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.