Covenantal Atonement (3)

In the Harry Potter series the battle is with the contaminating death bringing curse of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. What sign is there that atonement is made and the curse lifted by the end of the series?

Voldemort is killed, by the effects of the very curse he brought into being, but also for the first time barriers between people groups, and even between people and magical creatures are broken down. At Hogworts in the books, the Great Hall holds a banquet with Slytherins sitting next to Gryffindors, house elves mixing with centaurs and giants. Division of house and species set aside, there is "at-one-meant", marked by a shared feast. It is a new age of peace.

The feast at the end of Harry Potter echo's Isaiah 25, where it talks about the banquet when "death will be wiped away" and there will be a new age, a new covenant of peace.

Our Old Testament reading today is the formal Covenant cut between God and Abraham. They say a Covenant is cut because of the gruesome practice with the animals in this reading, it enacted what would happen to them if they broke the Covenant. Normally it is the weaker party that walks between the cut pieces but remarkably here God walks through them. It is as if he is promising that if the covenant is broken the curse, chaos and death of breaking that covenant will fall on Him. When Moses cuts the Covenant at Sinai he throws the blood not just on the people but on the altar - the sign of God's presence. Then later the prophet Isaiah in the midst of broken covenants and curses is given the hope of the 'suffering servant'. Jesus is the suffering servant whose body is abused and whose blood is shed. Jesus willingly takes the curse of the broken covenants on himself so that the new, eternal, covenant of peace can be made. We as Christians are part of that Covenant. Nothing can break this one - because it is not based on our faithfulness but on the faithfulness of Jesus.

We still have a part to play as covenant partners. As always with a new covenant comes a new creation. The New Covenant created a new people of God - we are grafted in to the ancient vine that is Israel, tied to God with an unbreakable covenant, called to work with God in whatever capacity He plans for us, while knowing, the banquet, "the marriage supper of the Lamb" is coming!