Open the Word: Heart of the covenant

Jeremiah makes a breakthrough in Israel’s understanding of God. This is not another old covenant, it is the new covenant, which, unknown to Jeremiah, will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

• This covenant was addressed to Jewish exiles in Babylon. There was no hope of an early return to Jerusalem. They were told to stay in the land, work and pray for its welfare, but they were given the assurance God was with them.

• It is helpful to reflect upon exiles today. Some have come to this country to escape persecution, some to enrich their life. There are people who have been offered education and wish to stay on, others have sought refuge, or healing. However they have come, this is a strange land, with strange cultural expression, little religious activity and a pretty greedy and grasping population. There are other exiles to be considered: people have grown within this society who do not own its values or expressions, who find themselves strangers in their own country. They have no place to which they can go, but yearn for the security of the past. There is a third group of exiles: men and women who have held the faith, who have wrapped it and protected it, bound it with tradition and law, to such a degree that grace is excluded, as are those men and women who need its gentle touch.

• This New Covenant of Jeremiah embraces all exiles, because it embraces all of humanity. Its words are so clear and powerful: ‘You will be my people and I will be your God’. Our identities are bound together, God’s in us and ours in God’s. And these identities are open. There is nothing allowed to darken or to sully the relationship because God has chosen to relieve us of having to ‘match up’.

• Another strand can be explored: that God will write his law on people’s hearts. Teaching will not be necessary, people will, by virtue of their birth, know God and God’s ways. The implications of this for the Church in the midst of this period of change are immense and exciting. They are also very challenging, as they invite us to look at our traditions, but does God not do this in every generation?

• This understanding has implications for our life together. Will our children discern our faith from being with us? Will they, from their place in our community, know God? Can we love them into knowing rather than feeling that we must teach them?

• As we progress towards Easter this New Covenant puts the journey of Jesus into perspective. Here is a man who gives himself for others that he might find himself in God. It is not simply a matter that he does it for us, rather we are invited to embrace and be embraced by this new relationship and find our place in the providence of God.

Another angle

In present day British society, where children are constantly subject to testing and told that their future will stand or fall on exam results, is the possibility of teaching about grace seriously hampered?

Living faith

For discussion: What are the challenges and dangers of the New Covenant? How can we live our lives in the complete loving freedom which God gives and how can we encourage others to grasp the hand of eternal life which is held out to them?