Thursday 23 May 2024

Today is Thursday 23 May, the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, in the 7th week of Ordinary Time. Eliza King sings, ‘All Things New’. How is God creating a newness in your life and the world around you at this moment? You break like the light of the sun Bringing colour to shadows Christ, it was you all along You’re the words of an ancient song, we’ve been singing Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new You rise, as the bright morning star We were blind but we see you now The light of the world here with us You’re a fire making holy ground, by your spirit Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new You’re the treasure of the ages Sort for generations How the prophets longed to see what we have seen You’re the final word incarnate Leaping from the pages You’re the burning heart behind the mystery Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Behold, He makes all things new Today’s reading is from the Prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 31:31-34 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. The prophet Jeremiah speaks here of a ‘new covenant’ – a new understanding, a new relationship between God and his people, in which God will “forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” What does that offer of forgiveness mean to you? What are the wrongs – in yourself or in the world around you – that most need forgiving? In this new covenant, we are told, God will ‘write his law in our hearts’ and we will know him without needing to be told. That might sound like a vision of Utopia, of a perfect world. But can you perhaps detect signs or glimpses of this prophecy being fulfilled? Is it ‘coming true’ in any people you can think of? Is it coming true, even partly, in you? Christians would interpret these words of Jeremiah as a prophecy about Jesus – through whose life, death and resurrection a new covenant was forged between God and humanity. Listen to the reading again in the light of that thought. What do you want to say now to Jesus about forgiveness? Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.