Devotional Thought of the Day:
 ²⁸  I will always keep my promise to him, and my covenant with him will last forever. Psalm 89:28 (TEV)

“A Covenant sealed with blood commits both parties to each other for ever.  All they have belongs to the other, and they will lay down their life on the other’s behalf”  (1)

It was over a dozen years ago that I picked up a 2 year devotional book, called Celtic Daily Prayer.  It is the source of the quote in green above.  I’ve decided to renew my acquaintance with it, this year, partially because of its practical meditations that are challening.  So my readers might see a lot of it pondered on my blog this year, as the last year often had quotes from St. Josemaria Escriva. (and still will – )

It seems to be one of those God things that the first day’s meditation I cam across was one that focuses on Covenant. My original training in theology was within the framework of Covenant, and the deeper I’ve gone into understanding liturgical worship, the framework there is Covenant as well.

A quick definition is needed then, one I’ve developed.  Covenant Theology is a description of the intimate relationship that God desires to have with His people, and makes possible through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Scripture contains the history of God’s faithfulness to His covenant people, looking forward and back to the cross, the point where God’s love makes the depth of His desire to love us clear, where he gives us a tangible, perfect example of His lovee, as He commits Himself to us, as Christ’s blood was poured out to seal the agreement.

This is something we need to remember daily, as St. Paul prayed for God’s people (us),

 I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength— ¹⁷  that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, ¹⁸  you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! ¹⁹  Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:15-19 (MSG) 

Explore the love, meditate on it, rejoice as you find it revealed to you in scripture, as you pray, as you gather with others around the Eucharist, as you proclaim Christ’s death – the measure of the triune God’s love for you and I and all the world. That is what it means to remember Chirst when you take and eat His Body, when you drink of the Blood that cleanses us from sin.

Theology is the servant of this relationship, in the way a marriage certificate or a love letter, or a powerpoint celebrating a 50th anniversary is.  It points to something that is more than anything we can ever completely express, this love of God for us, this desire to make us His children.   It is what Christianity is,

He loves us… He hears us, He died for us, His is with us… and we are His!

THe Lord is with you, so relax in His love!

(1)  Celtic Daily Prayer, The Northumbrian Community, HarperOne (Aidan Reading for Jan.5 )