Before I was married, my mother told me that the day would come when I would hear myself use an expression I had never used before, but that my husband used, “Don’t worry,” she said, “You haven’t lost your identity. You’ve just appropriated some of his. You are still your own self.” I found that it worked both ways, and we shared expressions that I hope expand both of our vocabularies.

“The days are coming”declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

The covenant God speaks of to Jeremiah is like the covenant of a marriage, and the idea is very precious to God, as He mentions it many times in the Old Testament. It amounts to the free sharing between two individuals of their individual identities without either one losing, but both gaining in the “new covenant”

At the last Supper “Jesus said,’This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me’ In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup, saying, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’” (Luke 22:19-20)

Jesus knew that his disciples would recognize the thought of a “new covenant”, and that this one was intimate and personal for each of them. On the road to Emmaus the risen Jesus, as a stranger, explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

When we were first married, Jack was astonished one day when I said, “ I don’t know the answer. It’s beyond my ken.” Later he told me he could hardly believe that he had married someone who would use a word (“ken”) that he had never heard. It actually troubled him and he asked me not to use it . Some time later Jack used “ken” in a sentence, and seemed to forget that it wasn’t always part of his vocabulary.

God seeks ways to grow closer to us in the context of a “new covenant”, a bond that enables us to grow In trust and in affection toward the One who created the very idea of a covenant as a way to grow ever closer to His own children, and they to Him.

Love in Him,

Prue