A New Covenant

Jeremiah 31:31-34

January 3, 2016 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I remember the first time we bought a new car—our first minivan, actually. Christopher was about 6 weeks old, and someone had hit Cathy’s car, totaling it, so we had insurance money to spend. We started by looking at used minivans, but quickly realized that, at least in 1995, those vehicles didn’t lose their value like others did. There wasn’t that much difference between the prices for new and used, so we made the big decision to buy a new one. And I still remember, after we had signed all the papers, getting in the van for the first time. I probably drove very slowly off that lot, because I had heard all the stories about how people get in wrecks right away. I drove very carefully and nervously, wanting to make sure this new vehicle would last for a long time.

“New” things sometimes bring that feeling out in us. We want to tread carefully, to make the “newness” last as long as possible. And so we come to this new year, now just 3 days old, and though we know (in our heads) that it’s just a turn of the calendar page, there is something “new” about these days that we want to savor, to tread lightly, to make sure the “newness” of this time lasts a while. Personally, we’ve had a lot of new in the last year. A new appointment. A new house. A new living situation and new church family. And a new car for me and a new driver in our teenaged daughter. A year ago, we didn’t know any of you and you didn’t know us. Lots and lots of new, and now we stand at the beginning of a new year that, we hope, will bring less “new” to our family—though as a church family, we have a huge “new” coming at Easter: a new (or renewed) sanctuary. And we’re excited about that. But what else might this new year bring?

Some of us might make resolutions to take this sense of newness into the rest of the year. Anyone here make any resolutions this year? If so, can you share what it was? Some of the top resolutions made in 2015 were to stay healthy, to lose weight, to spend less, to get organized, to travel more and to read more. Oddly enough, the seventh most-made resolution was to not make any resolutions (http://goo.gl/UG1Ysy)! And, sadly enough, none of the top ten resolutions made by people across the country have anything to do with anyone’s spiritual life. If we want to grow in Christ in this coming year, we need to have a plan, set some goals, have an end point in mind. You see, when we fail to make a plan for spiritual growth, we’ll tend to end up just doing what we always did, and a year from now we’ll see very little growth. That’s true of us as individuals and of us as a church. So this week and next, I want to take some time taking stock of where we are now, and look down the road a bit toward the future. This morning, I’m going to lay some groundwork and then next Sunday, I’ll be laying out a vision for where I believe God is leading us in the coming years. As with many things, a vision for our future begins by looking back into our past, and specifically this week and next, we’re going to be looking at a prophet from the Old Testament named Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was a preacher in Judah in the 600’s BC, near the end of Judah’s existence as an independent kingdom. The people had disobeyed God for centuries, and God was about to send them into exile. God was going to let a foreign power take them away from their home for a period of time. Jeremiah had the unenviable task of not only warning the people, but of also watching it happen. He is sometimes called “the weeping prophet,” because the message he had to deliver broke his heart—more than it broke the heart of his listeners! You can sense his pain when you read his other book, Lamentations, which is a collection of lament prayers, sad prayers, over the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. Much of the book that bears his name contains words of destruction and calls for repentance. It can be hard to read, and it had to be hard to preach.

And then, right in the middle of the book is a small section (chapters 29-31) that were written to be read by those who would end up in exile. Some call it the “Book of Consolation” or the “Book of Hope,” but it’s God’s word through Jeremiah that even though exile was coming, exile was not the end of the story. God was not done with his people. He was chastising them. He was shaping them. But he was not done with them. There was still hope, even in the middle of a desperate time. I think the placement of this “book of hope” in the middle of words of distress is no accident. The very order of the book is a reminder that, no matter what happens to us, God is still right in the middle of things, bringing hope and new life. No matter what you’re going through today, no matter what “baggage” you may have carried over from last year, no matter what hurts or how hopeless you feel, God is still there, still working, still alive and active. You’ll hear me say it often: the Bible is clear that the worst thing is never the last thing. And if it’s the worst thing going on in your life right now, it’s not the end. There is always hope because God is not done with you yet, just as he wasn’t yet done with the people of Judah.

The essence of the hope Jeremiah is offering to the captives is found in the verses we read this morning. God says this to the people: “The days are coming…when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah” (31:31). A new covenant. Covenant—now that’s not a word we use very often these days. We might read it in the Bible. We might even hear it used at a wedding ceremony. In our world, we tend to prefer contracts. Write it down, spell it all out, make clear the obligations on each side, and be ready to call a lawyer if the other side doesn’t fulfill their end. Contracts are clear, precise, uncompromising. We have a contract in place with the company that is doing the rebuild, signed by both sides. Contracts we understand. Covenants are harder. They are messy. They’re relational. The word comes from another ancient word that means to “clasp or fetter.” It can also mean “between.” So a covenant is an agreement

 (though that doesn’t seem like a strong enough word) that binds us to someone else. It’s a promise made on a day of strength that will then hold us on a day of weakness. God does not do contracts; God makes covenants, promises, relationships. God makes messy covenants. The first time the word appears in the Bible is when God makes promises to Noah in Genesis 6, and after that God makes promises and establishes relationships with Abraham, Moses and David (Dictionary of the Old Testament Prophets, pg. 99; cf Guest, Communicator’s Commentary: Lamentations, Jeremiah, pg. 227).

But those covenants are not in view here. Those are in the past. God is about to do something new, according to Jeremiah. “It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors” (31:32), God says. This is something entirely new. You see, the old covenant was something that could be and was often broken. It was based on a series of laws, first given to Moses on a set of stone tablets. Maybe you remember the story, or at least the movie—those tablets were broken pretty soon after they were created, symbolizing the reality that the people had broken their relationship with God even before it could really get started. There’s another story, a bit later on, where the laws of the covenant, which were eventually written down, were lost for generations, hidden in the walls of the Temple. That would be like every Bible disappearing, all lost. Would we know how to live? The people just kept on doing what they were doing. And then there are other accounts where the written covenant was burned and even drowned. The point is this: the old covenant was broken and destroyed several times through the history of God’s people, and then the prophets come along and they tell the people, “You’ve failed to remain faithful to the one who loved you and was a husband to you,” the prophets say. “You have broken your word, and you’ve broken God’s heart” (cf. DOTP 104; cf. Feinberg, “Jeremiah,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 6, pg. 576).

Most of us have known, to varying degrees, what that feels like, to have a broken heart. That first crush who chose someone else. The spouse who walked out the door and never looked back. The parent who could never seem to fit you into their new life. The friend who took the things you shared with them and used them against you. Promises made, promises broken, hearts and lives shattered. And as painful as those things are or have been, imagine how much more God’s heart breaks when his people turn, en masse, away from him. When we break our promises to him. When we look at the relationship he offers and say with our lives and our actions, “No thanks.” This is why a covenant based in law would never work; we can’t be good enough. We can’t live perfectly every moment. Something else was needed. A new covenant was needed, and that’s exactly what God promised through the prophet.

There are, then, three characteristics of this covenant, this offer from God, that Jeremiah highlights. The first is in verse 33: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” No longer would the law, God’s way of life, be something that could be destroyed or lost. It would be written on the heart. It will be internal rather than external. It will be something that shapes us from the inside out, rather than a mere law that is imposed on us from the outside. God’s way will become our way of life. This is the same image we find over in the words of another prophet, Ezekiel, when he says God will put a new heart within us, a heart of flesh and not of stone (cf. Ezekiel 36:25-37). God, though Ezekiel describes it this way: “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (36:27). And the same promise shows up at the end of the Bible: “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3). The new covenant is not a matter of obeying the law but of following the Spirit God puts within us.

The second thing promised in this new covenant is having direct access to God. “No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (36:34). Under the old covenant, the people went through a priest to gain access to God. They would bring their sacrifices, which the priest would offer on their behalf, and then the priest would assure them of their forgiveness. But in this new covenant, everyone has the chance to know God directly. Now, this doesn’t discount the continued need for corporate worship and group Bible study. The Bible also speaks of the importance of community, of sharpening one another, of gathering together for worship. But what this new covenant does promise is that everyone will have their own experience of God. And that’s an important part of our understanding as United Methodists in the ways God works. God speaks through Scripture first, but also through tradition, through reason and through experience. God works in your situation in ways that are unique to you, and that’s why I also remind you often that though people may argue with your theology, they can’t argue with your story. God is working with you in unique ways, in ways he doesn’t work with me perhaps. In the new covenant, we all have direct access to the creator of the universe.

And thirdly, and best of all, this new covenant is rooted deeply in the experience of forgiveness. “For I will forgive their wickedness,” God says, “and will remember their sins no more” (36:34). I grew up learning, as I’m sure many of you did, that God knows everything. The fancy word for that is “omniscience.” God knows even more than Santa! But, at some point, I began to wonder if God ever forgot things. And while we’re tempted to say no, the Bible says otherwise. Jeremiah clearly says here that God “remembers our sins no more.” He forgets them. And as if that isn’t enough, another lesser-known prophet, Micah, says at the very end of his book, “You [God] will have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (7:19). The depths of the sea, where they will be forgotten, where they cannot be recovered. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “You’ll sink our sins to the bottom of the ocean.” It’s not like God is walking along and accidentally loses our sins or drops them. He sinks them. He hurls them. He actively chooses not to remember them. What grace forgives, God chooses to forget (cf. Feinberg 577). Those things that we torture ourselves about, the things we can’t forgive ourselves for, the things we have turned over to God’s grace, they are forgiven. They are forgotten. They no longer have any impact on our relationship with God, on our salvation. I don’t know about you, but I need that word frequently. This relationship I have with God is based in forgiveness, forever forgiveness.

So…it’s a covenant written on our hearts, which gives us direct access to God, and is rooted in the forgiveness of sins. Could there be a way that this promise from Jeremiah’s writing has already been fulfilled? Well, of course you know the answer. We just celebrated the birth of the one who came to make this new covenant real, active. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, grew up and taught people how to live the word of God, and while he said the law would never disappear, he also challenged the people he taught to live out of a fierce conviction rather than just external obedience. He taught ordinary people how to pray, letting us know that God was not a frightening being somewhere off in the sky. No, Jesus taught that we could call God “Father,” and even more intimate, “Abba,” the Hebrew equivalent of “Daddy.” We can come to our “Abba” on our own. Now, I may be risking Rick’s and my jobs here, but you don’t have to have a pastor to pray for you. It’s our privilege to do so, but as I’ve had to remind several people over the years, there’s nothing magic in my prayers just because I’ve been to seminary. And Rick prays pretty good prayers, but there’s nothing magic to them. You can pray just as effectively as we can because we all have been given direct access to God through Jesus.

Then Jesus reminded us on the last night he spent on earth that everything he was about to do, the work on the cross and in the empty tomb, was all about the forgiveness of sins. He was going to offer himself as the sacrifice, willingly. As the writer to the Hebrews would later write, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). But when Jesus willingly offered himself, we’re told, he “sat down at the right hand of God” (10:12). Sitting down means the work was done; in that culture, you didn’t sit down until all the work was accomplished. Jesus gave himself and finished the work of forgiveness. And that last night, he gave the disciples a meal to remember that they could be forgiven. In the old covenant, the Passover meal reminded them of their rescue, their escape from slavery in Egypt. It was that very meal Jesus was celebrating with his disciples on that last night when he infused new meaning into it. During the dinner, Jesus symbolized with bread and wine what he would do with his body and blood the next day on the cross (cf. DOTP 104). He even says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). And he says it is for the “forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). And he told us to take the bread and the cup in remembrance of him (cf. Luke 22:19). And so we do. We gather at his table, at least once a month here, to remember and to celebrate and to give thanks. We will do so this morning, in just a little while. We’ll look back to this meal, this bread and this cup, because in what these two tokens represent we will find the only hope for the future.

But, before we do that, it’s important as we stand at the beginning of this new year, to also reaffirm our covenant, our place in this new covenant with God, because that will prepare our hearts not only for whatever this year throws at us but for holy communion today as well. Covenant services and prayers have a long history in Methodism. They were certainly not new with John Wesley, but in 1755, Wesley saw the need for people to renew their commitment to Jesus and led the Methodists gathered in the first real celebration of a Covenant Service. Over the years, he repeated the service often and in different locations, reporting in his journal each time that people were “comforted” and that many “mourned before God.” On another occasion, he said the Covenant Service was the source of some of the greatest blessings among the people called Methodist. Eventually, especially in London, it became the custom to hold the Covenant Service on New Year’s Day; today, we typically do it on the Sunday closest to New Year’s Day—also known as “today.”

So, in just a few moments, I’m going to set before you the Biblical conditions of the covenant and then ask you to pray together a covenant prayer. We call it a “Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition” because this prayer doesn’t actually date back to John Wesley, but it’s adapted from his various services. Before you leave this morning, you’re going to be given a red wallet card with this prayer printed on it so that you can carry it with you throughout the year. Pray it often; this is a prayer that I’ve begun praying every morning as I wake up. It reminds me who I am and whose I am, and sets the right tone for the day. It reminds me that I am in covenant with God and that I have a high calling each and every day. I pray that this prayer and this time this morning will do the same for you. So, as new covenant people, let’s join together in renewing our commitment to the one who gave his all for us.

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WESLEYAN COVENANT SERVICE INTRODUCTION
(adaptation by Jonathan Powers)

Dearly loved brothers and sisters, the Christian life is a life found in Christ, redeemed from sin, and consecrated to God. We are those who have entered into this life and have been admitted into the new covenant of Jesus Christ. He is the Mediator of this covenant. He sealed it with His own blood so it would last forever.

On one side of this covenant stands God, who promises to give us new life in Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. Every day God proves His goodness and grace to us, showing us that His promise still stands firm.

On the other side, we stand as those who promise to no longer live life for ourselves but instead to only live for Jesus Christ because He has loved us and given His life for us.

There are times in our lives when it is important for us to remember and reaffirm our promises and vows. In this same way, we come today to renew our covenant with God. Many generations have done this before us. Today we make the covenant our own, renewing with both joy and sincerity the covenant that binds us all to God.

Let us gathered here before the Lord now in covenant commit ourselves to Christ as his servants. Let us give ourselves to Him so that we may fully belong to Him. Jesus Christ has left us with many services to be done. Some of these services are easy and honorable, but some are difficult and disgraceful. Some line up with our desires and interests, others are contrary to both. In some we please both Christ and ourselves, but then there are other works where we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.

Christ is Savior to those who are His true servants. He is the source of all salvation to those who obey. To be His servant is to consent fully to His will. Christ accepts nothing less. Christ will be all in all, or he will be nothing.

Now confirm this truth in holy covenant. Make it a reality in your life in these three ways:

First, set apart time in your day, more than once, to be spent alone with the Lord. Seek to perceive God’s special care for you and gracious acceptance of you. Carefully think through the words of this covenant and its conditions. Examine your heart, even if you have freely given your life to Christ. Name the sins in your life. Reflect on whether you are willing to choose Christ’s holy laws and strict commands. Be sure you are clear in all of these so you do not lie to God!

Second, uphold a serious spirit of holy awe and reverence.

Third, claim God’s covenant. Do not trust in your own strength and power but rely upon God’s promise of giving grace and strength. In this way, He will empower you to keep your promise.

Fourth, be determined to be faithful. You have given your heart and life to God. You have opened your mouth to dedicate yourself to the Lord. With God’s power, never go back to your former way of living.

And last, be prepared to renew your covenant with God. Let us, therefore, go to Christ and pray together…

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