Both Paul and Jesus use the Old Testament to verify the truth of their teaching. Paul shows how the Old Testament prepared the way for the Messiah. Jesus points to the Old Testament as the source from which to understand what will happen to him in Jerusalem.

Both passages today, then, affirm the value of the Old Testament to help us attain a deeper insight into our own lives and to help us understand Jesus more fully. There is a deep continuity between the Old and the New Testaments, for God has only one plan of salvation, to reconcile all things to himself in Jesus the Messiah.

Jeremiah expressed it well when he spoke God's word to Israel, and so to each one of us: "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and so I am always constant in my affection for you" (Jeremiah 31:3). Both Testaments testify to this wonderful truth: in spite of all our human sinfulness, throughout all history God's love for us has been constant and faithful. Reaching its historical fulfilment in Jesus, God's abiding love is the source of all our hope and consolation