Jeremiah 31.31-34
31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It 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. 33But 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. 34No 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 their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
I have always been struck by the last line of this reading where iniquity and sin and held up as two different things. and rightfully so because they are. In the Hebrew, inqiuities would be those dumb, ignorant things that we seem to do to one another without much thought or effort. These are the actions against our neighbors that create separation or frustrate the human heart. Long memories recall these offenses. Yet the word "sin" describes our condition; broken, fallen, always missing the mark. Jeremiah reminds the people as they are going into exile that there will come a time when the communal sense of whole will supercede our own individual righteousness before God. And may those days surely come sooner than later. For forgiveness is needed and salvation our hope.
Shared by Marty Milne, Pastor
Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Old Zionsville
Lutheran Theological Seminary @ Gettysburg '92
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