Introduction

Friends, on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we hear one of the most pivotal passages in the Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:31. Jeremiah knew the long Israelite history of covenant and blood sacrifice, but he prophesies, “The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” This passage will find its fulfillment about six centuries later at a Passover supper, where a young rabbi—the covenant in person—offers his own lifeblood for his people to drink.