THE NEW COVENANT ESTABLISHED BY THE COMING KING
INTRO
Valentine’s Day yesterday.
Not in the Christian calendar – It’s origins are from the time of Roman Emperor Claudius II who murdered a Christian priest in Rome (St Valentine) for conducting weddings in secret for soldiers and their betrothed (Claudius was being very strict with the soldiers and what the priest was doing went against the strategy of the Emperor). It happened on Feb 14th – the day of a pagan festival)
POINT
It seems that men sometimes need a bit of a nudge to be romantic, and Valentine’s Day is a good excuse.
POINT
This is a timely point in our series on the drama of Scripture to focus on the love of God.
Recap
Last Sunday morning we raced through the events that took place between the testaments and discovered how these events informed the meaning of the phrase, ‘Kingdom of God’.
When both John the Baptist and Jesus used the expression, the people who listened knew what they were describing. The long awaited Messiah had arrived, and the Good News of the Kingdom had come - a new beginning had dawned that would lead to salvation and to the redemption of all creation.
Jesus himself was about to decree a NEW COVENANT with the people – a covenant sealed with his own blood in death.
POINT
This is the focus our service this morning as we gather around the communion table and remember the greatest expression of love that was ever made.
THESIS Jesus’ coming into the world is the climax of the biblical story of God’s redemptive work.
READING Mark 1:14-20
Mark 1:15
"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
‘The time has come’ Jesus said
POINT
Time is a strange phenomenon. Our sense of the passing of time varies from slow to very swift. And we use the word ‘time’ in different ways.
The Greeks have two words that describe time. Chronos and Kairos
• Chronos = the passing of time
• Kairos = that a moment has arrived.
And it will be no surprise to you to learn that the word used here is Kairos –
• not the blowing of a whistle when the match has ended,
• but an era that people were expecting that has now finally arrived.
POINT
When Jesus said ‘The time has come….‘The kingdom of God is near’ he was describing a kingdom that was near enough to be accessible rather than still some way off in the future.
POINT
• We could say that the kingdom HAS come, the kingdom IS coming and that the kingdom SHALL come, i
• n the same way that we as Christians HAVE been saved, ARE being saved, and SHALL be saved
POINT
This was the Good News they had been waiting for. By repenting and believing they too could be saved.
QUESTION
How many of you understand that our Bible is described by two covenants – and old one and a new one?
• Old Testament means Old Covenant
• New Testament means New Covenant
• The Hebrew Scriptures which we know of as the Old Testament
• and the Greek manuscripts we know of as the New Testament.
POINT
The biblical story before the interval between the testaments describes God’s preparation for the climax we meet in the New Testament in the coming of Jesus.
• Whereas God had entered into a covenant with his people the Jews,
• now God makes a new Covenant through the blood of Christ with all who believe – Jews and Gentiles alike.
POINT
As we break bread together this morning we experience a kairos moment – a moment when, in a sense, the past and the present merge together – as we do this in remembrance of our Lord.
1. JESUS DECREED A NEW COVENANT AT THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER
PASSOVER
At the feast of the Passover believers commemorated the time the angel of death passed over the homes of the Hebrews in Egypt so that their firstborn children did not die.
The Hebrews observed the instruction they had received from God to kill a lamb and to daub its blood on the doorposts and thresholds of their homes.
POINT
Jesus is referred to in 1 Cor. 5:7 as the as the Passover lamb
“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed”
Let’s read together what Jesus said when he observed the Passover with the disciples:
READING Matthew 26:17-29
It was as Jesus recalled the old that he introduced the new.
THE SCENE
Can we imagine what it was like on the day Jesus met with the disciples to celebrate the Passover?
– It was 25th April in the year 31 AD
It was most likely quite hot and probably dry.
• Jesus had made arrangements for the upper room to be the place where they would meet.
• He sent Peter and John to the temple to get the Passover Lamb, where it was slain between 3:00 and 5:00pm.
• Its blood was given to the priest to be placed on the great altar as an offering to God.
• Once Jesus and the disciples at the upper room they would have built a fire and arranged to roast the lamb before twilight.
• They would have set the table
• They would have waited for sunset and the sound of the silver trumpets from the temple as a signal to begin the Passover.
• Jesus and his disciples entered the house on Thursday evening after sundown, went upstairs, and reclined on couches around the table.
• They were in danger. Outside the upper room were our Lord’s enemies plotting to kill him.
• Inside the upper room were apostles who would within hours respectively betray, deny, and forsake him.
The final Passover meal was about to be reinterpreted by Jesus with a view to the future.
THE PASSOVER MEAL
One year we had a group of people come and take us through the details of a Passover meal.
We can appreciate that the Passover meal was quite detailed and full of symbolism.
At the start the meal was set apart with the first cup of thanksgiving.
• One gave thanks
• Another prayed
• The people washed their hands
Someone dipped parsley in salt water to remember symbolically their tears in Egypt and the hyssop used to daub the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and thresholds of their homes on the Passover night.
Then the roasted lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs would be placed on the table.
At one point in the meal the host would take the unleavened bread and break it, handing some to each person to remind the family of God’s daily provision.
POINT
It would have been at this point that Jesus said to the disciples:
’This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’" (Luke 22:19.)
THE BREAD
In this setting, our Lord brought new meaning to the unleavened bread:
The symbol of the bread became
a symbol of his sinless life that was about to be given for them, in order that they may have new life in themselves.
THE CUP
During the Passover meal four cups of wine were shared at different points commemorating different stages and different aspects of the Passover night.
POINT
With one of these, instead of giving thanks to God for redeeming them from Egypt, the Lord adapted this part of the Passover and said as we read in:
Luke 22:20 "...in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ’This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’"
In shedding his blood Jesus would provide personal salvation for everyone who believed.
THE NEW COVENANT
The Jews expected a new covenant to be made:
Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34: "’Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ’when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah...this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD, ’I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbour and each man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the LORD, ’for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’"
POINT Jesus now fulfilled this word.
2. PASSOVER WAS A KAIROS MOMENT
TIMELESSNESS
At the Feast of the Passover there was a sense of timelessness – in that the people so identified with their own people in the events of history that it was as though nothing separated them.
APPLIC
When we break bread together at communion, for us too it is a kairos moment =
In the breaking of bread we too strongly identify with each other, and with Jesus Christ, and with our brothers and sisters in Christ down the ages as we do this in remembrance of Him.
With Paul we too can say:
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
= in a forensic sense it is as though we were crucified with Christ there and then as far as the justification for our sins is concerned.
Hebrews 10:11-12 tells us:
[11] Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. [12] But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
CONCL
An inescapable theme of the Last Supper is that of the Exodus.
The Exodus from Egypt was prominent in the thinking of those who celebrated the Passover.
Jesus had a different Exodus – a new Exodus - in mind.
Luke 9:30-31
Two men, Moses and Elijah, [31] appeared in glorious splendour, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem.
APPLIC –
• God has made a way of escape for us through the blood of Jesus Christ.
• Eternal death will have no power to keep us
• The land of promise lies before us
