Parents watch with emotion as their child is baptized, because they believe in sacred covenants.
We smile when we see a rainbow and remember God’s promise to never again punish the earth with a flood, because we believe in sacred covenants.
Covenants are important to Christians. They draw us into relationships of reciprocity and responsibility.
Covenants and their symbols are all around us: rainbows, Bible stories about the Ark of the Covenant, wedding rings.
There are other symbols of covenants that perhaps we don’t think about as often—the two-row wampum belt, treaty medallions, or a framed paper hanging in the CRC offices in Burlington that reads “New Covenant Declaration 1987,” for example. The treaties Indigenous people and European settlers signed are covenants too, sacred agreements that draw us into relationships of reciprocity and responsibility.
30 years ago, leaders of many Christian denominations in Canada signed the New Covenant Declaration, a commitment with Indigenous peoples to uphold the treaties, earlier covenants made between Indigenous peoples and those who arrived from Europe. The Christian Reformed Church was one of the churches that made this serious commitment to honour the treaties and to honour Indigenous rights—rights to make their own choices for their own lives, rights to live on their lands. This year marks that covenant’s 30th birthday!
Posts:
-Called to Live out the Covenant Chain - Christina DeVries
-Covenant Breakers - Thyra VanKeeken
-A Sesquicentennial Celebration! - Ida Kaastra-Mutoigo