Matthew 26:17-30 (Hebrews 9:11-22)

Out with the Old!

            Do you remember when you were a child making up your own game to play? You just started playing and having fun, but the moment your brother or sister wanted to join, there were suddenly a bunch of rules you had to cover. We would do this all the time because we realized, even as little kids, that you can’t play a game without rules. You needed to know what the game is in order to play; and how you define it is by making rules. It was without fail though that those rules would never stay the same. Perhaps every five minutes, we would think of a new rule to introduce because the previous ones were insufficient, or they didn’t benefit us enough. But here’s the thing about rules. They’re wonderful when they help us, but despised the moment they’re against us. When rules get in the way of us being able to play the game, then we don’t want to play anymore. This was why we couldn’t handle the rigidness of actual games as kids, you know, games that the rules can’t change just because you feel like it. But just as it was with games, so is it with real life. Life comes with its own set of rules that we need to follow; rules that we can’t change whenever we feel like it. And so often, we find ourselves on the wrong side of the rules, constrained by them and defeated… not because the rules are bad, but because we’re just rule breakers. And what happens to rule breakers? They can’t play anymore. 

            On this holy night, we have this collision of both old and new. In fulfillment of all that God has commanded, Jesus keeps the Passover with his disciples. Yet, in this meal, he invites us to live in a new covenant, one that changes the whole name of the game for us! But a covenant cannot be made without blood. For so we shall learn:

IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS, GOD MAKES A NEW COVENANT OF LIFE!

I.

            This was a day so steeped in tradition for Jews that you couldn’t ignore it or change it if you wanted to. This was true for Jesus as well. During his three years of ministry, he never missed a Passover celebration in Jerusalem. Yes, this wasn’t the first time Jesus celebrated this important meal with his disciples, so they were well aware of the preparation needed. As we read, “Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” Matthew 26:17. The Passover, of course, was the yearly observance of God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. As part of the remembrance, the family would slaughter again a lamb for the meal, the lamb whose blood once covered the doorposts to redeem the first-born. Indeed, it was through blood that Israel would be redeemed. Yet, in the Passover, it wasn’t simply the Exodus history that was to be passed down, but all of their history. How God had brought them through the waters of the Red Sea; how he led them to Mt. Sinai; how he gave them the Law and his statutes and rules for them to follow, as well as the warning for what would happen if they didn’t.

            Indeed, mighty was God to grant deliverance to his people from Egypt. Yet, now they would learn of a new chain they bore. For every time they transgressed God’s law, blood was demanded. A lamb, a bull, turtle doves, or whatever animal was required would have to be killed in order to atone for the sins of God’s people. A life for a life. For so God’s people would learn, they lived or died by the blood of lambs and bulls. For that was how this covenant was made and how it would be kept. But it was never enough. The debt they accumulated in sin could never be washed away by the blood of animals. It was too great a price. The old covenant brought about the death of many to remind us that death is all we deserved. And what power would we have to change that? Because it was given by God, it was fixed. No human had the power to alter God’s word. 

II.

            But that brings us to tonight. For while this wasn’t the first Passover which Jesus celebrated, it would be his last. He knew his fate following this meal, as we read, “And as they were eating, [Jesus] said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me,” Matthew 26:21. Judas, his own disciple, would hand him over to the people seeking to kill him. But Jesus knew. And he would go as he had said. For being his last supper with his disciples, he shows them that this Passover meal was really all about him. The blood of lambs and bulls would foreshadow a new covenant, not made by the blood of animals, but by the blood of Jesus! Consider then this word from Hebrews, “For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God,” Hebrews 9:13-14. The covenant made by blood is kept by the blood of the sacrifice. And where animals proved insufficient to cover over the multitude of man’s sins, the blood of Jesus has covered over all sins for all time!

            For the old covenant had to be sealed by blood. It had to be finished by not just any sacrifice, but the perfect sacrifice. For so Jesus would recline at the table with his disciples, and say, “Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup… saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” Matthew 26:26-28. Just as God delivered Israel through the blood of the lamb in the Passover, so Jesus was telling his disciples, and us, that his blood was their deliverance from the bondage of sin. It would be his blood spilled on the cross that would cover over them and redeem them from their slavery. It was his blood that would grant life to God’s people. For the life is in the blood! (Lev. 17:11). So, by his blood poured out, he makes a new covenant with us, not based on the blood of animals, but by his blood. And if it’s his blood that cleanses us, that he gives us to drink, then it’s his blood that keeps us and sanctifies us before God!

            So, Take, eat; and take, drink. This is the new covenant which God has made with you through the blood of Jesus. By his blood, he keeps us in this faith so that he may renew us and free us from the bondage of sin and death and grant us his perfect life! In Jesus’ name! Amen!