THE NEW ISN'T AS THE OLD IS?

 

      In our text this morning we find God reaching out to Israel once again.  God speaks through Jeremiah to the Hebrew nation and the theme isn't new but the message is.  Indeed, the New isn't as the Old is?  This sounds confusing and I struggled sorting out what God was putting in my mind for this week's homily on Covenant.  However, this isn't new for me since confused is a way of life.  So let's take a look at what God spoke about in Jeremiah.  The new covenant that Jeremiah relates to God's chosen people isn't far from the old covenant that they have broken, shredded, and ignored.  It is a new covenant well after the Exodus; yet it offers a new hope from the old one that they have paid no heed.  God reminds them about their lack of faith in the old covenant with a unique reference to his side of that agreement.  That reference speaks in one translation about being their "husband" throughout the duration of the Covenant.  He continues this family agreement of faith with a spiritual renewal in Jeremiahs call to a new covenant.   Another translation speaks of God being the Master of that true covenant.  This is helpful because God is Master of every Covenant with us.  And in the Old Covenant as God hand-led them and hand-fed them; he promises now that he will write this Law upon their hearts.  God's Law-the Decalogue of commandments would be inscribed on their very inner being.  They would again be God's people.  Now, I'm very sure that they were astounded when Jeremiah began announcing this new covenant.  We can imagine them asking, "When did we leave Covenant?"  Continuing in that vein, did they still imagine that they were actually in a permanent relationship within the grace of God?  A small bit of historical context serves us well, here.  As Dan mentioned last week, Jeremiah knew Josiah well.  He watched as Josiah demanded and led Israel's return to the original covenant found in the hidden Temple scrolls.  However, we remember that Josiah was slain prematurely at the battle of Megiddo by the Babylonians.  Yet God's providence calls for Jeremiah's prophetic leadership at this exact time to fill the spiritual void.  The KJV says it well, "which my covenant they break."  While they are feeling broken hearted about Josiah's death, they don't even realize they have broken God's heart and God's covenant.  Do we realize it?  We must seek God honestly and openly to know God.  God remains faithful and is forgiving, which many people say is hardly found in the Old Testament.  Here it is for those willing to renew themselves!  God states it very clearly, I will put my law into their being; onto their hearts not those stone tablets from Sinai.  I wonder about hearts of stone, here!  The strictly translated meaning of the original Hebrew text reads, "Pardon of sin, iniquity it's not remembered.  It is no longer marked against anyone by God."  God has changed how he deals with Israel and with us, in an amazing manner at this auspicious juncture.  He doesn't just set aside our sin; he holds nothing from us and forgets anything against us.  This is the divine 'Hold blameless' clause for the legal minds of us. 

      This is the New Covenant!  Who does it sound like?  Who does this affirm millennia before his chosen time?  THE OLD COVENANT DEMANDED STONE HEARTED OBEDIENCE; THE NEW COVENANT GIVES TOTAL PARDONING OF ALL SIN.  Hear it now, the promised One is coming.       

      Yet, we find Jeremiah in the midst of oncoming exile and chaos calling to Israel with a new covenant that is of the old.  Jeremiah knows of chaos and exile.  Jeremiah's heritage came from Abiathar, one of David's' two chief Levitical priests.  However, when Solomon took the throne; Abiathar was banished for political reasons and fled to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  We remember that after David's death, the nation of Israel was separated into two distinct nations, Israel and Judah.  And centuries later we realize that fact follows prophecy as Jeremiah leads a band of Hebrews into Egypt to avoid the Babylonian exile.  Why is the history important?  Perhaps it is because Jeremiah lived the break from idolatry that the Law had become and prepared Israel for a new internal covenant to sustain them while in exile from their homes and their temple.  They don't need the temple in Jerusalem any longer; God has burned it into their hearts.  For various and valid reasons, Jeremiah was always critical of the House of David and the Jerusalem temple.  As one commentary reminds us, Jeremiah presented the true Mosaic tradition, thus his constant reference to the Sinai Covenant and, yet his call from God spoke of the need for a new Covenant.  "In Jeremiah's view, temple worship and the covenant of God with the dynasty of David, so central to royal religion in Jerusalem, were a 'false' religion, sure to fail."  Therefore God changes the covenant in a very subtle manner instead of further wrath or destruction.  Many prophets never survived to see their prophecy affirmed.  Amazingly, Jeremiah does.  And just as he preached a return to God and the faith of His Covenant, he finds himself in the land of that original covenant with a smaller band of Hebrews, perhaps closer to the original number that God sent into the wilderness.  Jeremiah craved the "Word of the Lord" and spent all of his effort on returning a lost people to God, not pointless traditional worship by Levitical priests with their political ties and aspirations.  Hopefully, now Israel can understand Jeremiah's cynical views of Judah and his prophetic call for a return to Elohim.  Now, hopefully, it is a bit clearer for us.  God will rewrite the original covenant that has failed due to human legal contamination and disobedience.  God writes it directly onto their hearts.  And with finality says, "They will know that I am God."

      In finality there is no doubt where Israel finds itself.  There isn't any room for mixed messages here; renewal or Spiritual exile and not just from home but from God.  The New isn't as the old is.  It isn't a complete change of God's heart.  It is a change for our hearts.  The Law isn't replaced; it is merely rendered spiritually for our hearts as God writes it there, etches it there, burns it there.

      Hear this again; the stone tablets of Law are completely etched with God's heart.  God removes any semblance of the material with the intimacy of God's own being.  He transcends the old that is with the new that, until now, wasn't.  This covenant that God instills through Jeremiah is the eternal spark that is the Holy Spirit.  It is the spark that will be the law, little 'l' from now on.  It is the spark that becomes personified in Christ Jesus.  This spark will ignite and eventually will flame throughout all Creation and unite itself with every believer's heart.  This fire will become the light of the World that is Jesus Christ, Son of God almighty.  And God's New Covenant will ring in the ears of those that will hear, and open the eyes of the blind to see; and "They will know that I am God...."  BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD!