"Novum Testamentum" Midweek in Advent 3 December 15, 2010 Luke 2:20
A nno D omini In the Year of Our Lord—Luke 4:18-19 V eni E mmanuel O Come, Emmanuel—Matthew 1:23 N ovum T estatmentum New Testament—Luke 22:20 If there is any doubt, Jesus puts that to rest right here. This is a new testament. It is a testament He is giving to us. If there are any who think that what God has given us in His Word is a deal that notion is shattered with what Jesus gives here. What He gives is Himself. He is the New Testament. He gives His body and blood. It is a covenant that Jesus is doing here. The Latin ‘testamentum’ is where we get our English ‘testament’ from. ‘Testamentum’ is from the Greek ‘diatheke’. It means ‘covenant’. So various translations will have Jesus saying this cup is the new ‘testament’ in My blood and others will have new ‘covenant’. Not sure if it matters which word is used. What matters is understanding what it is Jesus is doing here. He is bringing about this covenant; this arrangement, this giving of Himself. This is not a deal. This is not, If you do this, then I will do this. God was very clear in His Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments primarily serve to shut us up. Sure, our sinful nature will look at those and get us to think pretty highly of ourselves. I’ve never murdered anyone in cold blood, I haven’t cheated on my wife or slept with someone outside of marriage, I don’t cheat others, I’m in church every Sunday, and even on Wednesdays in Advent and Lent. Our sinful nature is so corrupt we don’t see the clarity of the Ten Commandments. They don’t show us how good we are. They don’t even show us how we’re not as good as we thought we were. They shut us up. They nail us to the wall and show us that there is nothing good within us. Our minds are corrupt. Our hearts are corrupt. Our lives are corrupt. We are utterly sinful. There’s no deal that’s going to work out between you and God. If He were to make a deal what could He say? Just try not to sin as much as you did the day before? A deal is us doing part of the work and God doing part of it. That’s not a covenant. It’s not the Testament that Jesus was talking about when He gave the cup to His disciples and said that it is the New Testament in My blood. So if we have any notions that the covenant God makes with us as a deal—as we have to do our part, as we can do things that are pleasing to Him, as He is offering us a way to get on His good side—then we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest these words of Christ. This cup is the new testament in My blood. He is the one doing the work. He is the one accomplishing anything that needs to be accomplished. It’s quite stunning that when God gave the Ten Commandments He kept on loving His people. The moment they heard the commandments they were sinning against them. He didn’t say, If you do these things I’ll love you, I’ll be your God and you’ll be My people. He gave His commandments to His people who were already His people because He had already loved them and forgiven them and saved them. That’s the covenant. That’s what Jesus is talking about when He gives His blood to His people. He’s talking about forgiveness and life and salvation. A covenant. A relationship in which He is coming to us with Himself so that we may be in relationship with Him. There’s a certain aspect of Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper of His giving His ‘last will and testament’. He knows He’s about to die. He knows that forty-three days later He’s going to be leaving again, ascending into heaven. So in a certain sense He’s giving His last will and testament. But it’s not like He’s saying to His disciples, Okay, everybody gather around, I’m about to go away so I’ve called you here to go over My will. Peter, you get the house. Philip, I’m giving you My car. James, you get My book collection. The reality is that Jesus didn’t have any of those things. What He did have, He gave them. This wasn’t a will He was going over, although He was giving them an inheritance. It was everything. All the power. All the glory. The whole kingdom. Everything He had as God He was giving them, all in that cup. In that cup He was giving them His blood to drink. This is the New Testament, the New Covenant. In Advent we have been meditating on Christ coming in the flesh. What will we do when we move past Advent and Christmas? We’ll do the same thing. This is what we do in our lives as the people of God. We ponder the mystery that is Christ, God in the flesh. The God who didn’t try to strike a deal with us but simply came to us in His grace and mercy. The God who came to us in His Son Jesus Christ, bringing about His covenant in which we get it all. We get the Kingdom of heaven and the eternal glory of being with Him forever. In Advent we are very aware that at this very moment we look around and don’t see the glory. And we certainly don’t feel it. We’re obviously not in heaven yet. We have to wait for that. So we’re in the tension of receiving all the blessings of God right now but not in their fullness. Because God is even more aware of this than we are, what does He do? He just keeps giving to us. He gives us His Son, time and time again. In that cup, in the Holy Supper of our Lord, He gives us the New Testament, the Covenant of God to us. He gives us the blood that was shed on the cross for the sin of the world. This is all for you. This isn’t just His last will and testament to you, it’s Him giving you an inheritance. And the inheritance you receive is Himself. God is your inheritance, because that’s what you get in Jesus. Jesus is God and He comes to you. In the flesh at Bethlehem, in His Body and Blood in His Supper. In these midweek Advent worship services we have spent some time contemplating the value of language. We speak English and use an English translation of the Bible all the time. Many in our community use Spanish and there are dozens of other languages in our own country that are fairly well used. Of course, around the globe you will find hundreds and even thousands. That’s a lot of translating to do to get the Word of God into the hands of people. The language itself is immaterial. If you speak Farsi then that’s a language you can hear and read God communicate with you with the Hebrew and Greek translated into your language. Using the Latin phrases we have used, using a language that is no longer even spoken, has been done to show us that God bridges a gap for us. It’s the gap between Him and us. He comes to us—communicating to us, coming to us—making it happen the salvation we need. You don’t need to know a language from another country, you don’t need to know Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin. It helps if you know English pretty well, but even then, even infants hear the Gospel and are the recipients of God’s work through that Gospel proclamation. The purpose of language when it comes to God is always that He makes known to us who He is and how He is our God. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. You are hearing and understanding these words because you know English. But the point is that God is coming to you through the proclamation of that Word to forgive you, to bring you into His eternal Kingdom, and sustain you in faith by His grace and mercy. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. 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