The 37 word in my Lent lexicon is:
COVENANT.
We are a covenantal people. All through our faith history God is calling us into relationship, seeking away of binding us to God’s self in an everlasting relationship of love and faithfulness. It starts with the call of Abraham and goes on through our faith history.
Today’s first reading, the call of Abraham revisits the beginning of this covenantal relationship with God. In a passage full of commitment and promise God says to Abraham:
“I will establish my Covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, a Covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.”
It’s a call we deeply want to respond to with our whole hearts. Yet throughout our faith history this is a story of covenants made and broken. The brokenness comes from us, not from God.
We are the ones who are constantly turning away, forgetting our calling, looking for easier “false gods” to follow. Every time this happens God who is ever faithful offers us a new covenant, a way back into the relationship we truly cannot live without.
Lent offers us the opportunity to reflect on this covenantal relationship, to acknowledge where we have wandered away from it, causing it to fragment. It’s a time that calls us to turn back to God, to admit what we have broken and to renew that covenant.
As Lent prepares us for the new creation of Easter it gives us the opportunity to try once again to imitate the everlasting faithfulness of God.
Where is God calling you back into a new relationship this Lent?