Thought for Today
Psalm 50:23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God."
Jeremiah 31:31 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.
Luke 22:20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Philippians 4:6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
My calendars remind me that yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving Day. This morning, my These Days devotional guide focused on the verse above from the prophet Jeremiah. As I began to read that devotional, I immediately thought about the congruence between God’s new covenant and thanksgiving.
We studied that verse from Jeremiah in seminary and especially the description Jeremiah offers of that new covenant, “31:33 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.”
My Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms offers this definition of covenant, “(Heb. berith, Gr. diatheke) A formal agreement or treaty between two parties that establishes a relationship and in which obligations and mutual responsibilities may be enacted. Many biblical covenants are found, some providing only divine promises while others entail obligations.”
We speak of covenants in church. Many of us learned about some of the Bible’s covenants at an early age, maybe in Sunday School. I learned about the Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant and others. On the first Sunday of each month our congregation celebrates the Eucharist. In the words of institution, I always use those words above from Luke, Jesus’ words about another new covenant.
That dictionary definition talks about formal agreements or treaties. The biblical covenants are not formal agreements of treaties in the same sense as are the treaties made between nations. In school studying American history, I learned about the Treaty of Paris, “The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States on September 3, 1783, officially ended the War of American Independence and recognized the Thirteen Colonies, which had been part of colonial British America, to be free, sovereign and independent states.” (en.wikipedia.org) As a Texan, I learned that “The Texas Treaty of Annexation was signed on April 11, 1844 between the Republic of Texas and the United States.” (Copilot Search)
Those political treaties between nations had important, long-lasting consequences for both parties and for the rest of the world. There were mutual responsibilities for both parties, and they both did establish important relationships.
As a Christian, I know that the covenants of our faith are so important that all the covenants between nations pale in comparison. Covenants and treaties between nations are based on some degree of equivalency between the covenanting parties. Our covenants of faith are between the Creator of Creation and the creatures into which our Creator “Genesis 2:7 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
The ”obligations and mutual responsibilities” of our faith covenants are also, different. In Jeremiah, those “obligations and mutual responsibilities” are that “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” We see the extreme extent of that obligation assumed by God in “the new covenant in my blood.” The blood of God’s Son shed for us to ensure our salvation.
It seems like the least we can do as God’s children is to set aside special days and times to offer thanksgiving to our God for all that God has done for us. It seems incumbent upon us that we should offer thanksgiving each and every day, not just a once-a-year special dinner interrupted by a football game. We should regularly thank our Creator God for being a covenantal God.
Stay safe, thank God for being God, trust God,
Pastor Ray