Lent 5 (B) The Prophecy of Jeremiah | Homily / Sermon

Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. (Jeremiah 31:33)

Previously in the Old Testament:

In each of the Old Testament readings this Lent we have heard descriptions of God’s dealings with his people. It has been a story of human failings and of God forgiveness. In Noah there is evil doing, followed by the flood followed by the promise of an everlasting love and protection. In Abraham a cruel sacrifice is averted and there is the promise of a shower of blessings. Then we hear of God binding himself to his people by Laws written in stone, and last week we heard how the people who had been defeated and taken into exile would be restored again to their promised land. This pattern, of disobedience, disaster and then deliverance is summed up in a word which we hear repeatedly in today’s words from Jeremiah - covenant.

A covenant is a contract, a pact, a commitment, a promise, a Testament. It is God’s commitment to his people to deliver them, again and again, despite their sins and their disasters. The Covenant is, in effect, the description of God’s love. In personal terms it is promise, it is failure, it is forgiveness … and reconciliation.

And now, at the moment of latest of these disaster, as the people of God have been defeated and are taken into exile, the holy man Jeremiah makes an extraordinary prophecy.

His prophecy is not of yet another covenant, but of an entirely new covenant.
He tells us that God is not proposing yet another fresh start, but instead he is taking the responsibility and the initiative upon himself.

This new covenant, this new Testament is like the old Testament yet also entirely different. I will be their God and they shall be my people, he says. They will all know me, he says. I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind because Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.
In the new testament of which Jeremiah speaks, God does not just rescue, but he frees the human heart, by entering into it himself. He embraces the essence of humanity, he makes Sacred the human heart.

Jeremiah’s words are the prophecy of the new law which does not destroy burt which fulfills the old Law. It is a law not to be learnt by heart, but written on the heart and lived from the heart.
These words are a prophecy of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Gifts of the Spirit, the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge and piety. This prophecy announces the new age of God’s grace, the shower of blessings of his great spiritual gifts, the transformation of the sacraments, the birth of the Church.

And this is all because this prophecy can only be truly fulfilled in Christ, the Word made flesh, the perfection of human nature, the heart entirely given over to love. The Sacred Heart is the perfection of the human heart, by the fullness of Divine Grace. Our human nature is like the grain of which Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel - a single grain, so small, so meagre, yet a grain which has been created by God, and so which already holds the rich harvest within it.

And this harvest can and will emerge, but only through a kind of death, a sacrifice, a self-giving … which will seem so final, and yet which will prove to be just the beginning.

Lent 4 (B) Exile and Restoration | Homily / Sermon

Thus speaks Cyrus king of Persia, “the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; he has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! (2 Chronicles 36:23)

Previously in the Old Testament:
We began with Noah, emerging from the disaster of the flood to God’s promise of compassion and salvation symbolised by the Rainbow. Next, we heard of the calamitous plan of Abraham to sacrifice his Son, Isaac, and God’s action in averting the sacrifice and promising a shower of blessings on Abraham, Isaac and their descendants. Last week, the God of the Hebrews, who has rescued his people from persecution and slavery, now binds them closer to himself by a the Commandments, a charter of love and service.
And today, we hear how the people of Israel, having been defeated, conquered and taken into exile, are now rescued once again by the gracious act of God.

Yes, through these passages of the Old Testament there is a recurring pattern, a pattern which speaks to us of sin, and of suffering, and even threatens annihilation, and yet, and yet God does it again. He saves. He rescues. And he restores.

You don’t have to be an expert in theology, or trained in Biblical studies to see that all these passages in the Jewish scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, are pointing ahead to what is summarised in today’s gospel -

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life. (John 3:14)

In these words are the shadows of the rainbow, the reflection of the boy given over for sacrifice, the trace of the law which binds through belief and service, and the echo of the rebuilding of the temple, the promised land, the new heaven and the new earth. We know he will do it again - we seem to be told - because he has done it before.

And perhaps one point we can take from this, in our unbelieving and cold hearted world, is this:

So often people today who have no faith, or who struggle with faith, confront us with the hard question: “If there is a God, then why is there suffering”?

But what Scripture says to us is something very different: “There is suffering in the world, but in spite of it, however great it may be, there is hope, because there is God”. That’s what the Old Testament is saying to us each week. That is what the Gospel says to us to today. That is what we read in the Cross - and it what we will see made real in the resurrection.