Hebrews 8:6-13
Maundy Thursday
Grace Lutheran Church
March 29, 2018
Jesus Our Great High Priest Is the Mediator of the New Covenant 6
But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. 7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said: “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. 10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. 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. 11No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” 13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. In the name of Jesus, our Great High Priest, dear friends, Advertisers love to use words like better, new, or improved to entice people into purchasing and using the products they market. The problem is that the promise that the new product will be an improvement over the old one doesn’t always come true. That isn’t the case with the new covenant that God promised through the prophet Jeremiah to put into effect in the future—the covenant Jesus spoke of when he instituted Holy Communion. On this Maundy Thursday, we have another reading that shows us that Jesus is our Great High Priest, and it does this by contrasting the covenant he established—the new covenant—with the old covenant, the one which established the Old Testament priesthood. It is an appropriate reading for Maundy Thursday worship as we listen again to the words our Lord spoke as he instituted the Sacrament of Holy Communion: In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you (Luke 22:20).” When Jesus spoke of a new covenant, he was clearly saying that this covenant that would supersede the old covenant. Today/Tonight, as we look at that old covenant, we will see more clearly what the new covenant is and we will appreciate all the more what our Savior did as he established the new covenant by his suffering and death and the shedding of his blood. Jesus our Great High Priest is the mediator of a new covenant, a covenant that is better, stronger, and smarter than the old covenant. I. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, which is better than the old.
The writer of Hebrews shows us how the new covenant is an improvement over the old covenant when he says, “The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.” This mention of the old covenant, takes us back to Mount Sinai, where God made a covenant—or solemn agreement— with the nation of Israel. Remember how that covenant with Israel came about. In the third month, after God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, he gathered them at the foot of Mount Sinai. There he told them that if they obeyed him, they would always be his special people and would always live in the Promised Land of Canaan. Through Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, God told the Israelites the terms of his agreement with them. Those were the Ten Commandments (God’s moral law) plus the civil laws and ceremonial laws. These three sets of laws would regulate every aspect of their social and religious lives. The Israelites heard the terms and agreed, saying, “We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey” (Exodus 24:7). So the agreement was made—God laid down the terms, the people agreed, a relationship was established, and then the covenant was put into effect using blood. Bulls were slaughtered, their blood was gathered, and some of the blood was splashed against the altar of the Lord and the rest was sprinkled on the people. As he sprinkled the blood of the bulls on the people, Moses said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (24:8). The agreement was sealed, put into effect with blood. But within days, the Israelites had broken that covenant by casting and worshiping a golden calf. The author of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah 31 where the Lord says, “They did not remain faithful to my covenant.” Yet God did not simply wipe out his covenant with Israel. What the Lord did was this: through the prophet Jeremiah, he promised that he would make and put into effect a new covenant. This new covenant would be different from the old covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai. Our lesson from Hebrews quotes again from Jeremiah 31: “It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.” The new covenant would be different—in fact, it would be superior to the old because this new covenant would be based on better promises. That first covenant contained promises—that Israel would always live in Canaan and would always be God’s special people—but those promises were conditional. Those promises required obedience from the Israelites. God said, “If you obey me you will be my people and live in Canaan forever.” But the Israelites couldn’t do it. They were sinful people whose sin broke God’s covenant. So God promised to put into effect a new covenant. It would be a different kind of covenant; it would have better promises— unconditional promises. What are those unconditional promises? God says through Jeremiah: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” That’s what makes the new covenant better than the old one—it is based on better promises; sins are forgiven and forgotten for Christ’s sake without condition.
But wasn’t there forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament? Yes, through faith in the promises first given to Adam and Eve and then repeated to Abraham there surely was forgiveness. As we look at the covenant that God made with Israel at Mount Sinai, we must remember that he was building on those earlier promises of a Savior. These additional things served to keep the nation of God’s people together until that promised Savior was born. The details of these laws reminded them of their need for that Savior. And included in that covenant, were instructions for the priesthood and sacrifices that foreshadowed the ministry of Christ. But the Old Testament believers had only shadows of the Savior, promises that payment would be made for sin, and prophecies of Christ’s saving work. As New Testament Christians, we have the reality. Today/Tonight, we see how God put his new covenant into effect. As Jesus took the cup of wine and gave it to his disciples, he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you (Luke 22:20).”Jesus became the mediator of the better covenant, the new covenant of forgiveness of sins, by offering himself on the cross for the sins of the world. By his blood, he has removed the sins that separated us from God. Because Jesus died bearing the sins of all people, God can unconditionally promise the whole world of sinners, “Your sins are forgiven. My Son has paid your debt and removed your guilt.” God brought us into that covenant when he brought us to faith through the power of the Word and through Baptism, and he remains faithful to us. But we are not always faithful to him. Like the Israelites long ago, we worship ourselves and things in this world; we forget his blessings and we complain. In mercy, God shows us our sins, brings us to repentance and faith, and restores our blessed covenant relationship. And every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, receiving Christ’s body and blood under the bread and wine, he reassures us that we are still his dearly loved children. As we hear Jesus say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” we can be reminded of this great promise: “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Yes, Christ is the mediator of a new and better covenant, one based on better promises—the unconditional promises that our sins are forgiven and forgotten through the blood of Christ. This lesson from Hebrews also leads us to see that… II. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, which is stronger than the old.
Regarding the new covenant, God said through Jeremiah, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.” The contrast here is between the laws God wrote on tablets of stone at Mount Sinai and the way he would inscribe his will on the hearts of his people in the New Testament. Remember that the nation of Israel that God gathered at Mount Sinai was a mixed nation. Not all of the Israelites believed God’s promise to send a Savior. Many of them grumbled about being led by God into the desert and some of them even wanted to go back to Egypt. They were selfish and stubborn. When God wrote his commands on stone tablets, those commands came as a heavy burden placed on the people from the outside. They had no love for God and no desire to do what he said. The only reason they obeyed—if they did—was out of fear of God’s wrath and punishment. They considered God’s holy will for them to be a heavy burden. However, even in the Old Testament there were also those who knew their sins and their need for a Savior and they trusted in God. They knew God’s promise of a Savior and gladly did his will. They did not view God’s law as a burdensome demand, but they were inspired by God’s love to obey him from within. Jeremiah says that when God establishes his new covenant, all who are brought into the new covenant relationship with God by faith will be like that. They will obey God from the heart. Those who have seen the true glory of God in his forgiving love—those he has made his people by faith—will be God’s people, and he will be their God. And his law will be written in their hearts. They will gladly do God’s will. Inspired by God’s love, they will respond with lives of love lived for God and the people around them. Jesus had this in mind when he said to his disciples in the Upper Room, “A new command I give you: Love one another” (John 13:34). That command isn’t new in itself. God had commanded that in the Old Testament. What would be new was the motive for loving others. Jesus said, “Love one another. . . as I have loved you.” God, in his love, has established his new covenant. The promises made to Abraham have been fulfilled in Christ, who in his great love, went to the cross to bear our sins in his body and cleanse us from them by his blood. He has brought us into that covenant by faith. He’s opened our eyes to see the glory of his grace, which fully forgives our sins. And now with hearts warmed by his love, you and I are empowered to live lives of love for God and for others. That’s the power of the new covenant—the power of God’s forgiving love in Christ! That’s what makes the new covenant stronger than the old one.
III. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, which is smarter than the old. Jeremiah says that when God puts this new covenant into effect, people will understand God better than they did before. He says it this way: “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.” It is important to note that as he wrote in Hebrew, Jeremiah said that no one will have to say, “Know the LORD.” The LORD (all capital letter is English translations) is God’s covenant name—it is the Hebrew name Yahweh or Jehovah. It is the particular name for God that emphasizes his mercy and forgiving love. Now of course, the Old Testament believers knew that name of God; they knew God as “the LORD.” They had experienced his grace and mercy. Evidences of his love were the promise of a Savior and his selection of Israel as his own special people. But the full glory of God’s love—the full revelation of the name, “The LORD”—Israel in the Old Testament did not get. That revelation would only come with God’s sacrifice of his Son on the cross. God’s offering of his Son in the place of a world of sinners—fully and truly reveals the glory of God. Jesus understood that. He understood that the Father’s glory would be revealed most clearly in his crucifixion. That’s why he said in the shadow of the cross, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). It is God’s greatest glory to be the Savior of sinners, to reveal his amazing grace as he offers his Son as the substitute for sinners. Jesus once said to his disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23,24). How blessed you and I are to have the full revelation of God’s forgiving love! Now let us strive to grow in this knowledge of Christ and devote ourselves to making our glorious Lord known to others! We do this in a variety of ways—through personal witness and prayers and with the offerings we bring our Lord to support the work of his gospel ministry. We also do it each time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, as Paul said, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Today/Tonight we hear Jesus say, “This is my blood of the new covenant.” Have confidence that Jesus, our Great High Priest, is the mediator of a covenant that is better, stronger, and smarter than the old covenant—and thank God for the blessings of his new covenant with you. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.