David Bahn – Reflections

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Today’s readings: Jeremiah 31-33, Psalm 67.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares 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. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jeremiah 33:14-16

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’”

Four times in these chapters of Jeremiah, God points his people toward a better tomorrow. “Behold, the days are coming…” becomes a refrain of promise and hope. It is God’s word that looks beyond the coming doom and judgment to a day of ultimate deliverance. Jerusalem is soon to be overrun. The people of God will be taken captive. Jeremiah has already proclaimed that painful truth. But now he points them beyond the exile—beyond the seventy years—to a new day of God’s grace and favor.

Yet there is a problem that must first be addressed. God speaks of a new covenant, because the old one had been broken.

The Old Covenant was God’s gracious agreement with Israel, established at Mount Sinai after the Exodus. He redeemed his people from slavery, made them his treasured possession, and gave them his Law as the pattern for their life together. The problem was never the covenant itself; the problem was the people’s sinful hearts. Though God remained faithful, they repeatedly broke the covenant through idolatry and disobedience.

What was God to do?

Abandon the people he had chosen? Cast aside the promises he had made? Begin again with someone else?

No. Instead, God promised something entirely new. “I will make a new covenant.” It would not rest on Israel’s ability to keep the Law, but on God’s determination to forgive their sins. “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)

That new covenant is centered in the One whom Jeremiah also calls “The LORD is our righteousness.” (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16)

This is none other than Jesus Christ—God’s Son, our Savior, Redeemer, and Lord. He kept the covenant we could not keep. He bore the judgment we deserved. He established the New Covenant in his own blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

This is not an excuse to treat sin lightly. Quite the opposite. Because Christ is our righteousness, we return to him daily in repentance and faith. We still stumble. We still forget God’s ways. But our standing before God does not depend upon our righteousness. It rests upon his. His mercy restores us. His forgiveness renews us. His righteousness is counted as our own.

Jeremiah’s promise is not finished yet. There is still another “day that is coming.” A day when sin will trouble us no more. A day with no more sickness, sorrow, or death. The fullness of God’s promise still lies ahead, just as it did for Jeremiah’s first hearers.

Until that day, we live by the promises of the New Covenant. They are centered in Christ, sealed to us in Holy Baptism, and celebrated whenever we receive the Lord’s Supper—the meal of the New Covenant. There we receive a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, where God’s promises will finally and forever be fulfilled.

Follow the Word is a daily Bible reading and devotional ministry of St. John Lutheran Church, Cypress, Texas.