Devotional 2-23-08

Jeremiah 31:31-36, Romans 11:26, Hebrews 8:7-13, Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:14-29

A Covenant Community
It was a special experience and a privilege to be a part of the Visioning Committee recently updating Johnson Memorial’s Vision Statement and restating the mission of our congregation. No doubt this has been completed many times before as JM has been guided through the 130+ years of church history.

The Vision of Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church is to be a covenant community transformed by God’s grace to share the love of Christ with the world.

What is a covenant community?

Webster’s New World Dictionary states one definition – an agreement or promise among members of a church to defend and maintain its doctrine, its specific form of church government and its faith, and to live with others in a friendly association or fellowship.

The Old Covenant
The Interpreters Commentary on the Bible listed over eighty references to “The Covenant.”
It was interesting to read about the updating and change in God’s covenant with Israel through the history of its Old Testament.

Yahweh (Hebrew for God) wrote upon tablets of stone – this early covenant contained the Ten Commandments and also the code of Exodus (ordinance consisting of 41 laws).

The covenant was a series of annual renewals pointing to a growing and changing relationship with God and his people.

The failure of his people provoked God to action, for it was clear that there is “no other source of salvation and right.” God is the Redeemer of his own people, bringing judgment to all who set themselves against Him.

The outcome of judgment is salvation. God is the Redeemer of His people.

The full significance of God’s action is the establishment of a perpetual covenant from which there is no departure. The answer to man’s desperate condition cut off from God by reason of his sin, is found in the assurance both of divine action and the indwelling of his word in his people.
“I will put my law within them and I will write it upon their hearts. When the time of restoration comes, men will do what is right from their inner conviction and desire. In this way the covenant of Yahweh and Israel will be finally and permanently renewed.”

The New Covenant
In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word covenant is frequently translated as testament.

In the 27 Books of the Christian Scripture, Christ establishes a new covenant between Abraham and God, as well as the covenant of Moses at Sinai. The books form the New Testament.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote four version of the Good News of Christ. Jesus made the phrase “a new covenant” his own at the Last Supper, and the organization of scripture into two covenants – the testaments follow from this. The Old covenant was renewed – the covenant of Yahweh and Israel. It is not accompanied by any new obligations for the old are well known. Jesus used the phrase to speak to a truly new covenant, with all mankind rather than with Israel alone, and with new obligations, those of the law of love.

The earliest written record of its Last Supper comes, not from the Gospels, but from the letter of the Apostle Paul, some 20 to 40 years before the Gospels, when he was instructing the church he had established in the Greek city of Corinth. Paul’s story of the Last Supper give us some insight into how the tradition was handed down in the early days of the church, until it ultimately became part of the Gospels.

Prayer:
Let us covenant together that: We shall not rest until “God’s reign of righteousness and peace is realized on earth as it is in heaven.” We shall not seek the illusory comfort of easy answers but will do the hard work of seeking God’s will with each new decision. We shall not succumb to the false gospel of individualism but shall pursue shalom, the hope of justice for all God’s people. We shall not be seduced by the appeal of nationalism but shall consider ourselves citizens of an order ruled by Christ to whom belongs all honor and glory, authority and power, world without end. Amen.

1. The Living Bible (paraphrased), July 1976. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
2. Webster’s New World Dictionary, World Publishing Company, 1968.
3. Interpreter’s Commentary on the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1971.The Mysteries of the Bible.
4. Reader’s Digest Association, 1988.

Frank Hanshaw