What does it mean to keep God’s covenant? Do you keep it stored in a box somewhere so you know where it is? Keep it stored in a safe as one of your valuables? What does it mean to keep covenant?
It means to maintain the relationship. No matter how many times you stray from the relationship, you keep coming back. You keep coming back to that relationship to renew it, to restore it, because it has broken in your hands. But to keep it is to keep trying, to keep entering more deeply into a relationship with God over time.
A true relationship requires the presence of both parties: God and his presence to us, and us and our presence to God. [In the gospels, the Jewish authorities] say they “know God,” but do they? When was the last time they truly encountered God and not just followed the law, did what they were supposed to do? When did they actually encounter God? How many generations has it been? How would they know who Jesus is? That would require that they truly knew who God was.
Has our faith journey brought us any closer to our God, closer into the relationship that he has called us to? Has it drawn us to him, or do we end our journey just as distant as we did when we entered it? Has nothing changed? Generation after generation, that can happen to a people. They go through the motions, but nothing really changes, nothing is really different.
God remembers his covenant forever. It is for us to not just remember it but to live it, in our love for each other and our love for our world.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, April 10, 2025
Image source: Rembrandt, Moses with the Ten Commandments, https://claudemariottini.com/2014/10/20/gods-covenant-with-israel/
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