My Family Prayer Book

   2024-Mar-17: Fifth Sunday in Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34 The book of Jeremiah was written in a specific place and context, offering hope to the exiled Judeans that the covenant with their God would continue in a new fashion, mended after the disaster of 587 BCE. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is part of a collection of hopeful words addressed to exiled Judeans in Babylon and is sometimes called the “Book of Consolation” According to the book of Jeremiah, his call occurred in the “thirteenth year” of King Josiah’s reign (Jeremiah 1:1), approximately 627 BCE, and he was active through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, remaining in the land until after the assassination of Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41), at which point he is forced into exile in Egypt and the book ends without recounting the prophet’s ultimate fate. In other words, according to the book, the prophet lived through one of the most turbulent and catastrophic moments in ancient Israel’s history centuries before the author of Heb...

  Mar-21 Fifth Sunday in Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34 The old covenant given to Moses by Yahweh was written on tablets of stone and intended for descendants of Judah dictating man's obligation to God. The new covenant by contrast is written on the hearts of all believers, Jews and Gentiles alike, founded on Christ’s eternal atonement for the sins of mankind and based on each individual’s personal loving relationship with God rather than one mediated through the institutional sacrifices and prayers of priests and prophets. John 12:20-33 Jesus used the parable that a grain of wheat to produce fruit must first be buried in the ground and rise up as a stalk bearing ears of corn; so too, the most proper method of bringing about the conversion and salvation of the world is for Jesus to die, be buried and rise again.  He warns his disciples that they were to expect persecution, even risk losing their life itself, but in that case he promised them a share in his crown and glory. There is al...