OUR COVENANT GOD

Today we finish our little series from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.

We remain in that period in Jewish history we call the Exile.

Another unknown Old Testament figure was the prophet Jeremiah. He lived in the years immediately before the Exile. His was a tumultuous life.

While his advisers encouraged the king to fight against Nebuchadrezzar Jeremiah counselled peace and agreement with the Babylonian super power.

For this reason he was branded a traitor, imprisoned, threatened with his life.

The book of Jeremiah is very long so is often neglected.

But there is one passage that we should all know and understand.

This passage deals with the Covenant of God. I have been referring to the‘covenant’ throughout this series. Today let me explain this term. God made a covenant with the Jewish people and through them with humankind.

If you understand the idea of the covenant then you will understand the Bible and your Christian faith The idea of the covenant is the fundamental message of the Bible and is Christianity’s foundation stone.

In our Bible the word ‘testament’means‘covenant’. Our Bible is the record of God’s old covenant and God’s new covenant with people. For these ancient people a covenant was originally a contract between two parties, like a trading deal.

There were no computer printouts. So a stick was taken and cut in a certain way.

In fact the Hebrew word for covenant is‘b’rith’meaning a ‘cutting’ Each side in the contract received a piece of the stick. When the contract was being completed, say the purchase of cattle, the two parties presented their piece of the stick making it complete.

This showed they were the authentic parties to the contract and the deal could be completed.

The commercial meaning of the covenant then became a religious idea.

In the case of God’s covenant with the Jewish people, that covenant was based on loyalty and trust. God undertook to be loyal and faithful to his people.

They in turn must undertake to be obedient and loyal to God.

The story of the Old Testament, the old covenant, was one wherein God remained faithful and loyal to his nation, but God’s nation always proved disobedient and unfaithful to God.

So Jeremiah tells us that God will make a new covenant with people, one that will not be broken.

I quote in full, ‘Behold the days are coming saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of

Judah.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers which they broke even if I were like a husband to them.

This is the new covenant I will make with the house of Israel and Judah. I will write it upon their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people’(Jeremiah 31 31-33) Please understand this passage, The is the foundation of your Christian faith.

God made that new covenant in Jesus. In everything that Jesus did and taught God was creating God’s new covenant with men and women. Supremely Jesus’Easter sealed and secured for all eternity God’s covenant of grace and forgiveness.

How often have you attended communion or mass and heard these familiar but glorious words of our Lord.

‘Jesus took the bread and broke it and said,‘Take, eat this is my body broken for you’ After the same manner also Jesus took the cup. After he blessed it he said, ‘This cup is the‘new covenant’in my blood, drink ye all of it’ (Matthew 26.26-29).

Christians are people of God’s new covenant sealed and secured in Jesus’Easter passion..This is what it means to be a Christian.

Remember the Scottish Covenanters, but we are all ‘covenanters’, covenant people, for Jesus.

In Jesus be faithful to God as God is faithful to you.

As Jeremiah wrote.

‘I will be your God and you shall be my people.’

(Jeremiah 31.33)

A Little Prayer.

You have sealed us with a covenant bond created in your heart but sealed in our heart by Jesus. Lord, that covenant is shaped like a cross.

Thank you for Jesus’ In his Name AMEN.