{"id":845,"date":"2016-03-17T19:35:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T00:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=845"},"modified":"2016-04-04T19:48:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T00:48:32","slug":"fulfilling-our-part-of-the-covenant-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=845","title":{"rendered":"Fulfilling Our Part of the Covenant (U)"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/h3>\n

Thursday of the 6th<\/sup> Week of Lent<\/h3>\n

Gen 17: 3-9; John 8: 51-59<\/h3>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h3>\n

An Everlasting Covenant!\u00a0 God has made two everlasting covenants with his people.\u00a0 The first reading talks about the first of these; and the Gospel refers to the second one.<\/p>\n

When we hear about that first covenant,\u00a0 It seems to make promises in earthly terms-\u00a0 the descendants of Abraham are to reap the rewards of the Covenant God is making with Abraham.\u00a0 Israel will be God\u2019s people and He will be there God for as long as Abraham\u2019s descendants keep God\u2019s comma<\/strong>ndments.\u00a0 And God includes \u201cthe promised land\u201d as part of that covenant for as long as they keep it- the promised- land, Canaan.\u00a0 And so, the Israelites understood that covenant in worldly terms.\u00a0 Yes, they would retain God\u2019s favor; and they would live in the promised land as a people forever if they kept God\u2019s commandments.\u00a0 But they didn\u2019t see the symbolic meaning of the covenant.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t get the afterlife and forever and ever part. They didn\u2019t see life after worldly life as a priority.<\/p>\n

Now, in Jesus\u2019 time the Jews were being held captive by the Romans.\u00a0 There were movements amongst them aimed at rebellion and breaking free.\u00a0 They were looking for a Messiah- a worldly Messiah- who would restore the covenant God made to Abraham.\u00a0 In addition, although the religious leaders were split into two camps (those who believed in the Resurrection of the dead- the Pharisees; and those who did not- the Sadducees), all of them were focused on that restoration of the worldly Kingdom.<\/p>\n

It is within that context that Jesus ministry entered in first century Israel.\u00a0 Here comes a person who had demonstrated incredible powers in his miracles, and who spoke with authority.\u00a0 The leaders had heard about all of this from the people, and so, they listened to Jesus.\u00a0 But they were looking for a political leader- one who would save their nation.\u00a0 Was this their guy or not?<\/p>\n

But instead of talking about his plan to restore Israel, Jesus talks about the interior life of the individual.\u00a0 And so, he says: \u201cWhoever keeps my word will never see death.\u201d\u00a0 You can just imagine their consternation.\u00a0 And it shows in the dialogue in today\u2019s gospel.<\/p>\n

Jesus focus was on saving each and every one of them for everlasting life.\u00a0 There are two deaths- one that effects our bodies in this world; and one that effects our bodies in eternity.\u00a0 We certainly will suffer the first death; but we can be spared the second death- if; if we listen to Jesus, the incarnate the word of God.\u00a0 And so Jesus was not talking about restoring a worldly Israel; rather he was talking about restoring each individual\u2019s standing with God.<\/p>\n

This year we find ourselves in the middle of a particularly messy political environment.\u00a0 We are a people polarized; a people divided; a people faced with difficult choices;- choices that may be the lesser of two evils rather than choices that we can embrace.\u00a0 The question is; what are our real priorities in the middle of all of that.\u00a0 Are we looking for a worldly Messiah?\u00a0 Or are we listening to Jesus, who is trying to tell us what we need to do to avoid real death?<\/p>\n

We are also in the middle of Lent- and today\u2019s message is a Lenten message.\u00a0 The New Covenant that God offers us is everlasting life; life without that second death if- if we listen to the incarnate word of God.<\/p>\n

We need to spend some time reflecting on how we are doing. \u00a0We need to put aside what\u2019s going on in the world.\u00a0 Our church and Jesus are trying to call our attention to that because as important as our nation is; our own salvation is more important.<\/p>\n

If all of us live according to the word of God, doing the will of the Father as Jesus did; everything else will fall into place; and we will never die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Patrick\u2019s Day Thursday of the 6th Week of Lent Gen 17: 3-9; John 8: 51-59 Dc. Larry Brockman An Everlasting Covenant!\u00a0 God has made two everlasting covenants with his people.\u00a0 The first reading talks about the first of these; and the Gospel refers to the second one. When we hear about that first covenant,\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[402,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}