mean for us? The So What? Question…
Well… for us, for us Christians—this promise anticipates the signs of Water and Bread and Wine—Baptism and Communion instituted by our Lord along with the command to Love One Another—all that is packed into Maundy Thursday.
These things, for us, re-member, the Body of Christ—God enfleshed and risen, God with and for us. They all point to God’s humanity
—God etched in flesh and blood
—the Word in the Heart, the body, among the People.
Jesus Christ is for us, the answer to the question: “How shall we know the Lord? How shall God know our sins no more?”
Jesus is the invisible God made visible
—we can know the Lord!
In Jesus we find forgiveness and mercy
—God looks upon his son and forgets all our failings and faults.
Amen.
