Lent 5B

Readings for this Sunday are:

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 51:1-13

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:22-30

Outstanding phrases from the readings:

"The time is coming when I will mkae a new covenant with the house of Israel" says the Lord.
"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people."

Jeremiah 31

"Make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

Psalm 51

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
The one who loves his life will lose it, while the one who hates his/her life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12

The most persistent single image throughout these readings is the heart. It is the heart that will be the witness to God's new covenant, the heart that seeks instruction and wisdom in the psalm; it is the heart of Jesus, not his ancestry or ritual perfection, that makes him a high priest for us; and that heart is reflected in his willingness to seek God's glory, even in his own execution, while calling those who serve him to be right alongside him in the process, then and thereafter, facing death with the power of Truth.

"Heart" in our culture has many associations it didn't in the biblical world. There, the heart was not understood to be the "the opposite of the head," nor the center of emotion (that was the intestines), and not even of "love"; rather, the heart was thought to be the center of intellect and values ? the bottomline of the approach to God, the world, and everyone and everything in it that drives all our actions and decisions.

from http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=15358&loc_id=9,32,48