✠ Psalmody: Galatians 6:14b; Psalm 67:1–3, 6b–7;Philippians 2:8b-9;Psalm 111:4–5; John 6:55–56
✠ Lection: Exodus 24:3–11;1 Corinthians 11:20–32;John 13:1–15
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Blessed be the Name of the Lord our God, Who has not left us in our sin, but has come into our midst of His own volition, of His own love, of His own sacrifice so that we may be rescued from every evil of body and soul. The beautiful feet that bring this Good News walked in the Garden in the coolness of day as He Himself sought out the first man and woman who had betrayed Him. He called out to them, promised to set aright what they had made wrong and has throughout history never left us nor forsaken us. Christ’s holy feet stood upon the paved sapphire stone at Sinai. They knelt at His disciples’ feet in the washing of forgiveness that He gives to all by being pierced along with His hands and His side. The Lord our God is One and He has taken all necessary action to restore what sinners destroy. He has made a holy covenant with an unholy people so that we may be holy again and again and again. For, it is not God Who fails to keep His promises, but us. Yet, His grace and mercy abound in His constantly renewed and refreshed covenant.
As the prophet Moses came and told the people all of the words of the LORD and all the judgments, so, too, does the Lord give prophets to His people today. The office of the Holy Ministry is the office of Christ instituted for you so that you are told all the words of the LORD. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The voice that you hear now by God’s command is the very function of God’s grace and mercy in your life. It is His refusal to abandon you, to leave you to yourself, to your sin, or to the devil. His promise spoken in the Garden is from before the foundation of the world, from time that we cannot yet comprehend in how the Almighty still created what He knew would betray Him, and how He Himself would then win the victory in our redemption.
In redeeming us, in placing His Name upon us, and giving us a new heart, He makes a covenant with every one of us; a covenant, an agreement, a pact; two-sides declaring that they will uphold aspects within their respective care. If you are a Christian, then you are in a covenant with the Almighty. The Lord gave many a promise to the children of Israel, vows that He has always intended to keep and has completely done so. After bringing the people up out of the house of bondage in Egypt, He faithfully led them through the wilderness, delivering them through water that swept away all their enemies, and He brought them to His holy Mount Sinai. His presence was fierce, yet never toward the repentant heart that trusts in Him. He called Moses up to Him and gave the Law to the prophet; wrote it Himself upon the tablets of stone. So, Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD. He told of the covenant that the Lord was making with them by raising them up out of captivity to be His own once again. He has done this.
In response to the Lord’s goodness, His words, His demands for obedience in being a part of those who call upon Him, all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the LORD has said we will do.” The other side of the covenant, for a covenant has to have two parties, is the declaration of the people whom God has redeemed that they would keep the words and judgments of their Redeemer. It is proper and fitting to promise to do all that He has said. It’s not unrealistic, for Christians make the same vow, but such declarations are true to the identity of all those He has worked to become His.
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. God’s people in covenant with Him need to know the agreement into which we have entered. We need to know what the Lord expects from us. Thus, His words are wonderfully written in a Book. Having received special revelation from God, the covenant was lived out in how Moses conducted the Divine Service, a pattern still seen among God’s people today. Moses rose early in the morning to call the people to gather, consecrating the assembly before the Lord their Maker and Redeemer. It was around His holy altar that they gathered, a testament itself to God’s provision for His people through blood and sacrifice. Moses adorned the altar with twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel, a symbol of God binding Himself to their deliverance into the Promised Land and of Himself fulfilling both sides of the covenant.
When the people had gathered, Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people. In all that the great prophet did, behold in your midst the glorious fullness of every Divine Service to which he pointed ahead: a complete revelation of the salvation of God in His New Covenant instituted by The Prophet like him, Jesus, Who fulfills all things. You, His people, are regularly called in the mornings, and whenever we do this in remembrance of Him, to gather around His adorned altar built at the foot of Mount Zion, that is, the Mount of Salvation that towers above all. His is an unshakable altar built upon the true, undefiled Israel of Christ so that you are blessed by His Word read in your hearing and by His Blood taken from the altar to be sprinkled upon the heart by way of mouth in remembrance of Him.
Beloved, the Lord expects you to long to eat and to drink from His altar and never to be content to stay away from it. He expects the sacrifice by which He ratified His covenant to stir up in you thanksgiving and praise for its price was deep, but its fruitful bounty deeper. Beware of the heart that is content with keeping away from this blessed Meal or that approaches it without preparation. The heart is content with breaking its own covenant with the Creator, but it need not be, because the Lord also tells of what the other party in the covenant can expect from Him.
You can expect a holy example of sacrifice, unyielding devotion, and faithfulness to the end. You can expect God to be found whenever you seek Him. You can expect God to hear you when you call upon Him. You can expect Him to give what He has promised to give. You can expect Him to forgive all your sins on account of Christ. You can expect all of this because all the words which the LORD has said He will do. He keeps His covenant. He knows that the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Therefore, He graciously renews His covenant with you at every visit to His altar. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. You proclaim the covenant of grace into which you entered with the Almighty at your baptism. You proclaim the efficacy of the Blood of Jesus to cleanse you from daily covenant-breaking. He keeps His promise and constantly calls you to live in the promise. You live in a covenant that will never fail you because He Who instituted this meal of the New Covenant has seen to it by His shed blood that His promises given shall forever be fulfilled.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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