EASTER DAY

Sunday 30 March 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

John 20:1-18

 

The Church’s faith in Jesus Christ’s bodily Resurrection from the dead hinges upon two pieces of evidence attested in the New Testament. The first piece of evidence is the empty tomb. The second piece of evidence is the series of the Risen Christ’s appearances to the women and disciples beginning on the first Easter Day.

 

These Gospel accounts are remarkably spare and restrained. Nowhere do they attempt to describe what happened inside the tomb when Jesus came back to life. They confine themselves simply to reporting the eyewitness testimony of those who were there that morning on the first day of the week, and in the days and weeks following. And that eyewitness testimony consists, again, of two parts: the empty tomb and the Risen One’s appearances.

 

Neither piece of evidence signifies that much on its own. An empty tomb by itself could result from the body being stolen or hidden, just as Mary Magdalene supposes in the Gospel that we’ve just heard. And appearances of a recently deceased person to the living were not all that uncommon in the ancient world – just as some would argue that they’re not all that uncommon today either. Over the years, a number of people, both parishioners and friends, have told me about departed loved ones appearing and speaking with them in the days following the death and burial. Ghosts, spirits, hallucinations, or over-active imaginations? You decide.

 

No, it’s the combination of the two, the empty tomb and the bodily resurrection appearances, that affords the strongest evidence that something utterly unique and totally unprecedented happened that first Easter morning. And the Gospel reading from John, traditionally appointed for the principal Mass of Easter Day, explicitly brings out both these elements in wonderful detail: the tomb is found empty; the Risen Lord appears to Mary Magdalene.

 

Part of the beauty of John’s account is the way he describes the respective responses of the three principal characters: Peter, the Beloved Disciple, and Mary Magdalene. Before dawn, while it’s still dark, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, finds the stone rolled away, and the interior empty. She runs to tell Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved. This other disciple is generally identified with John, this Gospel’s author, so this account really does present itself as eyewitness testimony. 

 

Peter and the Beloved Disciple run to the tomb. John is probably younger and in better physical shape than Peter, so he gets there first, but he doesn’t go in – perhaps out of deference to Peter’s age and position of leadership. When Peter arrives, they both go in. At this point, John’s description really does suggest eyewitness testimony: the linen cloths are lying there, and the linen napkin which had covered the Lord’s head is rolled up separately in a place by itself: the sorts of details that are unlikely to be made up.

 

John does not explicitly tell us Peter’s reaction. But Peter seems to take it all in, not knowing what to think. By contrast, the Beloved Disciple sees and believes. Neither of them yet knows the scriptural prophecies foretelling that the Messiah must die and rise again. But the Beloved Disciple—that is, John himself—has an almost mystical intuition that if Jesus isn’t here, he must be alive. Then, having seen all that there is to see, the two disciples return to their homes.

 

I’ll wager that some of us here today are more like Peter, and others of us are more like John. Some come to church, listen to the biblical stories, take them all in, and don’t know what to think. The jury is still out. Others have no difficulty hearing and believing. Notice that John doesn’t say that either response is better than the other. He simply notes them both and moves on with the story.

 

Mary Magdalene doesn’t return home, however, but remains outside the tomb, weeping. Unlike Peter and the Beloved Disciple, she’s sure she knows exactly what’s happened. Even when she encounters two angels inside the tomb who ask her why she’s weeping, she explains: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” And then, when Jesus himself appears and asks why she’s weeping and whom she seeks, she doesn’t recognize him. Supposing that he’s the gardener, she pleads, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

 

It’s only when he addresses her by name that the realization dawns on her. The penny drops. We can only imagine her joy as she exclaims, “Rabbouni! Teacher!” 

 

Down through the centuries, commentators have spilled much ink trying to decipher the meaning of the mysterious words that the Lord utters next: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father …” But at least part of their meaning must be that the Jesus Mary Magdalene has been seeking is Jesus as he was, the Jesus who died, the corpse for whom she wanted to complete the rites of burial. He exhorts her to let go of all that. Instead of holding on to the past, her mission is now oriented to the future: go and tell the disciples what she’s seen and heard; bear witness to the Lord’s Resurrection.

 

And again, I’ll wager that Mary’s experience exemplifies a pattern for many of us. C. S. Lewis writes somewhere that “humanity’s search for God” – the topic of innumerable lectures, articles, and books – is a bit like the mouse’s search for the cat. That is, it gets things completely the wrong way round. We may search for God’s truth all we want, but ultimately the end of our quest comes not when we find God but when God finds us, calls us by name, and gives us some task or mission to fulfill during our earthly life. This was certainly my experience when I came to faith in Christ: not finding God, but being found by him. It’s a little unnerving when one realizes that one isn’t nearly as much in control of one’s life as one thought.

 

And so, the third piece of evidence supporting the Church’s faith in the Resurrection is the difference it makes in our own lives here and now. I believe in the Resurrection of Christ not only because I find the scriptural testimony persuasive, which I do, but also because I encounter the Risen Jesus here, in the life of his Church, in his Word and Sacraments, and not least, in the faces of his faithful people. The Church’s Easter proclamation is that Christ is alive. And if we seek him, he will certainly find us.

EASTER VIGIL

March 30, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Romans 6:3-11

 

So far as I’m concerned, the Easter Vigil really is the most exciting and powerful service of the entire Church year. Maybe you agree, or else you wouldn’t be here this evening.

 

It’s also one of the most ancient Christian liturgies we have on record. By the third century it was firmly established as the Church’s annual occasion of administering Holy Baptism. While practices varied from place to place, the typical pattern was for adult converts to undertake a period of preparation for baptism lasting as long as three years or more. During this period, they were called catechumens. The final forty days before Easter – which gradually evolved into that we now know as the season of Lent – comprised intensive instruction in the essentials of the faith, as well as fasting and prayer undertaken by the whole Church together with and on behalf of the catechumens.

 

Finally, between sunset and sunrise on Easter Eve, a long vigil service would take place, lasting many hours. (What we’re doing here this evening is a highly abbreviated version of that.) Down through the centuries, various ceremonies evolved to punctuate the stages of this liturgy: kindling new fire; lighting the Paschal Candle; chanting the Exultet; reciting the Litany of the Saints; proclaiming the Easter Alleluia. 

 

From the earliest days, however, the heart of this liturgy comprised three basic components: first, a lengthy service of readings from the Old Testament, each pointing by way of anticipation to Christ’s death and Resurrection; second, the administration of Holy Baptism; and third, the celebration of the Eucharist, at which the newly-baptized would receive Holy Communion for the first time. From the beginning, then, the Church’s celebration of Christ’s Resurrection at the Great Vigil was paired with the administration of Holy Baptism – although eventually Baptism ceased to be confined to Easter and came to be administered at other times during the year. (Over the years, I’ve administered a number of adult baptisms at the Easter Vigil, although I generally encourage scheduling infant baptisms at some other time, such as a Sunday morning in Eastertide.) 

 

In any case, the point I want to emphasize is that this pairing of Holy Baptism with the Easter celebration was neither accidental nor arbitrary, but deliberate and intentional. To see why, we need look no further than our Epistle for this evening, from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Chapter 6, verses 3 through 11.

 

Here, the Apostle describes Baptism as a kind of virtual participation in Christ’s death, burial, and Resurrection. “Do you not know,” Paul writes, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” 

 

It’s a remarkable passage. Here baptism appears as a symbol not only of washing and cleansing, but also of death-by-drowning. And Paul is saying that this enacted sign of death-by-water becomes for Christians the means of participation in Christ’s own death and burial. In other words, Christ saves us not merely as external beneficiaries of, but rather as active participants in, his crucifixion and entombment. And the vehicle by which we share in his death and burial is none other than the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

 

It’s not just that Christ pays the price of our sins on the cross for us as a kind of divine bookkeeping transaction. The supernatural reality at play here is more organic than forensic. We participate in Christ’s death through baptism, so that, as Paul writes, “we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.” In the background here is the ancient idea that a slave is a slave only for life; in death the slave gains freedom from the former master. Similarly, by participation in Christ’s death through Holy Baptism, we gain liberation from our slavery to sin’s former mastery over our lives.

 

But there’s more! Through Baptism we participate not only in Christ’s death but also in his Resurrection from the dead. This sharing in Christ’s risen life is both a future and a present reality. On one hand, Paul writes, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” That’s the future aspect: the hope of sharing in the glory of resurrection on the last day. But in the meantime, Paul writes, “The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

 

In other words, through Baptism we enjoy an anticipatory foretaste here and now of the life of the world to come, making possible new lives in this world marked by love, joy, hope, self-giving, and service. Again, as Paul puts it, we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that “we too might walk in newness of life.” 

 

Holy Baptism is thus the link between the first Easter Day two millennia ago, and our life together in the Church today. The Easter Vigil liturgy commemorates not only Christ’s victory over death, but also our death to sin and our resurrection to new and eternal life in him. On this most holy night, then, we fittingly renew our baptismal commitment, and we celebrate the power of Christ’s resurrection in our lives today.

GOOD FRIDAY

March 29, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

The cross is the archetypal symbol of Christian faith. Apart from its historical role as an instrument of torture and death, some commentators see its intersection of vertical and horizontal beams as a visual symbol of Incarnation. The vertical beam symbolizes transcendence. It points to heaven above, and to eternity. The horizontal beam symbolizes immanence. It points to the world around us, the here and the now. So, the cross’s intersection of vertical and horizontal beams signifies the union of eternity and time, spirit and matter, divine and human, in the Person of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. 

 

The Lord’s actual death on a wooden cross on the hill of Golgotha two thousand years ago also exhibits vertical and horizontal dimensions. Up the vertical axis, the suffering Jesus offers to his Father in heaven the one, full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world; and the Father looks down from heaven lovingly accepting his Son’s sacrifice. Along the horizontal axis, the dying Lord stretches out his arms of love to gather in all humanity and all creation; and conversely his life, forgiveness, grace, and strength flow out from his outstretched arms to the world’s remotest ends.

 

This ancient Good Friday liturgy exhibits a fourfold structure, which oscillates back and forth between these vertical and horizontal emphases. First, our attention is drawn upwards, vertically, to Jesus lifted high upon the cross. Then, our attention is redirected outwards, horizontally, to the world he died to save. And then the pattern repeats itself. So let’s look at how this pattern plays out in our worship today.

 

We begin with the Liturgy of the Word, culminating in the Passion according to Saint John. It focuses our attention vertically, upwards, towards Jesus and what happened to him on Good Friday. The Passion Gospel is read dramatically, with readers taking the various spoken parts. That kind of reading is very effective and moving. In parishes that have the resources to do so, the Passion is sung to the ancient chants, with the cantors and choir taking the various parts. Either way, the goal is a performative recitation, aiming not merely at remembering something that happened long ago, but at making it vivid and real, transporting us back into the past, so that we become virtual eyewitnesses; or, conversely, bringing it forward into the present so that we experience it here and now in all its naked terror and awe. In this way, we’re able to answer affirmatively the question posed in the old spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Yes, we were there. We are there.

Then, following a sermon or homily, which is ideally kept brief, we turn our attention from the cross outwards, horizontally, towards the world, reciting the ancient prayers known as the Solemn Collects. This movement has a deep inner logic. It’s not simply that since we really have nothing to say, we may as well just say some prayers. No, having just listened to the Passion Gospel, we ask God to apply the benefits of his Son’s death “to all people everywhere, according to their needs.” We make these prayers in the assurance that “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” The Church’s liturgical response to the proclamation of the Lord’s death is thus to pray for all those for whom he died.

 

Continuing our alternation from the horizontal to the vertical, we turn our attention once again to the cross, this time in loving adoration. A cross is brought in for the congregation’s veneration. The rubrics actually specify that this cross must be made of wood, like the cross on which Jesus was crucified. This ceremony dates back to fourth-century Jerusalem, where worshippers at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher would line up for hours on Good Friday to kiss a large fragment of the true Cross that would be unveiled and exposed for that purpose.

 

Then comes the fourth part of the liturgy, the Mass of the Presanctified. We retrieve from the Altar of Repose the Blessed Sacrament reserved at last night’s liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. There is no fresh offering of the Holy Eucharist, but Communion from the Reserved Sacrament—an extension of the single extended Triduum liturgy that began last night.

 

This Holy Communion of Good Friday conveys the Lord’s life, grace, and power to all who receive it. Having venerated Christ on the cross, we receive him into ourselves—not just for comfort and consolation, but also for empowerment as ambassadors of Christ’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. So we have another turn to the horizontal. Just as in the Solemn Collects we prayed for the world that Christ died to save, so now in receiving Communion we offer ourselves as living vessels to carry forth Christ’s salvation into that same world. 

 

Following Communion, we leave in silence. There’s nothing left to say. For the time being, the Incarnate Word has been silenced. We do well to keep silence too, waiting in trembling hope and expectation for what God will do next. 

 

MAUNDY THURSDAY

March 28, 2024

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The Liturgy of Maundy Thursday commemorates our Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples on the eve of his death: the occasion when he washes his disciples’ feet, institutes the Eucharist as the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, and ordains the twelve apostles to the priesthood of the new Covenant. 

 

The key point I want to make this evening is that these events are not merely a prelude to Good Friday, a few last-minute items to be checked off and gotten out of the way before Jesus can get down to the real business to take place on the next day. Instead, they’re integral and interrelated parts of a greater whole: the one mystery of our redemption.

 

At supper, the Lord bids his disciples continue gathering to share ritual fellowship meals, just as they’ve been doing regularly for as long as they’ve been together. But to the usual Jewish blessings said at the breaking of the bread before the meal, and the sharing of the cup after it, Jesus now adds new, unprecedented, and indeed shocking words: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me … This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

 

Known as the Words of Institution, these words demonstrate that the Last Supper and the Crucifixion mutually interpret each other. At the time, the disciples likely have no idea of what Jesus is talking about. What he says over the bread and wine will make sense only in retrospect, once his body is lifted on the cross, and his blood spilt for the life of the world. And thereafter his words will carry that same meaning whenever Christians gather to break the bread and share the cup in his Name. His death thus fulfills and interprets the words he speaks over the bread and the wine.

 

Conversely, those same words interpret and explain the meaning of his death itself. We’re able to understand the full significance of his Crucifixion only in light of his words spoken at the Last Supper: “This is my body, which is given for you …” “This is my blood … poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” So, we fully understand the Last Supper only by anticpating the Crucifixion; and we fully understand the Crucifixion only by remembering the Last Supper. Neither event is fully intelligible on its own. Saint Paul sums up this dynamic of mutual interpretation in his First Epistle to the Corinthians when he writes: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

 

But there’s more. When he says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” the Greek word translated as remembrance, anamnesis, means something more than mere recollection in a subjective psychological sense. It signifies instead a transformation of time itself, a making present of past events. So, his words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” really mean something like, “Do this to call me into your midst again so that I will be present among you as I am now.”

 

This “making present” refers first to the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in which from the beginning the Church has discerned the real presence of Our Lord’s Body and Blood. It refers secondly to the Church itself, the Body of Christ, which continues Our Lord’s life and work on earth until he returns to judge the living and the dead at the end of time. 

 

So, Jesus gives us another sign to show us what his becoming present in his Church looks like when it happens. He girds on a towel and washes his disciples’ feet. On Maundy Thursday we repeat this ritual foot-washing as the symbol of our desire to obey his commandment to love one another as he has loved us.

 

But it would be a grave mistake, reflecting a fatal flaw in our understanding of the Rites of Maundy Thursday, to take the foot-washing merely as a bit of exemplary moral advice given as a parting shot to his disciples—along the lines of “here’s how I want you to carry on without me.” For again, like his words over the bread and the cup, the foot-washing derives its full meaning only from the Lord’s death on the cross the next day. 

 

A key text for interpreting Our Lord’s washing his disciples’ feet is the passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians that we heard on Palm Sunday: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” 

 

This passage makes explicit the connection between Christ’s taking the form of a servant and his becoming obedient to even death on a cross. By taking the role of a domestic servant and washing his disciples’ feet, much to their horror and dismay, Jesus points to his ultimate act of servanthood the next day when he dies on the cross for the sins of the world.

So, the foot-washing and the crucifixion are also mutually interpretive: the foot-washing symbolizes death to self in the service of others; and death to self in service to others receives its ultimate expression in the spilt blood that washes us clean from our sins. Understood this way, the foot-washing exemplifies the Christian life’s cruciform pattern of self-sacrificial service: loving one another as Christ has loved us, always mindful that the cross is the place where his love for us reaches its perfect fulfillment.

 

In short, the events we commemorate and re-enact on Maundy Thursday—washing feet, breaking the bread, and sharing the cup—are not so much discrete moments following one upon another as they’re interrelated aspects of the single mystery of our redemption, culminating in the Lord’s complete self-offering in love for those he came to save. We understand and appreciate each of these elements only in light of all the others. 

 

This evening’s liturgy invites us, then, to answer Our Lord’s call to take up our cross and follow him—precisely by meeting together regularly to break the bread and share the cup, and then by going out into the world to serve others in his Name. 

PALM SUNDAY

March 24, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Mark 11:1-11

Mark 15:1-47

 

An iconic moment in the concluding stages of the Second World War was the Liberation of Paris on August 26, 1944. One commentator remarks that it was neither the most dramatic nor the most decisive event in the war, but certainly one of the most romantic. The day after the commander of German forces in the city surrendered, General Charles de Gaulle led a victory parade down the Champs Elysee from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, where he addressed the wildly cheering crowds. He then went into the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was packed for a Solemn High Mass offered in thanksgiving for the city’s liberation.

 

Consciously or not, de Gaulle was re-enacting the ancient pattern of a ceremony known as the Royal Entry. In the time of Jesus, the ceremony was known as the Adventus or “arrival” of the King or Emperor. 

 

Whenever such a ruler would arrive in one of the cities or towns in his realm, a delegation would go out to welcome him and escort him in through the city gates to the acclamation of the crowds lining the road. Then, in the town square, arena, stadium, or some other public place, the ruler would address the citizens, exchange gifts with local officials, and bestow public favors or privileges on the town or city itself.

 

A well-known variant of this ceremony was the Roman Triumph. After a great wartime victory or successful campaign of military conquest, the conquering emperor or general would return to Rome and stage a festive procession into the city, featuring exotic animals, like elephants and camels from far-away lands, captives in chains, and wagons loaded with the spoils of war – some of which would be used to pay for the ensuing public entertainments. This procession always included two spotless white oxen; the conquering hero’s first stop was always the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, where the oxen were sacrificed in thanksgiving for victory and military supremacy.

 

This background illuminates Our Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. All four Gospel writers want us to understand that the King is arriving at the gates to take possession of his capital city. He rides on a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah’s messianic prophecy: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass." 

 

The crowds come out to meet him, spreading in his path their garments and—as Mark’s Gospel puts it—“leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.” (only John’s Gospel specifies that they were palm branches.) Palm leaves were signs of victory and dominion; coins minted in Judea in the early second century show children bearing palms to greet the Emperor Hadrian. 

 

The acclamation hosanna means something like “Lord, save us!”—said not in despair but in joyful anticipation of imminent deliverance. Drawing on verses of Psalm 118, the crowd’s acclamations “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the one who comes in the Name of the Lord” clearly identify Jesus as the Messiah, the Lord’s anointed, the true King of Israel arriving to take possession of his capital city and end its long subjugation under enemy occupation. 

 

Upon entering the Holy City, Jesus goes into the Temple. This, again, follows the standard pattern of the Royal Entry: the first thing the Emperor did in a Roman Triumph was to offer sacrifice in the Temple of Jupiter; the first thing de Gaulle did after his victory parade in Paris in August 1944 was to enter Notre Dame for Solemn High Mass.

 

None of the four Gospels tell us, however, that Jesus offered any sacrifice in the Temple. The reason for this omission may well be that Jesus is himself the sacrifice. Here, then, lies the deepest connection between the two liturgies of Palm Sunday, the Liturgy of the Palms, and the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. Unlike the Emperor bringing oxen to be sacrificed in a Roman Triumph, Jesus, so far as we know, brings nothing to sacrifice in the Temple; he enters the city not only as the triumphant King of Israel, but also as the spotless victim who, within the week, will shed his own blood upon the altar of the cross.

 

Every year I like to incorporate the hymn “Ride on, ride on, in majesty” into the Palm Sunday procession. For its lyrics make explicit this deep connection between the Lord’s Triumphal Entry and his coming Passion:

 

         Ride on, ride on in majesty,

         The angel armies of the sky

         Look down with sad and wondering eyes

         To see th’approaching sacrifice.

 

The great irony is that many among the same crowds who shout “Hosanna” to welcome the Lord into the Holy City shall, within the week, also be shouting “Crucify Him.” The same Lord who enters in through the city gates shall, within the week, carry his cross outside another set of gates on the other side of the city to the place of execution. Palm Sunday thus challenges us to open up the gates of our hearts to him—and, having done so, to remain faithful even at the cost of taking up our cross to follow him on the road to Calvary.

 

Today, then, with joy we commemorate the Lord’s Entry within the walls of Jerusalem, and we contemplate with sorrow his Passion and Death outside those same city walls. Still, as we shall see next week, both events are the prelude to a greater victory than anyone present can possibly imagine:

 

         Ride on, ride on in majesty,

         In lowly pomp ride on to die;

         Bow thy meek head to mortal pain,

         Then take, O God, thy power and reign.  

 

 

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR B

March 17, 2024

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R.I.

 

 

Jeremiah 31:31-34 

Psalm 119:9-16

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-23

 

From today’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob and the house of Israel …”  And that raises the question: What is a covenant?

 

In the ancient world a covenant was like a peace treaty or a legal agreement between two usually unequal parties. The stronger party would typically promise protection and care for the weaker party, who would promise loyalty, obedience, and maybe the payment of tribute or taxes in return. The parties to the covenant would often erect some sort of monument, such as an engraved plaque, or an obelisk, to stand as a permanent and perpetual reminder of the agreement they’d made.

 

During these past five Sundays in Lent, the Old Testament readings have focused our attention on a series of covenants made by God with his people.

Four weeks ago, on the First Sunday in Lent, we listened to the story of God’s covenant with Noah after the Great Flood. God promised never again to destroy the earth by water, and in return he required obedience to certain minimal commandments, which some theologians have identified with the natural moral law binding on all people in all times and places. And the sign of this covenant between God and all creation was the rainbow.

 

A week later, on the Second Sunday in Lent, we heard of God’s covenant with Abraham. God promised Abraham and his wife Sarah that they would become the ancestors of a multitude of peoples, kings, and nations, as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham’s part in return was simply to trust in God’s promises. And the sign of this covenant was male circumcision, a practice continued to this day among all who consider themselves descendants of Abraham.

 

Then, on the Third Sunday in Lent, we considered God’s covenant with the children of Israel given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Here God promised to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land where they would be his People and he would be their God. In return, they promised obedience to the Torah, or Law, God’s gift to regulate their life and worship and to mark them out as God’s own possession among all the nations of the earth. And the sign of this covenant was the two stone tablets of the Law, which Moses brought down from Mount Sinai and placed in the Ark of the Covenant.

 

Although not included in the Lenten Sunday readings, some biblical scholars suggest that in the Old Testament God made a further covenant, with King David, promising him a royal house or lineage in which his descendants would sit on the throne of a kingdom that would last forever. As Christians, we understand this promise to have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who sits on the throne of his ancestor David not on earth but in heaven, and who shall return as universal king to judge the living and the dead on the Last Day.

 

Now, a very important point I want to make before proceeding is that all these covenants remain valid and in force. None of them has been broken or superseded. God’s covenant with Noah still extends to all creation. God’s covenant with Abraham still encompasses all the Semitic peoples who claim descent from him. And God’s covenant with Israel still upholds the Jews’ special status as God’s Chosen People.

 

Still, as we read the Scriptures, it becomes clear that these former covenants, while entirely good and enduring, could accomplish only so much. In last week’s Old Testament reading from Numbers, for example, we saw the Israelites grumbling against God in the wilderness and suffering a deadly plague of serpents as a result. None of the former covenants was able to bring about the obedience it demanded. None of them addressed the deep causes of rebellion in the human heart. And so today, on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, the Prophet Jeremiah foretells a new covenant, in which God promises: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

 

A new heart is what we need above all. As Psalm 119 puts it: With my whole heart I seek you; let me not stray from your commandments. I treasure your promise in my heart, that I may not sin against you.

 

Today’s Collect expresses so beautifully what we need. It begins by calling upon God who alone can order the unruly wills and affections of sinners. It then asks God to make us love what he commands, and desire what he promises, so that among the manifold and sundry changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.

 

Imagine that: a heart that loves what God commands and desires what he promises; a heart that finds obedience to God’s law no longer burdensome but rather the source of our deepest joy. 

 

The promise of today’s readings is that Jesus is the one who can accomplish all this in us. Today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews describes Christ as “a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” – that is, not an Aaronic priest of the Old Covenant but rather the mediator of the New Covenant foretold by Jeremiah, and “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” 

Speaking in today’s Gospel of his coming passion and death, Jesus proclaims: “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” As we approach Holy Week, then, we do well to pray that as we gaze upon Jesus, lifted high upon the cross, we may receive that new heart, surely fixed where true joys are to be found.