“The days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of a
Jacob!”
God is a God of covenants. There was a covenant with Noah after the
flood. Never again will I curse the ground because of humankind (Gen.
8:21). Remember the covenant with
Abraham. God tells him, I will make my
covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous. … You shall be the ancestor of [many] nations
(Gen. 17:2, 4). Of course, there’s the
covenant with Moses. I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform
marvels, such as have not been performed in all the earth or in any nation
(Exodus 34:10). And let’s not forget the
covenant with King David. Your house and your kingdom shall be made
sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever (2 Samuel
7:16).
The covenant is deeper than just some
agreement and requires more of each party.
The covenant is more personal than a contract and more binding. And when the covenant is with God, it can be
trusted without reservation.
Herein lies the problem when we turn to
Jeremiah 31. For starters, The Lord says
the new covenant will be with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob. Ancient Israel was comprised of 12 tribes –
descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob. The
10 northern tribes were taken into exile by the Assyrians in the 8th
century BC. They intermarried with other
nations the Assyrians had conquered and were essentially lost to history. The only remnant in the land was a mixed race
people – Jewish and other. They lived in
Samaria. In the New Testament, Jesus has
encounters with these Samaritans and even features a Samaritan in one of his
most popular parables.
How can God say he will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel? There is no
more house of Israel. Sure, God is
God. But, exile is exile. Some problems are too big. Aren’t they?
The remaining two tribes, the southern tribes
make up the house of Judah and are the location of the city of Zion,
Jerusalem. In Jeremiah 31, these tribes
have gone the way of their northern cousins.
They have been taken in exile and anticipate being lost.
The walls of the city fell and Solomon’s
amazing temple was completely destroyed in 587BC. Walter Brueggemann writes, “Landed folks
[Israel – even if it is just Judah, two of what was originally 12 tribes] –
Landed folks want to cling to continuity and believe that old forms will
continue. But the wrenching of 587 and
the discernment of the prophets [Jeremiah, 2nd Isaiah, Ezekiel] are
about discontinuity. The land is really
lost and history is really ended.”[i]
God told Noah he would never again curse the
land. The Babylonians have ravaged the
land. God told Abraham he would be the
ancestor of many nations. The one nation
begun in Abraham’s name has been lost.
God told Moses he would do marvels unlike any ever seen, but that was
1500 years prior to this event, the crushing of the people. When Babylon came and the walls fell, where
were the marvels of God? God told David,
your kingdom shall be forever. David’s descendant, Zedekiah was forced to
watch as Babylonian soldiers executed his sons.
Then, after seeing that, they gouged out his eyes, so that the last
thing he ever saw would be the death of his own children. Then, the king was chained and dragged off to
Babylon.
See how each covenant ended? What do those Jews in exile hear when they
hear Jeremiah speak God’s word? “The
days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant.” A covenant with a people – the house of
Israel – that are no more. What kind of
covenant is that? A covenant with the
house of Judah in exile. Can they still be the people of God while
living in Babylon? What do those exiles
hear in this promise? Do they dare
believe it? Do they dare hope? Can they trust this covenant God?
Jeremiah does. This exile has happened and the former
covenants appear lost because God’s people have turned away from God. This is not happening because Babylon or
Assyria is stronger than God. This is
not happening because God is flippant.
God is not fickle. What God
promised to Noah and Moses and Abraham and David is as true as it ever was. Jeremiah said it and I claim those promises today,
October 16, 2016. Under the midnight
shadow of exile, Jeremiah trusts God and calls the people to see God at work
even in this time of death.
I wonder if the discontent in America right
now makes it hard to see God at work. I
wonder if our land is a long way on the path of entry into a time of
death. I couldn’t identify the number of
different ways people in our country are divided, but I’ll discuss just
one. Keep in mind, this is one
description among many; one example of how culture in America is shifting
dramatically.
Until this century, America was led by white
men. At the end of the 20th century,
a few women, like Sandra Day O’Conner and a few African Americans, like Colin
Powell and Andrew Young and Barbara Jordan broke into the leadership dominion
of white men. Still, white men owned the
companies, got elected, and hammered the judges’ gavels.
The hegemony, the domination of white men is
ending. Some people in our country are
perfectly comfortable with this. I
am. I am comfortable with women in
positions of leadership and power – if they are qualified to be there. And many are.
I am happy to yield authority to people of color if they merit having
that authority. And many do. Qualified
leaders are found in both genders and in all races. I welcome a culture shift that makes space
for qualified leaders to have opportunities.
Some are terrified of it. They feel like they are losing the America
they thought was theirs. In a sense,
they are. By the middle of this century,
white people will not have a numerical majority in the United States. By the time we are 2/3 of the way through
this century, the largest group of American citizens will be Hispanic. It is ludicrous to think we could reach back
to the halcyon days of the 1950’s. Those
days were only idyllic for a segment of our population. In the 2050’s, that segment will lack the
power to enforce their will. In 2016,
our nation feels this shift happening.
Those who fear the shift will fight it.
Crisis is defined as a turning point of a disease when an important change
takes place, indicating either recovery or death.[ii] In this crisis, can God be trusted? For the people of Judah, when the crisis of
587 BC ended in exile, it felt like death.
But Jeremiah stood up and said, yes death, but after death,
covenant. Can the covenant God still be
trusted?
We
know this covenant God through Jesus, the crucified, resurrected one. Jesus is where we meet this God, but Jesus
ascended after the resurrection and left things in the hands of his church. The
church is supposed to be the body of Christ on earth giving witness to God’s
goodness and love and salvation. We
point a dying world to the God who saves.
But, we are full of broken, sinful people who snipe at one another. The forces that divide American culture are
as much inside the church, inside the body of Christ as they are outside
it.
God
left things in the mouths of prophets and in the workings of imperfect
churches? Really God? Can the covenant God be trusted? Jeremiah says yes.
I will make a new covenant says the Lord.
The next God says is it will not
be like the old covenant, the one made in the wilderness. Exile bore similarities to Egypt. The people were slaves under Pharaoh, far
from the land God promised to Abraham.
Now they’ve sinned and they are in a forced exile in Babylon, far from
the land God promised to Abraham. God
gave Moses the power to lead the people east to Canaan. Couldn’t God give Jeremiah or more likely
Ezekiel the same power to lead the people west, back to the Promised Land? No, Jeremiah says. This is not going to be like the old
covenant, the one they broke repeatedly.
There is no going back. The Red
Sea will not be parted for us again.
The
promises made in the covenants with Noah and Abraham and Moses and David –
those promises will be kept. But it
won’t look like what we may have thought it would look like. Read through the New Testament and then go
through history from the days of the New Testament up to now.
Many
point to Revelation, the last book of the Bible, as an outline for God’s future
plans. At the end of Revelation, the
faithful, those who are saved, are not gathered unto God in a new Garden of
Eden. We don’t go back to Eden.
Church
leadership literature sometimes calls the church to revert back to the way the
church functioned in the 1st century, in the decades immediately
after the resurrection. But, the New
Testament reveals that the early church was full of conflict – conflict we
don’t want. Just as Revelation does not
promise a return to Eden, it does not offer vision anything like the early
church.
What
we find in Revelation is something new because God is a God of the new. This is why going forward with God is an act
of faith. Noah, got on that ark not
knowing if he’d ever get off. Abraham
trusted God before he ever saw evidence of the covenant. Moses led a nation into the desert and their
best moments in the desert came when they had nothing and had to live in total
dependence on God. David’s best moments
with God came when he was hiding in a cave from people who had armies bigger
than his and who sought his life. None
of these great people in the history of the faith tried to retreat back to an
earlier, greater time. In the valley of
the shadow of death, they trusted God with everything. They were all in with God.
Jeremiah
looks at exiled Judah – a people who feel completely lost and feel that they
have lost everything and he invokes one of the matriarchs, Rachel, the favored
wife of Jacob. Jeremiah’s 31:15 says,
“Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her
children, because they are no more.” In
Jeremiah, this poetry means that exile is the end of God’s people. The Gospel
writer Matthew quotes this verse when he describes King Herod’s evil act of
murdering all the toddlers in Bethlehem in an attempt to destroy Jesus. Rachel
is weeping for her children.
Nothing
should lessen the weight of the tragedy either in Matthew or Jeremiah. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed
nations and enslaved people in 587BC.
King Herod murdered children to keep hold of his fragile, fleeting power
in the days of Jesus’ infancy. God did
not bring about either evil, but acted in both.
Our rebellion always leads to evil, and as our evil brings about death,
God always brings about a new thing.
Jeremiah
quotes God who says, the days are surely
coming when I will make a new covenant.
This will even include the house of Israel who you thought was lost
because God can bring new life even where there are only dead, dry bones.
A
new covenant; and, says God, this will
not be like the old covenant. Promises
to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David will be kept, but it won’t look as we thought
it would. It will be new. The new promises of God will look unlike
anything we have ever imagined just as growing divisions will make our country look
different than it looked previously. But
we are unafraid. We know that who is in
the white house or in the congress or on the Supreme Court does not determine
who we are. The resurrected Christ determines
who we are.
It’s
a new covenant. It’s not like the old. We remember the past, but don’t long for
it. Yes remember, but no, don’t reach
back. Our God is a God of the new. So then, what is the new, promised covenant?
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. They shall know me, from the
least of them to the greatest. For I
will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (31:33-34).
Included
in the observation from Walter Brueggemann I shared at the beginning is that
the prophetic message is about discontinuity.
Things won’t be as they were. The
world is changing and the prophet is the one who sees it ahead of everyone else
and speaks it sometimes before people are ready to hear it. One reality though never changes. From Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to
Jeremiah to the days of Jesus’ birth to the days of the early church to the
experiences of God’s church throughout history up to our day and time as we
strive to be God’s people in a time of dramatic and scary change, God
delivers. God saves. God is present. God heals.
God brings life out of death.
Rachel is weeping for her children. God responds
in Jeremiah 31:16, keep your voice from
weeping and your eyes from tears for there is a reward for your work, says the
Lord, [and] there is a hope for your future. With knowledge of God planted in their
hearts, they can point the world to Him whether they are in Babylon or in Egypt
or in Jerusalem.
With
the Holy Spirit of God in us, planting God’s word in our hearts and making us
new creations, we can count on God’s salvation today. It’s not a future promise. Salvation is a present reality that calls us
to share Christ with the world however the world is, and draws us forward into
the future, anticipating the day when the Kingdom comes in full.
Can
we trust the covenant God? There is
nothing else we can do for although we were born of this earth, born in sin, we
have been born again, made new, called into a new covenant with the God of the
new. Amid the disorienting journey into
death our culture is on, we followers of the Covenant God, proclaim life. Jesus Christ is Lord and all who repent and
turn to him can have salvation, life in his name. No government, power, or temptation is able
to threaten that promise. We stand on it
and from that we stand join Jeremiah as hope-announcers, proclaimers of good
news.
AMEN
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