Bible notes

Keeping the covenant is at heart a matter of interior intention and sincerity rather than slavish public attention to rules.

The links between the lectionary readings

The link is the notion of doing what is right as the really genuine response to God's covenant with humankind. Jeremiah anticipates the making of a new covenant between God and Israel in which the divine law would be written on human hearts. Psalm 119 also speaks of the interiority of God's word, in this case as a statement of moral intention. There's an interesting dialectic between Old and New Testament readings today. The prophet and psalmist speak of the interiorisation of what was external; Hebrews and John of the earthly manifestation of the Son from heaven. The focus of the Gospel is that the advent of the divine Son marks a moment of crisis or judgement for the world. How one responds to Jesus is made the criterion of one's own standing before God. We have met this theme in the Gospels already.

Old Testament  Jeremiah 31.31-34

This well-known passage is rightly regarded as one of the most important in the Hebrew Bible, containing the fourth and future covenant. In reality, this represents a variation on a theme. God is not a perpetual legislator but a God concerned to continue in covenant relationship with his people. Thus Jeremiah is not criticising the earlier covenants, though he does by implication comment drily on the failure of people within Israel to keep to the covenant. There is a distinct moral development evidenced here. Jeremiah focuses more on personal obedience and self-understanding, with a greater interest in individual responsibility, and less on the external manifestation of the covenant. This is accompanied by optimism that, when the time is right, people will want to obey the covenant as their dutiful response to God. This purple passage probably inspired Jesus and later Christian writers.

Psalm  119.9-16

The psalmist also speaks of the interiority of God's word. He doesn't just address young men, or even young women! It is a moving and skilful meditation of what it means to live the life of prayer in which reflection on God and the spiritual life determines an entire perspective. There is much to be learned here. The goal of a Christian life is a life formed and determined by prayer. That is the sign of a genuinely holy person. Be warned, however, of the dangers of preoccupation with your own internal self. There is a thin dividing line between genuine interiority and self-delusional fantasy. The only way of avoiding such overlap – genuinely the only way – is to be under spiritual direction so that your own thoughts and prayers are shared objectively with others and a critical evaluation made of them. Psalm 119 is a pioneering model.

New Testament  Hebrews 5.5-10

The one who demonstrates covenant obedience most clearly is Jesus himself. Jesus lived the perfect life of communion with God because, in Christian theological terms, he was God incarnate. The real value of Hebrews is that it tends towards a doctrine of the incarnation (something that achieved classical expression only later than the New Testament period) but retains a realistic awareness of Jesus as a real human being who serves in this sense as the model for spiritual development. Jesus learned through human experience; he did not just achieve it in isolation from others or by circumventing difficulty.

All of us have difficulties in our lives. There's a real temptation to imagine we'll be able to do better spiritually once we have cleared the various thickets that seem to lie in our way. This is a great myth which a personal devil, if there is such a being, is glad to promote. We don't find God after we have cleared away difficulty; we find God in the midst of the difficulty, just as Jesus did. Difficulties are therefore opportunities rather than obstacles. Today's readings are full of meaning for those who would make progress in their spiritual lives.

Gospel  John 12.20-33

Finally, we turn again to John's Gospel. We have seen that John puts a theological interpretation on the ministry of Jesus, hinting at his descent from heaven (3.13) and future return to heaven (6.62). Jesus predicts his death with confidence in John, commenting also on its saving significance. In this passage – which in tandem with John 17 replaces the Last Supper in John – the Evangelist makes Jesus the universal Saviour who embodies God's presence and draws all people to him.

It may be difficult to reconcile the Christ of the Fourth Gospel with his presentation in the Synoptic Gospels. Don't be alarmed at the differences. None of the Gospels gives us a contemporary eye-witness account of Jesus. All the evangelists were theologians and interpreters of the story of Jesus. The basic message of this passage is easy to ascertain. It is that Jesus' death has saving significance; and that, in following God's will to the last, he calls his followers to a path of suffering service.