Friday, April 11, 2014

A Forever Covenant

"I will make with them a covenant of peace; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever." Ez 37:26-27

Covenants are the hallmarks of God's love for us. When God makes a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, God promises fidelity not only to the Covenant itself but to the People of the Covenant. God cannot break the covenant because God promised never to abandon the people he claims for his own. God's covenants are irrevocable and so strong that God assures his people if ever he breaks the Covenant, the people to whom he has promised his love can abandon him, even kill him.

Unfortunately, the security the Jewish people should have felt through the Covenant did not last. The book of Exodus reminds us that soon after the Hebrew people were set from slavery in Egypt, they began complaining about the food, the lack of water and the loss of their security. Nevertheless, although God gets angry with them, he does not break his word. His covenants endure.

The same is true in Jesus, the one we call the new and everlasting Covenant. In God's goodness, Jesus comes among us as the incarnate word, a living person who is also God to promise that God will do anything to assure his people that he is faithful even to allowing Jesus to suffer and die for us. It is this covenant upon which our entire faith rests.

Today, thank God for promising never to abandon us.

Have you experienced God as an unconditional lover?

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