Today’s Scripture Reading (February
23, 2015): Hebrews 8
For a short
period of time, Louis VIII of France became the pretender to the English
Throne. The English Barons had grown tired of their relationship with King John
of England (the same king who has also come to be portrayed as the evil villain
in the Robin Hood saga, against the goodness of King Richard the Lionheart.) How
evil King John really was has probably been magnified over the time, but the
conflict that he had with the Barons was very real. The conflict resulted in
the First Barons War, and with Louis landing on English soil unopposed, with
the English Barons begging him to take the throne. But the romance between the
Barons and Louis was short lived. John, who had been experiencing health
difficulties (he had contracted dysentery) died soon after Louis ascended to the
English throne. The death of John caused many of the Barons who had supported
Louis to turn their support to John’s nine year old son Henry – who would
become King Henry III. In the end, Louis would be paid 10,000 marks to get out
of England and forget that he was ever King of England. Six years after his adventure
in England, Louis would succeed his father and become King of France, and Louis
VIII as King of England became just a footnote in the history books.
The author
of Hebrews presents Jesus as the author of a new covenant, declaring the old
covenant to be closed and a failure. The first covenant could really only be
considered to be a place holder awaiting the new covenant. And there were
plenty of places that Hebrews could have quoted Jesus or one of the disciples
quoting that the law – the first covenant – had been completed. But the author
of Hebrews decides against quoting them and instead returns to the words of
Jeremiah. God speaks through Jeremiah to an Israel on the brink of exile, “the
days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and
the people of Judah.” The days are coming when we will recognize the old
covenant for what it is – a placeholder and a pretender – and it had done its
job. It made us recognize that any system based on what we can do will never
work. We need something radically different. And even Jeremiah recognized that
the sacrificial system that Israel had been following was just a pretender on
the throne. All of Israel was waiting for the real covenant to arise. And it
arrived with Jesus.
By the time
Jeremiah was speaking to the descendants of David, the Northern Kingdom of
Israel had long ago been sent into exile. Some have thought that Jeremiah’s,
and now the words of the author of Hebrews, speaking specifically of Israel and
Judah might be an indication that the Northern Kingdom would someday return.
But the reality might be much bigger than that. Israel had never really disappeared,
and in the first century the presence of Israel was in the presence of the
half-breed Samaritans that the Jews loved to hate. But God had never hated
Israel, even in their current state. And it might just be that as the New
Covenant accepted the Northern Kingdom’s Samaritan descendants, it would also
embrace the Gentile races that were also present within the Samaritans. And in
this way the New Covenant achieved what the old one had never been able to do –
it was able to embrace the whole world. And only the genuine covenant would be
able to do that.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hebrews
9
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