Loving God, you make your covenant with us and call us to live in your love. As we gather together today, give us thankfulness in our hearts for your gifts of salvation and eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You may or may not have noticed, but we've been hearing about a series of covenants over the past few weeks. There was the covenant that God made with Noah and with all of creation after the flood. There was the covenant that God made with Abraham and Sarah. There was the covenant that God made with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai out in the wilderness. Today, Jeremiah talks about a new covenant, and we heard in the baptismal service about Aidan living in the covenant of his baptism. As we celebrate the Lord's Supper today, we will also hear the words, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." Obviously, covenants are very important when it comes to the Scriptures and to our life together as the body of Christ. Yet, do we really know what a covenant is?

At base, a covenant is an agreement that is made between two or more parties. A marriage is, in fact, a covenant where two people make promises to one another about how they are going to treat one another and their love and faithfulness to one another. Another example of a covenant comes from our national youth gatherings, where each youth group makes a covenant with one another, agreeing beforehand about things like how they are going to participate and how they are going to treat one another at the gathering.

Now, certainly we could call all of these things agreements, yet a covenant is more than just an agreement. Biblically, a covenant always involves God's promise of blessing. A covenant can be made between two unequal parties, which is always the case when God is making a covenant with human beings. In a biblical covenant, God is the one who sets out the terms.

Now, if we back up for just a moment to look at some of the covenants that we have heard about over the past few weeks, an interesting pattern emerges. The first covenant, made with Noah after the flood, is so far-reaching that it involves all of creation: every human being, every animal, and the whole earth. It is simply a promise made by God that never again will a flood destroy all flesh (Gen. 9:8-17). The sign of the covenant is the rainbow that appears in the clouds.

The next covenant gets narrowed down to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. In this covenant, three promises are made to Abraham. First, Abraham and Sarah will have a son and numerous descendants from him. Second, Abraham is promised the land of Canaan for him and his descendants after him. Third, Abraham is promised that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him and his descendants (Gen. 12-17). The sign of this covenant is to be circumcision.

The next covenant is made with the descendants of Jacob, or Israel -- once again, a slightly narrower group. This is the covenant that is made at Mt. Sinai and given to Moses for the people. This covenant, unlike the first two, can be broken, for the descendants of Jacob agree to live in accordance with God's commandments in order to be part of this covenant. The 10 Commandments are part of this covenant, and so is the Great Commandment which is later cited by Jesus: To love God with your whole heart and soul and might and to love your neighbour as yourself (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). There is no sign of this covenant like the previous ones, but there are the tablets of stone and the book of the Law, which lays out the blessings for those who keep the covenant and the curses for those who break it.

Well, and then we get to today's first reading from Jeremiah which speaks about a new covenant that will be made with the descendants of Jacob. The people have broken the covenant that God made with them at Mt. Sinai, but God is not willing to leave it at that. The people have experienced many of the curses that were laid out in the Sinai covenant and have lost their land, have been defeated by their enemies, and have been carried off into exile in Babylon. Yet, there is still the covenant that was made with Abraham which cannot be broken, for it is a promise of God. There is still the promise that through Abraham and his descendants all the families of the earth would be blessed.

And so Jeremiah talks about the new covenant that will not be written on tablets of stone, but written on people's hearts. God will forgive the sins of his people and will remember their sin no more (Jer. 31:34). And then, many years later, along comes Jesus, who speaks about the forgiveness of sins, who gives himself for the forgiveness of sins, and who teaches about the new covenant in his blood which will be shed for all people. The circle is now being widened once again. Jesus did not come merely to effect a new covenant with the descendants of Jacob, although many of them become participants in this new covenant. Rather, Jesus came to call all people into a covenant relationship with God -- a covenant which God makes with all who put their faith in Jesus Christ and come to him through baptism. Jesus is the one who fulfills the promise that was made to Abraham. Jesus is the descendant of Abraham through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

And so, we are given Baptism and Communion as reminders of the new covenant, which has as its sign the sign of the cross. God makes a covenant with each one of us in baptism, which follows the same pattern as the covenant that was made with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai. The covenant begins with a declaration of what God has done, and is based on the salvation which God has already given to us through Jesus Christ. God says to us, "Because I have saved you and forgiven you through Jesus, therefore this is how you will live."

Yet, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are not given five whole books of the Law to try to live up to. Instead, we are given the command of Christ to love one another as he has first loved us, and we are given the Holy Spirit to help us to grow in that love and to follow the example of Jesus. This is what it means to live in the covenant of our baptism: To love God with our whole heart and soul and might and to love one another as Christ has first loved us. And we do so by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, who works through us and helps us to grow.

This covenant is a gift from God, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marking us with the cross of Christ forever. Yet, just as with the Sinai covenant, this covenant can be broken, and it will never be God who will break it. We are the only ones who can break the covenant that God has made with us. We can give it back and tell God that we want no part of it. God will never force salvation and eternal life on anybody.

Yet, God will yearn for us to return. Just like the father waiting for the return of the prodigal son, God will wait for us with open arms, and will even run to greet us once we have repented and turned back to him again. The God of the Scriptures is revealed as one who has such love for us that he thinks that saving us is worth the death of his Son.

For our part, we are called to open our hearts to receive the love of God and the new life that is ours through Jesus Christ. We are called to receive the love of God and to respond by living in that same love for the God who redeems us and the people who surround us. Come, Holy Spirit, and make it so. Amen.

Lent 5(B) Jeremiah 31:31-34
April 2, 2006 John 12:20-33
St. Luke's Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison Moore
? 2006 Lynne Hutchison Moore All Rights Reserved