Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)
Today’s passage has always been a high point of the Old Testament for me, presaging in many ways the good news delivered by Jesus in the Beatitudes. Like me, have you ever wondered what it will take for humanity to “cease its warring madness” rather than descend into yet another conflict? To live in harmony and partnership with the rest of the Creation rather than at odds with and exploiting our fellow creatures? For your own life to be marked by contentment, joy and righteousness rather than anxiety and what-ifs? If so, then this passage is for you!
As with Jesus’ reassurances in the Beatitudes, Jeremiah’s striking prophecy here assures us that the Lord is already in the process of bringing holistic righteousness to all of the earth – a new time is coming! This time, unlike that marked by the brokenness that we all know too well, will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. That knowledge will be written on our very heart, and on all of our hearts. The time of teaching and training, chastising and molding each other will be over. All of us, “from the least to the greatest,” will simply live in God’s righteousness and grace as fish live in water. Faithful living will no longer be a struggle, no longer something that we succeed in accomplishing only sometimes. We will finally be complete humans, ready to live in God’s image and as faithful spouses to the One whose own power and grace makes it possible. Thanks be to God!
Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)
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. 32It 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. 33But 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. 34No 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.