Covenant

stjohnstmarkchurchburySunday, February 25, 2018

Bible Text: Genesis 17:1-7 | Preacher: Ralph Mallinson | Series: Lent

In the old days – i.e. before Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) invented Gift Aid – tax payers were invited to covenant with the Church (or any charity). That is to agree to give a certain amount each week/month/year for a certain time. In return HMG paid to the Church the tax the donor had paid on the sum given.  And covenants are well known in legal circles. Agreements to do or not to do certain things, often in relation to buildings.

We heard the word covenant 4 times in the OT reading (Genesis 17:1-7) – and we hear it again in the Eucharistic Prayer. It’s a word frequently used in Bible and in Church speak.

The tax use of the word covenant sheds some light on the Christian meaning, though our use goes much further.  A covenant is an agreement – in this case, between God and the people of God. Today, an agreement between God on one hand and Abraham and his descendants on the other.

God promised to do certain things one of which was to make Abraham the father of many nations. And because God is God, always sure and steadfast, God’s covenant is made for ever – not just for the 4 years required under old tax regime.  And God is always faithful to God’s side of the agreement.

Alas, God’s people haven’t always been faithful to their side of the agreement. The OT religion was an attempt to ensure that this did happen, that people were faithful.
Repeated failure
But time and again they failed. They offered their own imperfect righteousness and their faulty allegiance, based on following the Law and in exchange they received the promises and mercies of God. But the sad story of the OT is that reconciliation between God and humankind, based on following Law, didn’t prove possible.
All change
All changed with the new covenant inaugurated by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This new covenant is associated with the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. Without any claim or merit of our own, humankind is freely forgiven by God in Christ, who at the cost of his death on the Cross reconciled the world and God – achieved at-one-ment.

While we were sinners Christ died for us – and the outcome of that death is that the gracious promises of God are freely, always and everywhere available to us. So there is nothing we have to do, no work we have to perform, no sacrifice to offer or law to obey, to merit or earn the reconciliation won by Jesus in the new covenant. It is all a gift.
Circumcision
Outward sign of the old covenant = circumcision; outward sign of the new covenant = baptism. And this new covenant is renewed for us, made real for us, every time we break bread and drink wine. Every time we share in the blessed sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. That’s why this is at the centre of Christian worship. That’s why every Sunday we come to ‘do this in remembrance of him’.

As we share in these gifts, we are caught up into a living relationship with God and others. Our sins [which might have broken those relationships] are forgiven. Our apparent [and sometimes to us all too obvious] unworthiness is not taken account of.
New covenant – freely given
All that God promised in the new covenant is ours. We haven’t to earn it or work for it . It is freely and lavishly and abundantly poured out on us.

The old covenant was based on law, the new covenant on love: God’s love for the world when God gave Jesus, the son of God, to take away the sins of the world, and that all who believe in him may come to know eternal life.

[‘Covenant’ was preached by Ralph Mallinson at the 8.30am service on 25th February 2018]