Covenant-of-Love Sunday: God’s Irrevocable Love
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33
Those calling for the end of the world or the condemnation of sinners do not understand Christianity! Christianity is a covenant of love, an irrevocable love of God. No human being is either righteous enough to merit it nor too sinful to be excluded from it: it is a covenant of love that we continue to experience as forgiveness of sins! The good news is that no matter how human beings wish it, pray for it and attempt to wipe it out by their sins, the world will always elude their grasp because “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1); only God decides how and when his world and its inhabitants will come to an end! A story may help to illustrate what love and responsibility look like:
There is a story that comes out of the Bedouin culture. ‘Bedouin’ is the Aramaic name for “desert dwellers”. These people live much as the characters of the Old Testament did. During a heated argument, according to this story, a young Bedouin struck and killed a friend of his. Knowing the ancient, inflexible customs of his people, the young man fled, running across the desert under the cover of darkness, seeking safety. He went to the black tent of the tribal chief in order to seek his protection. The old chief took the young man in. The chief assured him that he would be safe until the matter could be settled legally.
The next day, the young man’s pursuers arrived, demanding the murderer be turned over to them. They would see that justice would prevail in their own way. “But I have given my word,’”protested the chief. “But you don’t know whom he killed!” they countered. “I have given my word,” the chief repeated. “He killed your son”! One of them blurted out. The chief was deeply and visibly shaken with this news. He stood speechless with his head bowed for a long time. The accused and the accusers as well as curious onlookers waited breathlessly. What would happen to the young man? Finally the old man raised his head. “Then he shall become my son,” he informed them, “and everything I have will one day be his.”
The young man certainly didn’t deserve such generosity. And that, of course, is the point. Love in its purest form is beyond comprehension. No one can merit it. It is freely given. It is agape, the love of God. Look to the cross. At the cross, we encounter love in its purest form. You are a child of God and a citizen of heaven, for that story is yours and mine!
Regarding our first reading, Jeremiah prophesied before and during the Babylonian captivity of the children of Israel. Prior to their Babylonian captivity, the children of Israel were exiled to Assyria because of their sins. Exile as a form of punishment for sins didn’t start with the exile to Babylon! As a matter of fact, the first exile was from the Garden of Eden, and humanity hasn’t returned back yet. If condemnation is the measure of sins, every generation and every individual is qualified for condemnation. The problem that God solves through the “covenant-of-love” is that punishment has not changed human nature from being sinful to being good. The latest experiment of God is love and forgiveness, as solution to sin: a new covenant written into human heart, says our first reading. How did God write his covenant on the human heart? Is it the human conscience?
No human heart is incapable of love! We all love and show love. Even when our love is limited to a few people: spouse or children or sibling or friends; what matters is that we can love and do love. And love bonds us with those we love; we want the best for them, and we protect them from harm! This is the sign of God’s new covenant, the covenant of love in every heart. The challenge of love is to make it boundless and borderless! It must include everyone and exclude no one! This is the message of our gospel: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit”. Universal love as forgiveness is what Jesus offers to the whole world through his death. The fruits of the death of Jesus refuse the extermination and condemnation of the world. The love and forgiveness of God dominate the sins of the world and seek the salvation of the world. No more exiles for sins. There is only the possibility of communion in Jesus Christ!
The covenant-of-love summarizes the human obligation to God and humanity as love—love of God and love of neighbor. To wish the condemnation of anyone is to stop loving and to denature oneself from being the image of God: “God is love!” Loving must hurt and become a cross, if it must resemble that of Jesus Christ. In the words of Jesus, in our gospel today, love must draw us to dying on the cross, the point and place of human unity and solidarity: “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” To be suffused with and possessed by love is the only power for transforming the world into what God wants of it—Garden of Eden, a place of love and communion with God!
If Jesus ever campaigned, it was for the salvation of the world and not its damnation! As a human being, he gave up everything for the reconciliation of the world with God. Our second reading includes prayers, tears and sufferings in Jesus’ toolkit for the salvation of the world: “In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” The best way to waste one’s time is to pray for the end or destruction of the world, because God will never listen to such prayers because they are contrary to his nature and purpose for the world. The best way to save the world is to love the world, despite the sins in it, and pray, weep and die for the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness each one of us has received in Jesus Christ!
Assignment for the Week :
Compose your own prayer for the salvation of the world and pray it all week long!
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