1st Sunday in Lent, March 19, 2006, Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church
The “Bath Qol” and the Beginning of the Story
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Mark is a master storyteller. Right from the start, he prepares us for what we are about to hear. Some may read this first verse and think that it is merely a title. For Mark, it is much more. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God” orients us to hear rightly the story Mark is about to tell.
When you hear “Once upon a time” you are prepared to hear a fairy tale. When you hear “It was a dark and stormy night” you are prepared to hear a very different kind of story than one that starts with “Once upon a time.” Listen to Mark begin the story: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God. This statement is a confession. Mark is telling us that the story is about good news and that the story is about Jesus. Mark also tells us who Jesus is: he is Christ (Messiah) and he is Son of God. By revealing Jesus’ identity, Mark also tells us what kind of “good news” this story is. This “good news” is Kingdom news. This story is about the Kingdom of God for which the Jewish people cried out and waited.
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God” not only starts a story; it transports us into an existing story. Arche – beginning. Mark echoes a story his hearers would instantly recognize. “In the beginning…” All of a sudden we’re back at creation. In the beginning there was God, and he is just about to speak creation into existence. Mark’s story echoes this story: by choosing this word Mark says, “Listen. Do you hear it? This story I’m going to tell you about Jesus is a story deeply connected to the first story, the story of God bringing creation into being. This story is another creation story. And the words about to be spoken are like God’s words that made all things come to be.”
So Mark puts us right in the thick of the story. He does not, like Matthew and Luke, begin with birth narratives. Mark’s beginning is with John the Baptist out in the wilderness by the Jordan River. This setting connects the story with another beginning – that of God’s people Israel. In Exodus we see a bunch of runaway slaves get turned into the people of God as God leads them out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land. Just before Israel claims the land and takes up residence as God’s people, they are in the wilderness by the Jordan River. And here is John, out where Israel followed God into the land and became a people.
John’s clothing and diet are out of the ordinary. But what he is saying and doing goes beyond out of the ordinary; it is radical. We may not hear this in the story because our ears have not been shaped by the Hebrew Scriptures, but it is there. Something crazy. Something subversive. Mark tells us that John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance. What this means is that John was saying, “You people of Israel, you think you are God’s people. You think you’ve taken up the Promised Land. You think you are ‘in.’ Well, I’ve got news for you. The Messiah is coming to bring the Kingdom and that means you have got to prepare by repenting and being baptized. Because in reality you are the people your forefathers were when they were standing on the other side of the Jordan. They were not yet a people. They had not yet crossed over. And the only way you’re going to cross through the Jordan and enter the Promised Land and be God’s people is by repenting.” Imagine John saying this to Israel! What if a prophet came in here and started saying the same thing to you? “You, people of Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church, you think you are ‘in;’ you think you have crossed over and entered the place where God reigns, where his presence dwells. But you are actually on the outside. And if you want to know how to cross over, I’ll tell you: Repent.” Imagine John telling “saved” people that they had yet to become God’s people. Maybe this is what Mark meant when he clued us into the fact that this story was a creation story: this story is our creation story, the story in which and by which we get re-made.
If we move on in the story we see Jesus enter. Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee. A man. A son of a carpenter. And from Galilee? What of importance ever came out of Galilee? But Jesus goes out into the wilderness to John and gets baptized in the Jordan. “And immediately coming up from the water he saw the heavens being torn and the spirit as a dove going down upon him; and a voice came from the heavens, ‘You, you are my beloved son, in you I have been well pleased.”
If anyone has been wondering what “Bath Qol” means – this is where we find out. Literally “bath qol” means “daughter of a voice” and it refers to the voice from heaven heard at Jesus’ baptism. So, Jesus is dunked in the Jordan and a voice from heaven speaks. For the first time in the story we are told who Jesus is: Beloved Son, the one in whom God has been well pleased. This may not be very revealing to us, but again, our ears have not been trained. In fact, the “bath qol” tells us the heart of who Jesus is.
The three verses we read earlier are echoed in the Bath Qol’s words. Jesus’ identity echoes Isaiah, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” It echoes Psalm 2, “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’” And it echoes Genesis, “He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’” These echoes pick us up and put us in the Biblical story unfolding from Abraham to the prophets. Mark is practically screaming at us: THIS IS THE ONE!!! DON’T MISS THIS!!! JESUS IS THE MESSIAH!!!
And as in the first verse, by telling us who Jesus is, Mark also qualifies the “good news” of this gospel story. The Jews were waiting for the Messiah, the one who would deliver them from oppression and establish God’s kingdom. What they expected, however, was not what Mark tells us about who Jesus is: he is, as in Isaiah, the servant who will suffer; he is, as in the Psalm, the Son of God; he is, as foreshadowed by the Isaac story in Genesis, one who will be sacrificed. Jesus is the Messiah, but he is the Messiah who through suffering will bring the kingdom.
This is utterly scandalous. God is supposed to send someone who will vanquish the enemy and assert God’s rule. God is mighty and glorious; he is supposed to come in mighty and glorious ways. A suffering Messiah? This cannot be!
But here we are, on the bank of the Jordan River out in the wilderness of Judea, and we are being called to follow the one whom the Bath Qol has clearly identified as God’s chosen servant. We’re being called to follow him into peoplehood by passing through the waters of the Jordan in a baptism of repentance. We’re being called to follow him as he unleashes the Kingdom of God through suffering.
We can only follow Jesus inasmuch as we understand the gospel story. And Mark tells us that this story demands that we know who Jesus is. Unless we confess Jesus, we have no clue how to walk the path he walked. Unless we confess Jesus, we have no clue how to be re-made as the people of God.
Confession - homologia – means “same word.” We have to speak, believe, be shaped by the “same word” as that spoken by the Bath Qol. Our identity and our action must be determined by the words heard from the voice from heaven. Mark confesses Jesus in the very first verse of the story he tells because only through confession can this story be truly heard.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God… You, you are my beloved son; in you have I been well pleased.
Our confession leads us through the Jordan River into the Promised Land as God’s people: it purifies us to be a priestly people; it cleanses us and opens the way to dwell with God.
What story are we living by? What words shape who we are and how we live? Will we hear John’s voice crying out in the wilderness – prepare the way; come be cleansed. Will we follow Jesus who went before us through the Jordan? Who is a suffering Messiah?
Let us pray that our words – our very identities – be confession.
2nd Sunday in Lent, March 26, 2006, Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church
Wrestling with the Story: Peter’s Confession
Last week we looked at the way Mark tells the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God. And we witnessed in the first scene of the story the Bath Qol, the voice from heaven, speaking words which we are called to confess. Jesus is the Messiah: he is leading the way through the waters of the Jordan for those who would be the people of God and enter the Kingdom; he brings the Kingdom by turning his face toward Jerusalem and walking a path of suffering that leads to redemption. There is no other way for the Kingdom to come; there is no other way for those who would seek to become God’s people.
This evening we continue in Mark’s telling of the gospel. Again, he is concerned with the identity of Jesus. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples. And then he goes straight to the heart of the matter: “Who do you say that I am?”
You’ve followed me. You’ve heard me teach. You’ve seen me heal and cleanse and cast out demons. Now is when we both find out if you are with me, if you understand, if you are indeed passing through the Jordan into the Land where God reigns.
Peter dares to answer. “You are the Christ.” You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the one we’ve been waiting for. You’re the one the prophets have been crying out for. You are the one who will restore God’s Kingdom. You are the one who will make things right. Peter says, “Jesus, I believe that you are the one God has chosen. And I believe that the Kingdom has drawn near.”
The evangelist Matthew tells this part of the story a bit differently. He adds, “And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’ And even to you I say that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you bind on the earth will be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on the earth will be loosed in the heavens. At that time he charged the disciples that they should speak to no one that he is the Christ.”
What Peter confessed was what we heard the Bath Qol speak in the first chapter of Mark. Jesus heard Peter speaking the same word as God had spoken from heaven, and Jesus said that this – Peter’s confession – would be the rock on which the church would be built, the strength that would not be overcome by the opposing kingdom.
Peter received his knowledge from God. He is thinking God’s thoughts. Isaiah, after speaking about the Suffering Servant who is to come, tells the people to seek God’s mercy by turning to him. “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa 55:7-9). In this moment of confession, Peter has turned to the LORD and “put on” the thoughts of God.
The story takes an unexpected turn from this point. Jesus starts telling the disciples that he must be rejected and suffer, and Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, takes Jesus aside and says, “Wait just a minute. You are mistaken. This cannot be.” A few minutes ago Jesus was calling Peter blessed, and now he says, “Get behind me Satan.” Peter has gone from thinking God’s thoughts to thinking man’s thoughts faster than you can say, “Pick up your cross and follow me.”
Jesus teaches, as we have already heard in the voice from heaven, that he will be a suffering Messiah. When we say, “Jesus died for my sins,” we often think that his suffering means that we do not have to suffer. But immediately after Jesus teaches that he must suffer, he says to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” Following Jesus means walking in his way, walking the path he walked.
We often try to tone down Jesus’ words. We interpret “whoever loses his life for the gospel’s sake” to mean whoever sacrifices something for a program of evangelism. Or we take “losing our life” to mean something more like self-control, denying ourselves sinful pleasures or a purely spiritual/theoretical death and resurrection. When Jesus said these words to the disciples, they knew the cost he was talking about – their worldview and expectations, their theology and way of coming to God, their very bodies were on the line. We’re not talking about tithing our money, time or loyalties; we’re talking about a total sacrifice of self.
Peter understood that Jesus was the Chosen One, the One anointed to bring the Kingdom. He did not, however, like the idea that Jesus would suffer and die. Following this kind of Messiah meant giving up one’s life for the Kingdom, not just enjoying the Kingdom once it was established. In fact, throughout Mark’s gospel we are told the story of Jesus as the one we must follow in order to enter the Kingdom. Suffering, passing through the waters (which is an image of death as well as cleansing) is the way in which people become God’s people. When we present ourselves for baptism we either lay down our lives and so become a follower of Christ or we practice a false sacrament and fool ourselves into thinking that we enter in by some other way.
When faced with Jesus’ teaching that he must suffer, Peter wrestles with the story God tells. He does not understand. This is not the way it is supposed to happen. What does this mean that the man I just claimed is the Messiah must suffer? What does it mean that I must follow him? This does not sound like victory.
One moment Peter is thinking God’s thoughts. The next moment he is wrestling with the thoughts of man. And he is faced with a choice: Will I follow? We are in the same situation, and we face the same decision. We do not want a suffering Messiah. We’ve gotten used to a reduced idea of it because we know that it has “paid” for our salvation. But we are uncomfortable with the concrete reality of suffering – especially because Jesus tells us that it demands our lives, our willingness to suffer with him. Those that try to evade cross bearing are stumbling blocks that must be rebuked – Get behind me Satan. Those that would follow Jesus must turn themselves, as Walter Bruggemann says, “full forward to the throne” and allow God’s thoughts to reign.
Our story for today ends with the Transfiguration and the voice from heaven echoing the words at Jesus’ baptism, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!” Let us hear these words as an invitation to confess Jesus as Christ as Peter did, but to also be willing to follow him as his path is made known to us. Instead of trying to evade Jesus’ teaching and make the story something more to our liking, easier, less costly, let us be shaped by and confess the story God tells. Let us hear these words and be transformed in even how we conceive of God and what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Facing Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter found himself in the wilderness at the edge of the Jordan. This too is where we find ourselves tonight. On the brink of being recreated as God’s people. On the brink of participating in the Kingdom breaking into this world.
The gospel of the Kingdom of God is more than an assurance of salvation after we die. Last week our story saw Jesus being baptized and then led into the wilderness to be tempted. The identity he had spoken over him by the Bath Qol at his baptism was attacked by Satan. Our story today mirrors this experience: Peter spoke God’s thoughts, confessing Jesus as Christ. But then Peter spoke man’s thoughts, and it was as if Jesus was back in the wilderness having his identity attacked by Satan. One of the ways Satan attacks “the gospel of the Kingdom of God” is by telling us that all it is about is personal justification and eternal security. When Jesus came out of the wilderness after being tempted by Satan, he went into a synagogue and read from the Isaiah scroll: “’THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.’ And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’" We cannot forget that “Jesus is the Christ” means that he is bringing the Kingdom of God. We prayed the psalms earlier – and they ask God to bring his Kingdom, assert his reign – and they ask him to do this by asking him to rescue his people, lift up the oppressed, free those in bondage, bring the year of Jubilee to the poor. Jesus stood up, having resisted Satan’s attack against who God has told him he was and how God told him the Kingdom would come, and he said by reading from Isaiah– I have come with this gospel.
Who do we say that Jesus is? What do we say that the Kingdom is? What do we confess? What words do we speak by the stories that we live? You are on the edge of the Jordan. You hear Jesus calling, “Follow me.” You hear him asking, “You do you say that I am?” Are we willing to pass through the waters of death and be made new? Are we willing to follow a suffering Messiah? Insofar as we do these things we confess Jesus as Christ. Let us offer our lives for the Kingdom he brings.
3rd Sunday in Lent, April 2, 2006, Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church
Thy Kingdom Come
Avinu…
Matthew 6:9-13
Our Father, the one in the heaven; your name be made holy; your kingdom come; your will be brought to being, as in heaven also on the earth; our bread for today give to us today; and forgive us our debts, as also we forgive our debtors; and carry us not into testing, but rescue us from the evil one.
The last two weeks we have talked about the kind of Messiah Jesus – the one chosen to bring God’s kingdom – is. His identity, as known from the voice from heaven, has been revealed to be Chosen, Son, Suffering Servant. He carves out a path into God’s kingdom by passing through the waters of the Jordan in a baptism that kills us and cleanses us. He calls us to follow him.
We have heard who Jesus is. We have heard that he calls us into the Kingdom. But what is the Kingdom? What are we being called into?
If I have learned anything in the last ten weeks of my Jesus & the Kingdom of God class, it is that the Kingdom is not easily defined. Just when you think you’ve got a clear picture of what it is, Jesus uses an image that turns everything upside-down and inside-out. Jesus’ frequent use of parables gives us a clue that he isn’t going to make it easy for us to understand.
Jesus says, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN… Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:11-13). Mark makes it pretty clear that the disciples do not understand Jesus’ teaching at this point. And they are the one’s to whom “the mystery of the kingdom of God” has been given!
So let’s talk about the Kingdom. In the beginning God created creation. Earth, skies, sea, animals. And the crown of creation - humans: male and female, those in the image of God. To these he gave the authority to participate in caring for creation. He gave them power to join in his creative act – to keep creation as it was designed to be. Daniel 7, which we read earlier, tells the story of humans handing over their power to the beasts. These beasts do not have legitimate authority, but they have taken power meant for responsible creative use by humans and used it to dominate and oppress creation. Their use of power undoes creation’s design. God cannot stand by any longer; he sends a chosen agent to bind these beasts, strip them of their ill gotten power and re-create creation. This “Son of Man” restores God’s kingdom. Think of “kingdom” in terms of God’s effective reign. This agent of God comes and breaks the power of the beasts and exercises it in accordance with God’s vision for creation. God’s kingdom can be thought of in terms of creation living out the vision God had when he brought it into being and the vision he has for what it should become.
God so wants his creation to live out its identity that he once again bestows upon human beings the opportunity to rise above the sub-human existence they have been living and actually image God by taking up responsibility again for creation. Daniel’s vision includes the Son of Man giving power to the saints of the Most High.
This drama is enacted in and through Jesus Christ. He is the Son of Man. He is the one breaking the kingdom of Satan and bringing the kingdom of God. He is the one who calls us to follow him and participate in this drama. “Come, deny the less than human identity you have lived for thousands of years, be yoked with me under the cross that redeems all of creation, and be made new and make things new.”
We have the responsibility, and with the coming of the Holy Spirit, we have the power, to labor with Christ in bringing the Kingdom, in establishing God’s reign, in re-creating creation according to God’s vision.
All that has been torn apart and oppressed by the kingdom of the beasts must be healed and set free. This is why Jesus talks so much about reconciliation, and serving those who have been abused in systems of violence and misused power. And Jesus teaches us to see that all systems of this world are such systems of unauthorized and perverted power. All ways of “reigning” in the world are kingdoms set up against God’s kingdom. This is why our allegiance must be to none other than God and the Kingdom Jesus Christ proclaims has come, continues to unfold and promises will finally make all things new at the last day.
Waiting for that Kingdom means confessing Jesus as Lord. Confessing Jesus as Lord means giving yourself up to the reign of God. It means being made new. It also means sacrificing your entire life for the mission of establishing God’s reign.
Let us not forget, however, that this mission calls us to follow a Suffering Messiah. God’s kingdom does not come by force or violence. God’s kingdom comes by men and women willingly submitting their lives to God’s reign and joining in their creational design of laboring for God’s vision for creation. Jesus shows us that the Kingdom comes as we serve others. God’s reign is not established by dominating power, but by self-giving love. When we serve the poor, care for the orphan, visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe the naked, set free the demon possessed, love our enemies… when we lay down our lives as Christ laid his down... God reigns in us and the Kingdom comes, and God’s reign is extended so that others might be included and enter in.
When we pray “Thy Kingdom come” we are praying that we might be the people God created us to be. We are praying that God’s name might be made holy by the offering of our lives. We are praying that we might follow Jesus wholeheartedly in bringing God’s reign by sacrificing self. We are praying that we might trust God’s provision day by day so that we might forsake providing for ourselves and actually seek first the Kingdom. We are praying that we might embrace our enemies and forgive those who wound us.
The power to be God’s people, the power to follow Christ is given in and through the Holy Spirit. Jesus sent him to us. Have we relinquished power over our own lives so that he might dwell in us and lead us into God’s Kingdom? Are we willing to look deeply into our hearts and search out the ways we evade God’s reign? Are willing to admit the ways we do not even understand what Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God? Are we willing to be honest? Are we willing to put ourselves to death? To be torn apart, melted down… so that God might re-create us?
After we sing our closing hymn, I want to offer you the time and space to wrestle with the story God is telling. Those who feel called to stay and pray, to stay and open your ears, your hearts to the power of the Spirit of God, please remain. And would everyone else quietly exit so that if there are some who want to stay and pray, they may do so?
4th Sunday in Lent, April 9, 2006, Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church
At the Table with Jesus: Past & Future Meet the Present
The hour had come for the disciples to see what Jesus meant when he told them he would suffer and give his life. As we saw in Peter’s rebuke of Jesus, the disciples were confused about how the Messiah, the one who was supposed to realize Israel’s hope for deliverance, could be a suffering servant. How can the Messiah – the Son of God – die!? How does the Kingdom come if the One bringing it is crucified?
The disciples did not know when they sat at the table for Passover that Jesus would in just a few hours be betrayed and arrested. Jesus and the twelve shared a meal of remembrance; they participated in the story of Passover by eating and drinking.
The night before God delivered his people from Egypt, Moses instructed them to slaughter lambs and paint their door posts with the blood. The lambs’ blood ensured that the firstborn of the house would be spared. The angel of the LORD would pass over the marked doors accepting the sacrifice of the lamb in place of the heir of the house. The people were to roast and eat the lamb along with unleavened bread. Leaven was not to be used in the dough because it takes time to allow for it to rise, and that night was to be a night of haste; the people were to be ready in an instant to leave Egypt.
The Passover Supper was a reenactment of the story of Israel’s deliverance. The supper was no mere reminder of God’s past deed; in remembering back the Jews looked forward to God’s future deliverance, the coming of his Kingdom. By participating in the story of the Exodus, the Jews poised themselves for God’s next act. It is as if Jesus and the disciples were in Egypt with Moses making haste to be ready for God to save them. Only this time deliverance meant the permanent establishment of God’s reign over the earth.
The Christian celebration of the Lord’s Supper involves bread and wine. We participate as members of the body of Christ. Eating and drinking brings us together as a community, reminding us of Christ’s death and calling us to unity. Sharing this table with one another connects us with the story of the night Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples.
Jesus took the unleavened bread, spoke the traditional blessing:
Baruch atah Adonai eloheynu melech ha-olam ha-mo-tzi lechem min ha-aretz
and then broke it. He gave it to his disciples, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” One of the pieces of unleavened bread in the Jewish Passover is broken, and a piece is hidden until after the meal. This piece is called “afikomen,” meaning, that which is coming. It comes after the meal. If Jesus broke bread and called this piece his body, he was saying that the One who was to come had come. There is no more waiting. The Kingdom of God breaks in with the Messiah. Jesus’ body given up to death is like the slaughtered lamb that spared the firstborn of Israel in Egypt. His blood marks us as those who belong to God. Eating this bread is our confession that indeed Jesus is the One who was to come. We wait for him to come again. Eating this unleavened bread reminds us that we must be prepared, keep watch, stay alert... for the Kingdom is at hand and when it comes in all its glory we must be found ready.
After they had eaten the meal, Jesus took the third of four cups of wine for the evening, and spoke the blessing:
Baruch atah Adonia eloheynu melech ha-olam bo-ray p'ree ha-gafen
He said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” The third cup of wine in the Passover ritual is the Cup of Redemption representing God’s promise to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. A foreign nation kept Israel in bondage; a foreign kingdom enslaves this world. God’s promise in Egypt is our promise today: I will deliver you; I will be your God; you will be my people. Jesus called this the “new covenant” echoing Jeremiah’s words: “Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (31:31-34). As the people in Isaiah's day about whom we read earlier, even after we have gone chasing other lovers, God acts to redeem us in order to make us his own. Jesus’ blood is that covenant.
Tonight we are slaves in Egypt, and we have quickly done everything God has commanded us so that we might be ready for his powerful act of redemption. Tonight we are disciples at the table with Jesus just before his death, and we cling to the promise of the past that is also a promise for the future. Tonight we are brothers and sisters confessing Christ, enduring until we see the promise of the Kingdom fulfilled. Tonight we are seated next to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom that has come. The past and the future meet the present as we partake of the bread and wine.
All who have set out on the journey of following after Jesus and have proclaimed it in baptism may come and share in the Messianic feast where all things are made new. All who walk in the reign of God may come and celebrate God’s victory of bringing the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Come to the table where history floods into the present and transports us to the future. Come to the table where we confess by eating and drinking – we confess the victory of the Messiah in bringing the Kingdom. We celebrate past acts of deliverance as hope for future deliverance. We celebrate as if we were on this day at the Last Day. Come. Sit. Take. Eat. Drink. In this moment live into the future, into the Kingdom.