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Some years ago, I decided it was time for a new(ish)
car. After spending way too many hours
online, I found the car I wanted. There
was only one problem. It was in Austin,
TX, while I was in Chattanooga, TN.
Fortunately, I learned that the car dealer was willing to ship the car
for a nominal fee. Unfortunately, I
learned this while sitting in the car dealer in Texas, having been dropped off
at the airport in Chattanooga with a one way plane ticket and no solid plan
B. Life is filled with moments to
reflect on the questions you forget to ask.
Having bought the car in Texas left me with a certain
problem. What was I to do with the
current car I had, one that wasn’t worth very much money? At the moment, I figured it would be useful
to keep around in case we needed it. So
for a while, we had 3 cars for the two of us.
From the beginning, this was clearly not a great idea.
Our driveway wasn’t that big, so we were always within inches
of scraping up one of the cars. It felt
strange having a car and not driving it, so I alternated which car I drove,
meaning that the new, more efficient car didn’t deliver the benefits I had
planned for because it was driven less.
Also, we had to keep insurance on the old car, even though it wasn’t
worth much.
After about 5 months of this, I recognized the folly of the
arrangement. The presence of the old was
interfering with our lives as we moved forward into the new, so the old was
released and money was saved and we could park in the driveway, etc. Holding onto the old car out of fear that the
new might not prove completely reliable turned out to clutter our lives and
only cause problems.
As humans, we do this quite a bit, just usually not with
cars. Has anyone ever bought a new pair
of jeans or shoes and kept the old one, just in case? Does anyone buy a new appliance and then
decide to have the old one hang around in case it breaks? We do this with possessions and relationships
and habits and all sorts of things. We
hang onto the old out of fear that the new might not work out, and we don’t
want to be left in the lurch. When it
means keeping an old pair of shoes, there isn’t too much danger or even
inconvenience. However, when we’re
talking about relationships or habits, this can be quite dangerous to our
health.
We do this with God, too.
See, the Bible is one story.
The main character in the story is God, and the Bible tells the story
about how God pursues his beloved creations, desiring to be in an eternal,
loving relationship with them. God has a
mission, a purpose, and it is to gather all people to himself. At one point in the story, which is our
story, too, God dramatically enters into the story in the person of Jesus
Christ, so desperate is God to demonstrate fully his love and devotion to the
people he has created and calls by name.
This moment is when we acknowledge the new covenant, and it serves to
fulfill the old covenant.
Now, the Old Covenant was given to Abraham, and it was marked
by a sacrificial system in which the people made sacrifices, or atonement, for
the sins they created. The people were
given the law so that they might know how best to dedicate every part of their
lives to God, and when they broke the law they were given steps to undertake in
order to repair the breach in their relationship with God that their actions
had created. As long as they fulfilled
every step of the law in this old covenant, their relationship with God was
right.
Unfortunately, humans couldn’t and wouldn’t keep the
law. We kept getting distracted by
everything going on in the world around us, and we kept reaching for the devil’s
empty promises, those things that shine and glisten and promise to fulfill our
every desire and need without much cost.
These mirages in the desert glimmer with promise, but when we bow our
heads to drink from their lush fountains, we discover they are nothing but
sand, coarse to the tongue and poisonous to the heart. We are deceived, time and time again, and we
fail to keep up our end of the covenant.
Recognizing our propensity for selfishness and idolatry, God
enters into creation in the person of Jesus Christ, taking on human flesh so
that we might know the fullness of the love and mercy of God. By his selfless love and sacrificial death on
the cross, he fulfills the old covenant and establishes a new covenant, in
which sins are forgiven by his death and we are raised to new life by faith. We are released from our guilt and driven
into the arms of gratitude, out of which we are called to live for the purpose
of helping to build God’s Kingdom here on earth.
The Old Covenant, the one in which our status with God
depended on our actions, has passed away.
The New Covenant, in which our standing before God depends on the
actions of Jesus Christ, is here. We are
freed from our bondage of sin and death into the eternal glory of life and
light.
But we hold on to the old.
Perhaps it is out of fear that the new may not be completely reliable,
that the promise is too good to be true.
Perhaps it is out of habit, that the human inclination to try and earn
our way into God’s good graces is simply hard-wired into us and it makes more
sense that God would love us if we were worthy, rather than the somewhat-absurd
idea that God pours out love upon us simply because he created us and wants to
see us flourish. Perhaps it is because
we are weak, and we give in to the temptation of the world that tells us that
we are only as good as the world says we are, and that depends on what we wear
and what we drive and how we look and who we know and what we earn. Perhaps we live in a cauldron of these
reasons, each one added to a different amount depending on how we were raised
and where we are in our walk today, and the doubts and fears of all the years
weigh heavily upon us as we ponder this odd promise of the free gift of eternal
salvation from a God who loves you more than you can imagine.
As we enter the New Year, we will spend much time and energy
on New Year’s Resolutions. Some of you
will succeed, while others will fail. Gyms
across the country will be mostly full for the next month, with a few members
staying on for the months beyond.
Doughnuts will still call our names, and some will resist their siren
song. Bibles will be dusted off, and
some will show considerable wear by this time next year.
In order to take up any resolution, something old must be
given up. Habits must be changed. Relationships must be severed. Time allocations should be changed. If we don’t give up the old, the new will not
have the space needed to take root and flourish.
Friends, I’d like to encourage you to think of the most
important resolution you can make.
Resolve to let go of any Old Covenant thinking you may have. Let go of your fears that you are not good
enough for God, that you have not earned God’s love. You have not.
We have each failed and fallen short of what God asks of us. Step into the New Covenant. Here, you receive the free gift of life from
God, who asks you not to earn it, but hands it over without merit, freely
giving the life of his Son in exchange for your own life, taking on the
punishment you deserve and offering you the glory He deserves. The charge for us is to live in the shadow of
the cross, letting gratitude, rather than guilt, drive us. You have been set free. If you cling to fear that this is too good to
be true, your hands and heart and mind will be so full of this fear that you
will not have space to grasp the new. If
you worry that such news is too good to be true, you miss the chance to live into
the amazing grace of God. Let the New
Covenant fulfill, amaze, and drive you to serve others out of gratitude. Martin Luther has said that God gave us
fingers at the end of our hands so that money might slide through them to
others and then God may refill our hands.
Let us live with this mindset. God, the creator, is inviting us to be a
co-creator with him in the new creation, and you are invited to revel in the
delight of his amazing grace. May we
join with open hearts and open minds, ready to receive all that God freely
gives.
Let us pray
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