A new Covenant: "I Will Write It on Their Hearts"

Scripture: (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13 or Psalm 119:9-16; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)

This week we study some of my favorite verses in the Bible. This Lent we have considered the covenant relationship of God and his people, studying covenants made after the great flood, with Abraham, Moses, and his deep love for us in giving us his Son, a gift of salvation. This is presaged in Jeremiah : "The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah... this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Read what The Rev. Dr. Donovan Drake has to say about God's covenant relationship with us in "Breaking News."

In the great Psalm 51, it is David, with a broken and contrite heart, who finds God, asking God to create in him a new heart, and to renew a right spirit in him. I believe David knew God's heart and God's plan to cleanse us of our sins, in the blood of the lamb. I believe he knew Christ 1,000 years before Christ's birth.

The author of the Book of Hebrews helps us see Jesus in his glory, as a servant king, and as a priest of the order of Melchizedek - the King of Salem, Righteousness and Peace who offers blessing and bread and wine to Abraham. The Rev. Rick Morley tells us, in "Unbidden," that early Christians identified Jesus as this "priest-king," ministering to the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Whether, or not he is Melchizedek, he is like him - he comes, unbidden, when we need him, and he comes to serve and bless us, and with righteousness and peace, and the Sacred Meal. 

Like the prophet Jeremiah and David, we will know our LORD. From Jeremiah: " No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, '"Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' says the LORD; 'for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sins no more.'" 

Thanks be to God, through the gift and sacrifice of Christ our Lord, which we receive each week in the joy and thanksgiving celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we are restored in a right relationship and covenant with our Lord and God, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.