Last time I was preaching at St Gabriel’s I was able to preach about one of my favourite disciples, Andrew, and this week I am returning to celebrate the 5th Sunday of Lent, the beginning of Passiontide, and also St Patrick’s Day. Andrew also pops up once again! You will be welcome to join me at the 10.30am service.

Jeremiah is a prophet of disaster and hope writes Andrew Knowles in his introduction to the great prophet, and this seems a fitting description of the actions about to unfold as we make our way through the drama of Holy Week. Next Sunday we will be celebrating Palm Sunday with Hosannahs but will soon be thrown into the turmoil of Maundy Thursday, the fear and dread of Good Friday, the lament and waiting of Easter Saturday, and finally the hope-filled exhilaration of Easter Sunday. Perhaps not so much disaster and hope as hope, disaster, hope?

Jeremiah is writing in the time leading up to the fall of Jerusalem and exile to Babylon. Jeremiah faithfully preaches and prophesies the catastrophe that will befall Israel should they not listen, not repent, not return to God.

In Jeremiah we see the pain and passion of a prophet at work. God’s word burns within him, so that he must preach. But his message makes him unpopular. At times he is cruelly persecuted. He has a hard life – crushed between the pressing truth of God and the resistance of his people.

The Bible Guide, Andrew Knowle.

The passage selected for today speaks of the new covenant that God will create with his people once the exile is over. They will need to be patient through their suffering, but it will be worth the wait. This covenant will be personal, intimate, it will not need others to intercede on their behalf. There will be despair and suffering, loss and lament, but eventually, eventually the good that will come out of their trials will be unbelievable.

It is a fitting passage for today as we prepare ourselves to revisit the Easter Story; it fits not just in a clever selection of quotes kind of way, rather it fits because the prophecy of Jeremiah finally is fulfilled in Jesus. The promise of the covenant is about to take place as Jesus allows himself to be placed upon that cross.

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 there God and they will be my people.

Jeremiah 31: 33

500 years have passed since this prophecy has been made. There have been better times of faith, the Israelites return from Exile and are reinvigorated, reidentifying as God’s chosen people. There have also been years when God has been silent, hundreds of years.

Now, though, Jesus is here! God has become the intimate, personal God they had long hoped for. Hope incarnate. And here is where Andrew takes centre (ish) stage for just a few moments. As Jesus prepares for what only he knows is about to unfold, some Greeks present for the festival of Passover approach Andrew and Philip, the two disciples with Greek names, seeking an audience with Jesus. We don’t know who these people were or why they were in Jerusalem at this time. As it was Passover we can assume that they are here to celebrate the holy festival, except that Greeks and Jews did not share a religion, indeed Greeks and Jews were often pitted against each other with Greeks being viewed as Gentiles, as unclean, as dogs. Of course it was possible for Greeks to convert to Judaism, and this may have been the case. Perhaps they had travelled to see Jesus himself, having heard that he welcomed outsiders and valued them, were not Andrew and Philip at the heart of all that Jesus did?

It is intriguing that just as these people approach Jesus he decides it is time to talk about his imminent death. The speech that follows is somewhat ‘Jeremiah-like’ in that it weaves together disaster and hope; the disaster of course, is that Jesus will die, what’s more, anyone who chooses to follow Jesus will also need to be prepared to face death. It is perhaps a warning to the Greeks who haven’t walked as closely with Jesus as the Twelve, even for them, these are hard words to swallow. We have seen Jesus’ disciples struggle to accept that being a Messiah means being willing to die, and as this week unfolds we will see those struggles become manifest. Death though, isn’t a by product of a battle Jesus is prepared to fight, it is the desired outcome of his entire ministry on earth. Jesus has known this every day of his human life, but it doesn’t mean that he is happy about it, that he relishes the thought of being tortured, of suffering.

My soul is troubled…

Jesus, John 12:27

Jesus faces disaster as any human would, but this disaster is laced with hope. Jesus knows that his Father will be glorified through his death, which is a really odd concept to try and understand for anyone. Jesus knows that the purpose of his death is not the suffering, not even death itself; the purpose is the renewed covenant between humanity and deity, between Creator and created. The only way. Jeremiah’s people were unable to remain faithful to the original covenant, we too are unable to do so. We make promises to God that we break, we struggle with sin, and pride, and anger, and selfishness, and judgementalism… we think we are better than others and that we know who is in and who is out. The only way that we can possibly come towards the throne of God is through Jesus, and through the new covenant that was made possible by his blood.

The sealing of a covenant with blood is alien to us. We haven’t had to do so for over 2000 years, after all. Right from the beginning, well from the fall from God’s presence, covenants have been sealed with blood, with an animal sacrifice. The type of animal didn’t seem to matter as long it was the best possible animal of its kind, one without defect or blemish. Jesus is that sacrifice; the perfect human, sinless, pure. Jesus’ blood seals the new covenant and signals the end of blood sacrifices. By his own blood shed, we are called into an intimate and loving relationship with God.

There is one other requirement for sealing a covenant, which goes back as far as Melchizedek, and that is sharing a meal together. In Genesis Melchizedek suddenly appears in order to solemnize a truce between Abram and Chedorlaomer, the King of Sodom, bringing with him bread and wine. Bread and wine have important roles to play in the Passover meal, and they will become for Christians the most holy of meals. Jesus is yet to instruct his disciples on how they should remember him, how we should remember him, but it is clear that as we do, we are instructed to drink the wine, Jesus’ blood, of the New Covenant.

We have finally arrived at the place that Jeremiah was prophesying so many years ago. As we eat this bread and drink this wine, we are glorifying God; as we remember Jesus, we are glorifying God. As we prepare to enter into the Passion of Christ and the events of Holy Week, let us resolve to live our lives in ways that will glorify God, delighting in the ‘New’ intimate Covenant relationship with Jesus.

Read Jeremiah’s words here. Read Jesus’ words here.

If you have been blessed by this post, perhaps you would like to buy the author a cuppa? Ko-fi.com/priestwithoutportfolio