This is communion Sunday. And of course,
that fits very well into our sermon series, in which we’ve been looking through
the communion liturgy. We started with the first part, which talks about
giving thanks to God. Then we moved to
the second part, which talks about the holiness of God.
Today we pick up right where we left off. It starts
on page thirteen, then carries on to page fourteen. It says:
By the baptism of his suffering, death, and
resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin
and death, and made with us a new covenant, by water and the Spirit.
On the night in which he gave himself up for us
he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples,
and said: “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave
thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Drink from this, all
of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of me.”
There’s a phrase that shows up
twice in that section of the liturgy. Actually it’s just two words. Those words are “new covenant”.
We talk about that new covenant
every time we take Holy Communion. Our Bible reading from Hebrews talked
about the new covenant, too. So what is
it? What is the new covenant? For
that matter, what’s the old covenant? In
fact, what’s a covenant? And why do we talk about it in our communion
liturgy?
Well, synonyms for “covenant”
include contract, agreement, promise, words like that. In fact, it’s
still a word you’ll hear lawyers use in regard to contracts. But a covenant is basically something that
someone agrees to do for someone else.
The Old Covenant was one made
between God and the people of Israel. If the people of Israel did what
God had told them to do, if they kept the law and obeyed God, God would protect
them and bless them. But of course, the Old Covenant was not kept. It was not God’s fault. God was happy to protect and bless the people
of Israel. But they did not keep the
law. They did not obey God. In
fact, as we said before much of the Old Testament is this cycle of the people
turning away from God and getting into trouble, the people turning back to God
and asking for forgiveness, God forgiving them and blessing the people again,
the people turning away from God and getting into trouble again, and on and on.
And so, God instituted a New
Covenant. It’s also a promise from God.
God will offer us grace and forgiveness and love. And all we have
to do to accept it is to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Our reading from Hebrews
explains how this new covenant compares to the old covenant. The Old
Covenant, which involved keeping the law, had priests who were in charge of
overseeing it. The New Covenant also has a priest--Jesus Christ. There were lots of priests under the Old
Covenant, because they were human beings and they died. There’s only one priest
in the New Covenant, because Jesus lives forever.
In the Old Covenant, the
priests would make sacrifices. It was by those sacrifices that the sins
of the people would be forgiven. But because the priests were mere human
beings, the forgiveness was not permanent. They would have to be repeated
day after day. But in the New Covenant,
Jesus, the high priest, was the sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed himself. And because Jesus is the divine Son of God,
that sacrifice was permanent. As it
says, “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.”
So what’s all that got to do
with Communion? Why do we talk about this new covenant in the communion
liturgy?
Well, I think there are at
least two reasons. One of them is what Jesus said on the night of the
first communion, the Last Supper. We read that in our communion liturgy, too. Jesus said, “Take, eat, this is my body which
is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Later, Jesus said, “This is my blood of the
new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
So that’s one reason we talk
about the new covenant: to remember.
To remember the sacrifice Jesus made.
To remember the incredible gift we’ve been given. To remember that
we no longer are under the law. We don’t
have to try to earn our way into heaven by following a list of rules and
regulations so long that we would never even be able to remember them all, much
less follow them all.
That’s one of the things our
communion liturgy means we in talks about how Jesus delivered us from slavery
to sin and death. We’re still subject to sinning, of course. The Apostle Paul told us that all of us have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But we’re not slaves to that
sin, because we’re not under the law any more.
We’re under God’s grace. And
that’s one of the things we remember. We remember that God offers us
forgiveness and salvation, and all we have to do to get them is repent of our
sins and accept Jesus as our Savior.
But that’s not the only reason we
talk about the new covenant. As we’ve said before, Holy Communion is one
of God’s means of grace. It is one of the ways in which God’s grace comes
into our hearts and into our lives. Our reading from Hebrews explains
that, too. Listen to what it quotes God
as saying about the new covenant:
I will put my laws in their minds and write
them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my
people. No longer will they teach their
neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know
me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their
wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
When we share in Holy Communion, we accept God’s New
Covenant. God’s grace comes into our hearts and into our souls. We don’t have to worry about that list of
rules and regulations that are too long to remember because God puts the laws
in our minds and writes them in our hearts. That’s why we don’t have to
say to each other “Know the Lord”--because through God’s grace, which comes to
us through Holy Communion, we already know the Lord. There is still more we can learn about God,
of course. There’s always more we can
learn. But we know what we need to know--that God loves us, that Jesus is
our Savior, that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins. We receive the grace of God, we accept that
New Covenant, when we share in Holy Communion.
Now, as we said last week, Holy Communion is not magic.
And it’s not the only way God’s grace can come into us. God can give us God’s grace in any way God
chooses. But communion is one way in which that happens. And that’s an incredible gift that God has
given us.
Maybe that’s why we talk about this right after we talk
about the holiness of God--so that we’ll realize what an incredible gift this
is. We talked last week about how God is perfectly good, perfectly
righteous, and perfectly sinless. We
talked about how God is worthy of our complete and total loyalty, devotion, and
dedication. And we talked about how often we fail to give that to God,
even though God is worthy of it.
And yet, despite all that, God has given us this gift of
Holy Communion. God has given us this gift whereby God’s grace can come
into our hearts and into our souls. God has given us this gift by which
we can receive forgiveness and salvation and eternal life. If that’s not
incredible, I don’t know what is.
As we read our communion liturgy today, in preparation for
Holy Communion, let’s remember the things we’ve talked about. Let’s give
thanks to the Lord, our God. Let’s
remember who God is--perfectly good, perfectly righteous, and perfectly
sinless. Let’s remember the New Covenant that God has given us, a
covenant of grace and forgiveness. A
covenant that says we no longer have to remember a long list of laws, because
through God’s grace, God’s laws are written on our hearts. And let’s
remember that all this is possible through the sacrifice of our Lord and
Savior, the high priest of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ. And let’s be truly grateful for all that God
has done for us.
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