E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

The Reading of His Will

 Date:      Maundy Thursday, any year

Texts:

Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 89:20-21, 24, 26

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-15

 Theme:      The word testament sums up our debt and our duty to God-our part in the New Covenant. 

 Subject:      communion, Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  . .  .  “ We have heard these words hundreds perhaps thousands of times-whenever we have received the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  But what do these words mean? What is the “covenant” of which they speak? As the character Mrs. Antrobus says to her husband in Thornton Wilder’s play, The Skin of Our Teeth: “I didn’t marry you because you were perfect.  .  . .  I married you be-cause you gave me a promise.” She takes off her ring and examines it.   “That promise made up for your faults and the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage.”

A covenant is a promise.   A covenant is an agreement sworn before God in the presence of the congregation of the faithful.  A covenant is a human response to a sense of God’s invitation or calling.  It is freely entered into by its earthly parties with a conviction that God has hallowed and sanctified this binding together of individuals.   A covenant recognizes that God is more committed than the human parties could ever be to the fulfillment of the agreement.

Within the church, marriage is a covenant.  In marriage, two persons acknowledge that God has given them to one another and that through his abiding presence their lives together may attain levels of satisfaction and communion that they would never achieve alone.   It is God who initiates this covenant.  The bride and groom accept it as God’s gift to them. Finally, and often overlooked, it is the congregation who add their “yes” or “amen” to the proceedings, and in so doing, commit themselves to support and sustain “what God has joined together.”

Contrast this understanding of marriage as a covenant with the notion that marriage is a contract.  A contract is also a promise.  A contract is joined into by two or more persons.   It is based on a consideration, such as money or something of monetary worth.  No matter how specific its terms, it is based on the good will and integrity of the parties.   Its terms are subject to later re-interpretation by courts of law.   As my father taught me, “Where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer to contest it.”

If marriage is a contract, it depends only on the two parties involved.  The congregation (if any) is reduced to the status of witnesses. As such, they have no responsibility before, during, or after the marriage.  Likewise God is reduced to the role of provider of the hall if the wedding is in a church, the suppler of the emcee if the wedding is performed by a minister, and the source of some archaic words and sentiments if anything like a traditional wedding ceremony is used.  Where marriage is a contract the church becomes the place for marrying and burying and little else.

Covenants are foundational to life.  They are the binding promises without which life would be formless and chaotic.  It is our solemn commitments made before God and our fellow human beings that form the guideposts of our lives.  Many of us have made promises like those demanded by the following questions:

“Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish?”

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“Do you swear to protect and defend this country against all enemies, foreign or domestic?”

“Do you accept and own with us this covenant of our church?”

“Do you now engage upon your part to perform those things needful that the good will and love of the heavenly father be not hidden from your child?”

Such covenants change lives forever.

Throughout the Bible, the word “covenant” is used to describe solemn promises made by individuals.  But far more essential and common in Scripture is the use of “covenant” to describe relationships entered into between God and the human race.  The book that we call the Old Testament or Old Covenant contains several: the covenants between God and Adam, God and Noah, God and Abraham, God and David, as well as the central covenant from which the Old Testament draws its name: the covenant between God and Israel.  In every case God promises spiritual blessings, protection, and prosperity; and, in return, God demands faithfulness.

The covenant between God and the nation Israel required of the entire people that they accept and obey the laws of God, receive and cherish God’s revelation of himself, and reveal God to the other peoples of the world.  And God committed himself to establishing his people as a nation in the Promised Land, causing them to prosper, providing for them, protecting them, and revealing himself to them.

Despite the faithfulness of God, this covenant failed.  God promised a New Covenant, one not dependent on laws, reward, and punishments.  In the words of the Prophet Jeremiah: “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31). Jesus had the words of Jeremiah in mind when at his last supper he claimed to establish the promised New Covenant through his death.  The Greek word for covenant or testament used by Jesus is worth noting.  It is diatheke.  The usual Greek word for a covenant between two people is syntheke. For example, a marriage covenant or a business agreement would be spoken of as a syntheke.  Diatheke normally means a will rather than a covenant.

To simplify matters a bit, let us use the English words “agreement” and “testament” in place of syntheke and diatheke.  The reason for the choice of testament instead of agreement is apparent.  An agreement is a contract made between parties on equal terms, which either party can alter.  But the testament of which Jesus spoke is something radically different. God and man do not meet on equal terms. God, of his own choice and by his grace, offers us this relationship.  We can accept it or reject it.  But we cannot alter or annul this covenant.  Thus, the New Covenant is like a last will and testament that offers a bequest that may be accepted or refused, but the terms of which cannot be altered.

The Apostles were aware of another reason for the use of a word that means “last will and testament.” The validity and operation of a testament depends on the death of its author.  Hence, Jesus says, “This is the new testament in my blood.”  The visiting Greeks of John 12 wanted to see Jesus.  Perhaps they had heard of his miracles and hoped to receive a demonstration. Maybe they had learned of his teaching and wanted to argue philosophy with him.  What they got was the paradox of the New Covenant: death produces life, suffering leads to joy. 

Now Jesus was not a masochist nor has he called us to suffer for the sake of suffering.  We are not called to suffer injustice.  We are called to risk and endure the suffering that eliminates the suffering that can be ended.  But, of equal importance, we are called to risk and endure the suffering that comes from standing with those whose suffering cannot be ended. We are called to put an end to injustice, and if we cannot, to bear the pain of those crushed by injustice.

The true Christian life is living within the paradox of faith:

We see unseen things; we conquer by yielding; we find rest under a yoke; we reign by serving; we are made great by becoming little; we are exalted by being humble; we become wise by being fools for Christ’s sake; we are made free by becoming his slaves; we possess all things by having nothing; we wax strong by being weak; we triumph by defeat; we find victory by glorying in our infirmities; and we live by dying. 

Hear the Gospel paradox: We live by dying.  The death of one produces the life of many.  The word testament sums up our debt and our duty to God-our part in the New Covenant.

We are in debt because our relationship to God is entirely due to him and not to anything we have ever have done.

We have a duty because in accepting this covenant we have to accept God’s conditions of love and faith and obedience, and we cannot alter them.  To accept God’s New Covenant with us is to embrace the paradox-to seek life in death, joy in sorrow, purpose in chaos.  To accept God’s New Covenant is to suffer so that the suffering of others may cease or to stand in solidarity with those whose suffering cannot be ended.

Every act of Christian worship-every sacrament, every ceremony-is, in effect, a reading of Christ’s will.  We come as recipients of covenant blessings through the death of our benefactor.  We come as faithful executors, ready and willing by God’s grace to carry out God’s conditions.  We come because we are invited.  We come as heirs.   We come to share fully in the joy and sorrow of life courageously lived.  And we come with grateful hearts. 

Amen.

--LDS [1538 words] [15 minutes]