The New Testament
Hebrews 9:11-22
Maundy Thursday Service
“It is as good as new”.
This is a phrase used in the “repair” industry to assure the customer
that the product brought in has been fixed.
Whether it is a rebuilt alternator for your vehicle, a computer that has
been debugged, or a surgically repaired knee, those in the “fixing business”
people like to use this phrase. While
the phrase is meant to put the customer at ease, you and I know better. New is new.
While the alternator may be refurbished, rebuilt or fixed up, there is
one thing the product is not, and that is new.
New is no longer new, once its been used. The title for this evenings Maundy Thursday
sermon; New Testament, may strike you as a bit strange. How in the world do you make a sermon out of
27 books of the bible, the New Testament?
The point of the title is that “Testament” and “covenant” are used
interchangeably in the bible, and in Hebrews it says that Jesus is the mediator
of a new covenant or New Testament. How
does he do this? By fixing up the old
covenant? Tweaking it a bit? By no means,
he does it by starting over. In order
to truly start over, what is old has to be done away with, it has to die! As a sign of death, blood is spilled, and in
the Old Covenant it says in Hebrews that blood was sprinkled in the tent and on
the altar, and on the people. As messy
and “unclean” as it sounds this is the way the “Old Covenant or Old Testament
worked”. They used animals, and they
made sacrifices of animals again and again.
What’s new about the “New Testament”, there is no longer an animal, but
a human, someone like us, and his blood was sacrificed once for all and not
again and again.
In our gospel reading tonight, the old Passover event,
something God’s people had celebrated for centuries was once again to be
celebrated. Jesus and his disciples
began the old ritual of getting things together for this annual festival. To have a rabbi and his followers celebrating
this tradition was not novel, but not rather part of the old Passover
tradition. We see that in this meal,
Jesus calls out his betrayer, and because of this newness of life certainly
wasn’t in the air. Being betrayed by
someone close must have reminded the fellow disciples that the old ways of
treating others and their Lord had infiltrated
this close group. It is
sort of like finding out a close family
member has been secretly doing something wrong, but no one had a clue or a
co-worker has been taking the extra profits for years, and just now his
indiscretion are coming to light. Was their newness of life at this time among
the disciples? Not at all, rather the
old seeds of doubt were cast through out the room.
Why did Judas go the old route of betrayal? What was the psychology behind such an event?
Was it pure greed? He was the treasurer,
and I’m sure temptation to greed was never far away for him. Was it
jealousy? Some think to become
treasurer he was highly respected by all including Jesus, but maybe he thought
that he didn’t get the credit of a John or Peter. Was it disappointment that Jesus failed to
strike decisively against the enemies of the Jewish Nation? Did he become frustrated that Jesus didn’t
always follow the various traditions and so called laws of Judaism as a “good
rabbi” should? Who knows the Judas’s
precise psychology. What we do know that
his actions were really as old as our first fruit eaters, Adam and Eve.
Yet, there was newness in the air, but it was hidden to the human eye. For even in the midst of “betrayal” and
uncertainty with the disciples. Jesus
had himself to give. Maybe Jesus wanted
to remind them, and us, that in the middle of it all the junk of life his
merciful presence will make a big difference. “Take and eat this is my body”. “This is my blood of the covenant”. This was new. This was different. This was not merely a remembering or
recalling of past events. This was being
connected to the one who had his body and life to give. This meant forgiveness of sins, especially
when sin was there for everyone to see.
When the sin of Judas was helping to bring the only one without sin to
death. It is in this situation Jesus
gives of himself.
What was new is that this forgiveness would no longer be
promised through the blood of goats, and bulls. That was the old way. This was a way that had to be done over and
over again. Sure blood was used, sure
forgiveness of sins was promised, but not like this. This was a new kind of deal. He had a covenant, a testament, a will. And according to Hebrews in order for this
will or testament to be established and effective for the recipients, one had
to die. The book of Hebrews says “For
where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be
established. For a will takes effect
only at death….. Not only this, but
legally it can no longer be changed.
This is great news, it means that nothing greater or better than this
new testament can come along. The “new”
is now established forever by Christ’s shed blood on
Our reading gospel reading concludes with the sad account
of Judas, who filled with remorse, goes ahead and takes his life. He even admitted that “He had sinned and
betrayed innocent blood”. Yet due to his
despair, he couldn’t buy into the greater truth that his “old sin” still did
not match the “new testament” That is, no sin can escape forgiveness with Jesus
around. The sin of Judas, and his
ultimate destruction came about because he didn’t believe Jesus really could do
it for him. He must have thought that
either Jesus couldn’t’ or wouldn’t forgive him. Yet, we know that because of this New
testament, Judas was wrong, because Jesus blood shed on our behalf, his new
life is greater than Judas’s sin or our sin.
Can anything old and
worn really be new again? Early in this
message I said no. New is new, and old
is old. Yet with this Jesus, you and I
go from old worn, and even dead in sin, to brand new. So when Jesus looks at you he can really say “You know, your as good as new”. In fact in him we are. Amen.