Daily Readings: Psalm 80:1-7; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 10:10-18

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive them their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:31-34

This promise of the New Covenant, of forgiveness and spiritual renewal, has lingered on my heart for weeks, months, even years.  At times I find myself longing for this promise to become inwardly manifest, for myself to be the object of graceful transformation into a beacon of Christ’s love, compassion, courage, and wisdom – into what one might call a Saint with a capital S.  

But one of the mysteries about God’s Word is that we wrestle with it on multiple levels all at once.  There is a level on which I still anticipate the coming of a yet-unarrived great moment of awakening, when the sunlight of God’s grace will warm my whole being, which I will reflect like the Moon throughout the sky.  One implication of this event is that I will be filled with the strength to consistently live as Christ lived, loving one another as He has loved us, in accordance with his most holy commandments.  

But on another level, Advent reminds me that this is not only a promise of a New Covenant that is yet to come, but also the promise of a New Covenant that has already happened.  It occurred to me powerfully on the drive home today (12/14 as I write this) that the Great Story, the story of God becoming Man that Man might become God, is already written on my heart, in the most tender and loving hand.  I know – I know deep down in my bones – that this story is one I will carry with me until I fade from this earth, a river of living water in my heart.  It is a story sung by all Creation, from the stones to the angels, from the wind to the stars, and it is already my source of strength and renewal.  As The Ghost of Christmas Present remarks to Ebeneezer, “So is it true of the child born in Bethlehem.  He does not live in men’s hearts only one day of the year but in all the days of the year!”  

Offered by Michael Giordano, God’s beloved child.