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Comments, complaints, broken links, disappointed hopes - please contact the caretaker. 31/07/2009 |
Paul's Personal Pages [Paul's Personal Pages] [Contact Us] The New Covenant (Easter Sunday, 2005) The fount of Christianity is Jesus’ death and his resurrection. By his death he inaugurated the ‘New Covenant’ - a new arrangement or new deal between God and humanity. And the terms of this new covenant? First, that all are welcome—all you are asked to do is to love God and to do God’s will (See Matthew 22:24-40, and parallels). Second, God’s will is to serve him in justice and peace. He set out the characteristics of his followers in the Sermon on the Mount:
Third the Old Covenant was over, torn up and thrown away. There is no more need for Temple, nor sacrifices. No more priests to mediate between God and the people—now God is immediately present with his people. The old law hadn’t been thrown away, rather Jesus saw himself as fulfilling the law and making it whole. What has gone is religious legalism: the idea that punctilious adherence to the law will bring you into heaven. Instead love, faith and true righteousness have replaced it. Of course, in the history of the Church more often than not these things have been neglected and ignored. All too often Churches erect builders to keep people out rather than welcome them in. Too often we have built an exclusive Christianity rather than an inclusive one. Similarly Churches have too often despised the poor and the meek. Too often we have preferred the company, and the finances, of the rich and powerful. Too often priests have reasserted their own significance and have tried to put themselves in between God and God's people. But equally the history of the Church has been one of turning back to the scriptures and re-discovering the terms of God’s new Covenant in each generations. Each generation, each Christian community, has to learn afresh the quality of God's new covenant in order to be able to participate fully in it, and in order to proclaim it afresh in every corner of the world. So we take our part in the new covenant: a generous God asks us to practice generosity to friend and stranger; a welcoming God asks that we welcome others; a loving God that we put love into practice in the world. By loving god, and doing God’s will in this earth, we are welcomed as children and heirs in God’s household. |
