FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR B 2024 (We are children of the New Covenant)

Synopsis

We are Children of the New Covenant.

Last Sunday, we heard how God’s people in exile cried unto the Lord who heard their cry for freedom. As part of that process of the restoration to freedom, the Lord promises in today’s first reading from Jeremiah 31, a new and unbreakable Covenant which is fulfilled in Christ.

God makes this promise because he understands our frailties. Thus, the New Covenant is eternally sealed in the precious blood of the Lamb, Jesus whom today’s second reading says was made perfect through suffering and became the source of salvation to all who obey him.

However, this New Covenant came at a cost. Like a grain of wheat that falls and dies to yield a rich harvest (John 12:20-33), Jesus died and yielded a rich harvest of us as God's people, in the fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy,  which says, "Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

In gratitude for our new life as New Covenant children, we are reminded that in submitting to God's will, like grains of wheat, we die to ourselves to live and be raised to an abundant life with great fruitfulness. O God, help us by your grace to always walk in the power of the New Covenant in your Son’s blood. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen