Foretaste of the Sermon to Come
A little nibble using the Revised Common Lectionary
Sunday’s readings are Jer 31:31-34 and John 8:31-36
Sometimes it can be hard to find the gospel in the Gospels, let alone in the Old Testament. But this week’s scriptures are both pure Gospel.
In the Jeremiah reading, God promises both Israel and Judah that he will make a new covenant with them, even better than the Mosaic Covenant. God’s promise to Israel through Moses was that he would give them the Promised Land and make it flourish IF they would love him and serve him with all their hearts and souls, following every jot and tittle of the Law. In Deu 11:26-28 God even told Israel that this covenant could be both a blessing and a curse – blessing if obeyed, curse if not. And of course, we know that Israel could not keep their part of this covenant, over and over again. They broke the Law in a variety of ways, worst of all by worshiping the Baals and other foreign gods. In fact, Jeremiah is prophesying to the Hebrew people in exile in Babylon as a result of their worship of pagan gods. Even though they broke the First Commandment, God is still their God because he keeps his promises.
In Deu 11:18, God tells Israel to fix the words of the covenant on their hearts and minds, tying them as symbols on their hands and binding them to their foreheads. You can see how this was carried out by researching how Orthodox Jewish men dress for prayer – you’ve probably seen the straps on their arms and their heads that hold the Law in little black phylactery boxes, keeping the Law very literally.
Read through the Jeremiah verses and see if you see something missing from the Mosaic covenant. Do you see it? There is no “IF”! This is God’s one-sided covenant with Israel, and he even says he will write the law on their hearts – they don’t have to try to do it – and he will be their God always and he will remember their sin no more. The gospel promise could not be more clear in this Old Testament text. God fulfilled this prophesy by freeing his people from Babylonian exile. But did he have something else planned that would more perfectly fulfill this prophesy?
600 years later, Jesus does come along with a still better covenant: “If you hold to my teaching, you will be my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free! If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!” How can this be better? There are 2 “IFs” in Jesus’ promise. How do we “hold” to Jesus’ teaching? In v 34, Jesus says that everyone who sins is a slave to sin – and IF the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. The IF rests on him because he DID set us free from sin when he became our sin on the cross and gave us his righteousness in return. And, IF we hold to his teaching, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. His teaching is our book of scripture, the Holy Bible, and IF (or when) we ever doubt, we can return to it, hold onto it, and be reminded of his promise that he has made us free. We can hear our pastors hand us the Gospel, the preached word speaking that good news into reality. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God!
