A New and Living Way to God

Hebrews 10:15-25 Each time we celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar we remember and reclaim the saving works of our Lord Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. 

Jesus gives us his body and blood and tells us to eat and drink it in remembrance of him. He says that this is the new covenant in his blood.  That is what the author of Hebrews was talking about when he wrote that:

The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord:  I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”  Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

            On this night some two thousand years ago, the disciples gathered around a table.  There was bread and wine.  And they remembered. 

They remembered that their people had been slaves—that they lived and died and slavery and so did their children.  They remembered their helplessness and their hopelessness.

They remembered how God had raised up a deliverer for them.  They remembered how they took refuge from the death under the blood of the lamb and how they feasted on the very sacrifice that saved them from death.

As the disciples celebrated the Passover they also remembered the faithlessness of their people, how they fell away from their Savior God, how their good intentions and promises to do better never really lasted for long. 

The lambs being sacrificed all over Jerusalem were a bloody testimony to their own helplessness and the truth that the blood of beasts cannot really take away sin.

But then Jesus took the bread on the table and the wine and he said that these were his body and blood—the new covenant of enduring forgiveness. 

At those words you have to know that every head turned towards him and every eye was fixed upon him.  This new covenant had been promised since the days of Jeremiah!  The old covenant that rested on God and man each doing their part had never really brought peace.  Not because God had failed.  God was always faithful and forgiving!

And yet, the old covenant never brought lasting peace because man could never do his part.  It always stood as a testimony to man’s sin and failure.

That is why the Lord promised that a new covenant would come.  A new covenant where God ALONE would act and God ALONE would save and God ALONE would forgive.  A new covenant that would bring peace to troubled hearts and comfort to burdened consciences because it rested on God’s gracious goodness ALONE.

That night in the Upper Room the ancient promise was fulfilled as Jesus took bread and wine and said:  this is my body and blood—the new covenant of forgiveness of sins. 

From that moment on in Holy Communion God’s people would remember and reclaim Christ’s sacrifice on the cross that was offered up for their sins.  From that moment on God’s people would give thanks that God no longer remembered their sins and lawless deeds.  From that moment God’s people would come into God’s presence unafraid and unashamed.  The Bible says that:

we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh

            In the temple in Jerusalem on Good Friday afternoon things went on as they always had.  The priests and Levites were doing their work.  Sacrifices were being offered. 

At the same time, outside the city walls of Jerusalem, the Lamb of God was being put to death. 

As Jesus breathed his last, something dramatic happened inside the very heart of the temple:  the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple—the curtain that keep people from the presence of God—the curtain that could be bypassed only when the high priest shed the blood of a sacrifice and then only once a year--was torn in two from top to bottom. 

It was torn in two because it was no longer needed.  The great high priest Jesus Christ had offered up the once-for-all sacrifice of his own body and blood upon the altar of the cross and now a life in God’s presence was promised to all people. 

Everyone could have life with God so long as they came through the new and living curtain found in the living flesh of Jesus who continues to serve us in God’s house as our great high priest.  The Bible says that:

since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

            In our communion liturgy tonight we will confess our faith that, as we kneel at this altar to receive Christ’s body and blood, we gather here with the whole house of God:  with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. 

The veil which separates the living from the dead simply falls away in the Body of the living Christ into which we have been baptized with pure, saving, baptismal water.

            And we will receive the ongoing work of our great high priest, who will not sacrifice himself again, but will give us that which was sacrificed once for all:  his true body and blood and the forgiveness of sins that is found there for the strengthening of our faith.  The Bible says:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

We come to the Lord’s Supper tonight, not only as recipients of the Lord’s gifts but as confessors of God’s saving work in the Lord Jesus Christ—a confession to which we are to hold fast without wavering.

We confess that we are sinners who are no more able to help ourselves or save ourselves than the Israelite slaves in Egypt.  We confess that God has sent a deliverer in his Son Jesus who has set us free by his shed blood and who provides for us (body and soul) in the true Manna of Heaven upon this altar until he brings us to the Promised Land of heaven. 

And we insist that those who share this meal with us make that same confession of faith so they may receive it to the good of their soul and the strengthening of their faith.  The Bible says that we are to:

consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

            At the end of our service of Holy Communion we pray this prayer:  “We give thanks to you, almighty God, that You have refreshed us through this salutary gift, and we implore You that of Your mercy you would strengthen us through the same in faith toward You and in fervent love toward one another”. 

Did you catch that?  That God would strengthen us in “fervent love toward one another”.  That post-communion prayer from our liturgy is grounded in the words of our text tonight. 

You see, the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation that our Lord Jesus Christ gives us in his body and blood are intended by him to change us:  to make us people of deeper faith-- and to make us people full of good works-- and to make us people of greater love towards one another.

No one who truly draws near to God through faith in the Lord Jesus, no one who comes to the cross a sinner under God’s wrath and leaves it a child of God and heir of heaven, can remain unchanged by that encounter with Christ. 

So it is for us here tonight who receive his body and blood.

We want to do good to others and have a deeper, more meaningful love for our friends and family, and encourage our fellow Christians in their faith. 

And so we meet together and remember Christ’s sacrifice for us and receive his gifts and in this way we are prepared to stand before him when he comes again, as our text says:  as the Day draws near.

When we began our meditation tonight we remembered the disciples gathered together around the table in the Upper Room.  We recalled the story they told one another of God’s judgment on his enemies and his deliverance of his people. 

Throughout salvation history that story was told again and again among God’s people because it is THE story-- and God told it fully in the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus.

   That story will be told one last time on the Last Day.  God’s enemies will be destroyed once and for all.  And God’s people will be delivered into eternal life.  It is the most important story ever told for it has everlasting consequences to every person on earth.

For us here tonight who have taken refuge under the shed blood of the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world, we have nothing to fear of that day and everything to gain for there is a new and living way to God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.