HOW NEW IS THE NEW COVENANT?

20160804 HOW NEW IS THE NEW COVENANT?

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

First reading

Jeremiah 31:31-34 ©

See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. It is the Lord who speaks. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest – it is the Lord who speaks – since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 50:12-15,18-19 ©

A pure heart create for me, O God.

A pure heart create for me, O God,

  put a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

  nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

A pure heart create for me, O God.

Give me again the joy of your help;

  with a spirit of fervour sustain me,

that I may teach transgressors your ways

  and sinners may return to you.

A pure heart create for me, O God.

For in sacrifice you take no delight,

  burnt offering from me you would refuse,

my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.

  A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.

A pure heart create for me, O God.

Gospel Acclamation

Ps144:13

Alleluia, alleluia!

The Lord is faithful in all his words

and loving in all his deeds.

Alleluia!

Or

Mt16:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

You are Peter,

and on this rock I will build my Church.

And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 16:13-23 ©

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said, ‘the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’ Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

  From that time Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord;’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

HOW NEW IS THE “NEW COVENANT”?

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [  JER 31:31-34; MT 16:13-23 ]

The first reading from Jeremiah fills us with great hope.  But is the New Covenant promised by Jeremiah really new?  To appreciate the newness of the Covenant, we must first understand the failure of the Old Covenant.   Why did it not work?  In the first place, this was because the Old Covenant was written on tablets, on stones.  As such it remained external and extraneous to the people.  The laws were meant to be interiorized and served as the principles for a harmonious relationship between God and man; and among men.  But time and time again, man broke the laws and was unfaithful to his relationship with the Lord.  Clearly, whilst the laws were good, they could not be carried out.  St Paul wrote, “Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”  (Rom 7:16f)

What Jeremiah said of the people equally applies to us.  We are no better than them for we too break the New Covenant by our infidelity and our sins.   So how can we say that we are in the New Covenant?  Furthermore, is it true that we no longer need people to teach us about the Lord?  The promise of Jeremiah was that, “they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest.”  Consequently, we must understand the New Covenant rightly.

Right from the outset, we must state that Jesus is the New Covenant. (cf Lk 22;20; Heb 8:6-13)  What do we mean by this?  Jesus is truly God and is truly the One that fulfills the promise of Jeremiah perfectly.  In Jesus, who is the Word of God in person, the laws of God are written in His heart.  He knew the Father intimately, so much so, He called God, Abba.  He is also the New Covenant because He brought about the forgiveness of sins. The prophet said, “I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind.”  This is brought about by His passion, death and resurrection.  Most of all, at Pentecost, He poured forth His Spirit to the Church so that we too can share in His divine life and thus be empowered to do what He had done.  With this as our point of departure, we can now better appreciate the newness of the Covenant brought by Christ.

In the first place, the New Covenant is not written on tablets but on the human heart.  When the laws are written on stones, there is no personal conviction.  Either they are obeyed slavishly according to the letter of the law or they are considered hostile to men.  When obeyed in a ritualistic manner, the law kills, as there is no love but only obedience.  When people see the laws as taking away their freedom, God is seen as their enemy; and so to be freed of the laws, they deny the existence and authority of God.

But Jesus came to give us His Holy Spirit so that we can live out the laws according to the Spirit of Christ and not simply follow blindly the letter of the laws.  When His Spirit lives in us, we are able to accept the laws of Christ and the Ten Commandments with understanding and love.  When everything is done in love, it is always done spontaneously and fully.  Jesus as the bestowal of the Spirit therefore makes the New Covenant possible.

Secondly, it is the same Spirit that gives us our intimacy with God and helps us to come to a personal knowledge of Him.  The same Spirit of the Father that descended on Jesus is also ours.  The knowledge that Jeremiah speaks about is not intellectual knowledge of God but a personal knowledge of Him.  “There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest.”  Anyone who is filled with the Spirit of Christ will know the Father intimately as He did.  This is a personal knowledge.

Does it mean then that we no longer need the Church to teach us about Jesus?  Of course not!  Personal knowledge is an intuition, just like the child has of his or her parents; or when two persons are in love.  But time is needed for them to grow in understanding and knowledge of each other, just as Jesus did of His Father whom He knew intimately, but He had to grow in understanding and wisdom. “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” (Lk 2:52)  Whilst we also confess the same faith as St Peter in Christ as the Son of the Living God, each of us differs in our depth of this conviction and understanding.  This needs to grow both in depth, personally and intellectually. Only when we have arrived at the fullness of faith in Christ as the Son of the Living God in all its existential, doctrinal and personal conviction can we then say that this is the rock of faith that Jesus says will keep us firm and strong in the face of the onslaughts of the world.

So we still need the Church to purify our understanding of Christ.  This was what Jesus did.  Immediately after St Peter’s confession of faith, Jesus qualified his answer by making it clear to His disciples “that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and raised up on the third day.”  When Peter “started to remonstrate with Him and said, “’Heaven preserve you, Lord,’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’  But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan!  You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’”  Although St Peter and the apostles had the right confession of faith in Christ as the Son of the Living God, they did not understand that the Messiah came not in a triumphant and political way but as a humble servant of love and mercy in human lowliness, even unto death.  Of course St Peter was not able to accept this kind of Messiah.  Jesus had to warn them to keep quiet simply because if they were to tell the rest, it might only instigate the people to rise up in a revolution against the Romans with Him as a leader and their king.

Thirdly, in the New Covenant, although we will still sin because we are imperfect, yet we are always assured of forgiveness and a new life through the Holy Spirit given to the Church.  Jesus entrusted St Peter with the keys to the gates of the Kingdom.  He said, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.  And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.”   This power to bind and to loose refers to the power to convict people of their sins and then free them of their sins so that they can have new life.  The task of St Peter and the Church is to lead sinners to the Lord by convicting us of our sins in the power of the Holy Spirit.  “When he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.”  (Jn 8:8)  He will also give the Church the authority to free us from our bondage through the forgiveness of sins in the same power of the Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:22f)

Finally, in the same Holy Spirit, we will be able to follow Him.  This was what Jesus implied when He said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!  You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.”  In other words, Jesus was telling St Peter not to follow the way of Satan because he was being used as the instrument of Satan to tempt Jesus away from His mission.  Right at the outset of His ministry, the Devil tempted Jesus to use power to indulge Himself when He was hungry; or to prove Himself by jumping from the pinnacle and finally to compromise between serving God and the world.  By telling Jesus not to go through the passion, Peter was being used by Satan to discourage Him.  And when it comes from someone whom we love deeply, such advice makes it difficult for us to reject.  Although St Peter meant well, he was actually tempting Jesus to fall into the trap of the Evil One.  He is just like a parent who pampers his or her children instead of allowing them to learn the hard way through trials and suffering.  In telling Peter to get behind Him, Jesus was telling Peter to follow His way and not the way of Satan.

Indeed, Christians are proof that this new life in Christ is possible.  St Paul complimented the Corinthians for being the proof of the New Covenant. “Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we?  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  (2 Cor 3:2f)  The true source of strength and the capacity to live this new life of Christ comes not from us weaklings, but from the power of the Spirit of Jesus living in us.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved