A Covenant People

Nehemiah 8:9-12; Luke 2:39-40

Let’s talk about covenant…

We are a covenant people.

To understand who we are, step into a morning perhaps like this one in ancient Jerusalem, a city being rebuilt, reclaimed, and restored after its destruction 100 years earlier. The people gather in the square before the rising superstructure of the Second Temple. Before them stand Nehemiah, their governor, and Ezra the priest. Ezra read them the entire Torah, all 600 commandments, reinstating the covenant between them and their God, just as Moses had done so very long ago. They will be God’s people; God will be their God. It all hinges on their obedience. It all stands on their acceptance of their identity as a covenant people. 

Our faith flows directly from that of Ezra the priest. We also walk with God. We do so, fervently believing that God entered an eternal covenant with all people (us included) to be our God—Creator, Savior, and Presence. We believe as well that God’s presence with us brings responsibilities, commitments, and obligations. We are to live into God. We are to abide by the principles of life as God outlines them in God’s own presence with us—ergo, love, compassion, grace, and mercy are to be the foundations of our relationships with one another and with the world in which we live. 

But why do the people weep when Ezra reminds them of this covenantal faith that will be their lives?

They take it seriously. They perceive deeply that even the simple terms (love God, love one another) of all the laws are perversely difficult to maintain and keep. We promise ourselves we will be more patient with other people; then somebody does something stupid. We promise we will be more generous with what we have; then we realize how much we hold onto because to let go frightens us. We promise to give more time to serving others as Christ so graciously served us; then we find that time seems to speed into hyperdrive as soon as we make such promises, obliterating all of our ability to practice what we preach. And on it goes—human beings crash into the simple humanity of being human again and again and again. The people hear the call to follow God with everything they have, but they immediately perceive all the barriers in the way.

Second, their own history speaks against them. It was the forebears who failed so miserably they wound up in exile; and they know they are the children of those parents. They loved them all dearly, they adored them as models of life and living, but even these remembered saints could not stay clean with God—if not them, then what of us? The people already see the clouds gathering. 

Ezra, in a glorious moment of biblical pastoral care, intercedes for them. He shifts the focus. This day is not about any of the people gathered before him; it is about the God who called them together. God abides. God supports. God instructs. God will be the God God promised to be. Look there; see that; know that—God is good and grace abounds—God will be your joy.

That good news showers over us this morning. It is our good news. God is with us. God supports us. God instructs us. God is still the God God promised to be.

And we can go still further…

Luke tells another story about another commissioning under the Torah. Mary and Joseph take their firstborn to Jerusalem to bring him fully under the accords of Moses. They take the mantle upon them to be obedient to God as parents. But as with the day with Ezra, they hit mixed feelings—two grizzled prophets, Anna and Simeon, long waiting for the Messiah, see the child and burst into prophetic ecstasy, intoning a blessing that may well be a curse—little Jesus is the One, but his journey is not going to be easy or smooth. 

God enters the covenant in a whole new way—God embodies it in Jesus, taking on both God’s own part, but also ours at the same time—a mystery that completely defies all explanations. God will be God. God will be us, too. Ponder that…

Here is how God chooses to be the God God promised to be. Here is how God chooses to become completely and without reservation the joy of all who take the covenant upon themselves. Trusting God to be God ensures we can be the people God calls us to be, for God enters us, our experience, our lives, our weakness, our strength, our blessings, our curses—taking all that is us into God’s own being—then transforms it and transcends it, making it to be the love the covenant requires, ironically emptying us and filling us simultaneously. God eradicates that which keeps us from being people of love; God eradicates the power of our mistakes, our failures, our missteps—our sin—to leave us in exile ever again. Ponder that…

We are a covenant people. We are a COVENANT people. God is with us with all we need and more to be true to our identity. Hear and believe this good news.