Something Completely New

Jim:

Hebrews 8:1-13
Verse 13 says, “In speaking of ‘a new covenant,’ (God) has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.” That’s interesting to me in part because I have trouble thinking anything that God establishes, any covenant to which God is party, could become “obsolete.” God’s word is steadfast and enduring. God’s presence is eternal. Can God’s covenant with the people of Israel really grow “obsolete?” But the writer of Hebrews, in quoting Jeremiah, wants us to see that in Jesus Christ God has done such a radically new thing that the old ways of thinking are no longer pertinent. Instead of the law God has offered grace in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and this action is so profound that it completely reorders the relationship between God and God’s people.

John 4:43-54
In verse 54 John writes, “Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.” The first sign, of course, was turning the water into wine at Cana, a symbolic act that represented the inauguration of a new era that is coming into the world. Now Jesus has healed the son of a royal official, also a “sign,” and therefore symbolic of God’s concern for all people. But by restoring the life of a child Jesus has demonstrated his authority over human life, the way the water-turned-to-wine demonstrated his authority in the coming kingdom. God is truly at work in Jesus, and God is truly doing a new and powerful thing. As in the reading from Hebrews we see that the old ways of understanding the relationship with God are no longer pertinent for here, in Jesus, is something radically new and wonderful.