Let’s talk for a minute about covenants. Covenants are often considered contracts of sorts. Some covenants are formal, and some are informal. Our Thursday Matters group has a covenant, where they agree to certain patterns of behavior and etiquette. And it is the respect that the people in that group have for each other, as children of God and members of this community that helps them – somewhat imperfectly – to live into that covenant. When I was doing youth ministry in a previous life in church camps and other places, it was common that we would build a covenant, where in much the same way, the kids in a group would come to agreement for mutual expectations. But the covenants that God places on us? Those are in some ways very similar, but in other ways very different. Because when God creates a covenant with us, it isn’t because we have desired and bargained for it. It is because God has chosen to do so for our own benefit.
There have been a number of covenants that God has created with the Hebrew people, which are referenced by the prophet Jeremiah today – most notably is the covenant of Abraham and the covenant of Moses. God promises to Abraham that as he is faithful to God, God would create from his line a great nation. And from that line, the Hebrew people come into being. Generations later, after this great nation had been enslaved in Egypt, God acts, and through Moses leads them out of Egypt, and gives to them the Ten Commandments and the Law, designed for their own good. And God promises as they are faithful, they will be protected. But history proves that faithfulness to God is not always easy. The mutual trust and respect that is baked into these covenants is lost, and God, as revealed by the scriptures, removes God’s protection from the Hebrew people, which leads to their downfall. But now God promises a new covenant that will no longer be made of stone. It will no longer be reliant on stone tablets or the pillars of a temple to be maintained. No, this covenant will be placed on the hearts of the people of God.
Sometimes there are things that are placed on our hearts, and often I think we think of these things as burdens. You know, we use the phrase “God has placed on my heart…” and then we follow that up with something that is uncomfortable to talk about or to do. But sometimes the things that are placed on our hearts are things that are designed to give us a freedom that we’ve never experience before. That is the promise of the covenant to be received by the Hebrew people in the first reading today. This new covenant that is written on their hearts is a covenant that is different than the covenants of old. This covenant is maintained by God’s very faithfulness, which does not end. And it is the faithfulness of God that brings about the salvation that we receive in Jesus Christ, whose very existence places on the hearts of two Greeks a desire to know more – to get to see Jesus.
And this is one of the stranger transitions in scripture. These two Greeks – who would be considered outsiders by the Jewish disciples who were surrounding Jesus – are convicted enough by their desire to know more about Jesus that they approach Philip and express their desire to see Jesus. And did you catch what happens next? Philip approaches Andrew, and then Philip and Andrew approach Jesus. The Greeks who want to see Jesus? Well, they disappear from the narrative. Jesus never seems to directly acknowledge them. Instead, the request that is brought to Jesus by two of his disciples prompts Jesus to foreshadow once again his coming death at the hands of the Roman colonizers. And it is apparent that his knowledge of what is to come has placed on the heart of Jesus a burden that he will carry to the cross of our own salvation.
Jesus tells his followers, “Now, my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” This reason is the revealing of God’s glory through Jesus in this unexpected way. And when God’s glory is revealed in the humble death of God’s son on the cross, we receive a new covenant – not of stone, but of precious blood, sealed in the waters of baptism in which we are united to Christ.
And this covenant – placed on our hearts – is a covenant of freedom. That which burdened the soul of Christ in his very human anxiety about his impending death has resulted in our freedom from the power of sin that has worked since the beginning of humanity to separate us from God. But now, with the new covenant of Christ in our lives, the burden of sin is lifted from our hearts, and in the freedom we receive, God indeed is doing something new in us. And it is this something new that glorifies God.
But this leads to a little bit of a challenge for us – because it’s easy for us to confuse exactly where the glorification of God begins. It’s that little bit of sin that holds on to us that makes us think that God’s glorification is up to us. We respond to this new covenant on our hearts in such a way that the goodness of God is revealed, but sin convinces us that these things we are doing are completely on our own, independent of the Spirit at work in our hearts. We convince ourselves that our response to the faithfulness of God isn’t truly a response, but indeed our own innate ability to glorify God by showing how good we are, not how good God is through us. But God’s own words from heaven remind us that we are not the ones who glorify. Just as we are not the ones able to make covenants with God, so too is God’s glory not reliant on us. In fact, our actions are evidence of God’s glory. They are not what causes God’s glory. When Jesus prays to God, “Father, glorify your name,” and God responds, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again,” it becomes clear that God’s glory does not depend on us. But what we do depends entirely on God’s glory.
So when we hear that small voice of sin telling us what a good job we’ve done – doing what God has put before us to do, we are invited instead to remember, that which has been placed on our hearts – the good news of God found in Christ Jesus – was placed on our hearts by a God who has given us all good things for the glory of God, to reveal what we know to be true – that God is indeed faithful. And the God who is faithful gives us every good thing.
So today I invited you to examine your hearts to see what God might have been placing especially on you today. Today, maybe God gave you words or actions of care that you weren’t sure you had. And it’s sometimes a struggle. Sometimes it feels like a burden to examine those deep parts of your heart. But God’s promises to us through Jesus Christ are revealed still in these deep places. The promise of God present in our hearts reveals God’s glory not just to those of us in the know, but also to those who don’t truly know the love of God. I wonder – what good news does God reveal through you today? How has God glorified the faithfulness of Christ through what you reveal in your own hearts today? What door may have been opened to a deeper love of one another and of God? Truly I tell you, there is a story to be told. It’s the story of God’s faithfulness. It’s the story of God’s love. And that love? It’s revealed – despite our own imperfections – through how we live out and experience the goodness of God placed on our hearts, knowing that through our baptism and Christ’s resurrection that God’s faithfulness with all of us never fails, and indeed is glorified again this day, and every day, in the Spirit-led work of God’s people on earth.