by Andrew Stephens-Rennie
March 29, 2009 (Lent 5b)
Delivered at St. Michael and All Angels, Ottawa
Jeremiah 31:31-34
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. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.
But 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. 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 sin no more.
The days are surely coming. Those days will surely come.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord. But there’s always dark before the dawn. Winter before springtime. Pain before a child is born. And we all know, if we’ve paid attention to the stories of Jesus that death necessarily comes before resurrection. Read the rest of this entry »
