The New Covenant

On Saturday we had an extraordinary wedding here at Tenth Church. A couple of Jewish Christians were married in a ceremony that was at the same time both Jewish and Christian. A choir of Messianic Jews sang a medly of Hebrew worship songs before the ceremony began. There was a canopy at the front of the church under which the ceremony took place. Then men wore yalmakes and both one of our pastors and a Christian rabbi performed the ceremony. The rabbi said the traditional blessings in Hebrew and then translated them into English. The couple drank from the traditional wine glass, carried down the asile during the procession by a young boy who might otherwise have been the ringbearer, and the groom broke a goblet, a traditional rememberance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The ceremony was beautifully Jewish.

The Ceremony was also beautifully Christian. As believers in both the Old and New Testaments, we believe that all the Jewish ceremonies point forward to Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the fulfillment of those ceremonies.

To make this clear, our pastor, Marion Clark, gave a short homily on the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was the covenant between God and Israel given on Mount Sinai. God promised to be their God and their protector. The people's part was to obey God's Law. He gave them the ten commandments to obey and to guide them in their religious and moral lives. It was a good covenant. The only problem with it was that sinful human beings were incapable to keeping it. So at one of the lowest moments of Israel's history, when Jerusalem was under seige from her enemies, in the midst of famine, suffering and privation, God promised that he would make a New Covenant with his sinful people. Jeremiah records this promise in chapter 31 of the book that bears his name. This a new covenant in that it is not based on the outward keeping of the law. God promised to write His law on the people's hearts and minds. He promised to be their God and that they would know Him, from the least to the greatest of them. What makes this New Covenant so wonderful is that it is based not on our trying to keep the law but on forgiveness of sins: "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember thier sins no more."

Centuries later at what we call "the last supper" Jesus passed a cup of wine to His disciples and said, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matt. 26:27-28)

What a wonderful privilege God has given us to be partakers of the New Covenant! Jesus died for our sins so that God's justice could be satisfied. God forgives our sins as we ask for forgiveness on the basis of Jesus' death in our place. And we can actually know God. We can come into His very presence to worship and praise Him, to confess our sins and to find forgiveness and cleansing, and to share with Him everything that is in our hearts. Our obedience then, comes from a new heart and a new mind, focused on our wonderful Savior and on His Word, which He has placed in our hearts.