Old and New Covenants

Thursday 19 February Cheddington 9.15 Eucharist

Reading

Proverbs 8.1,22-31

¹Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
²²The LORD created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
²³Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
²⁴When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
²⁵Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth –
²⁶when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil.

²⁷When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep²⁸when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
²⁹when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
³⁰then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
³¹rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Reading Genesis 9

God's Covenant With Noah

¹ Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ² The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. ³ Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

⁴ "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

⁶ "Whoever sheds human blood,
       by human beings shall their blood be shed;
       for in the image of God
       has God made humankind.

⁷ As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."

⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹ "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰ and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

¹² And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Gospel Mark 8

Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"

²⁸ They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."

²⁹ "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
       Peter answered, "You are the Messiah."

³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Jesus Predicts His Death

³¹ He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³ But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."

Sermon

Mark 8 a key text for Lent Course – ‘Who do you say I am?’ where Peter declares Jesus is Messiah. But what did he mean? What kind of Messiah? Notice Jesus immediately teaches disciples about his death, and rebukes Peter when he protests that this is not the type of Messiah he expects Jesus to be. More in the Lent Course.

Let’s look at Noah. In Genesis 6.5 – 8.22 – story of the Flood. Stories of a great flood that destroyed human kind common across the Mesopotamian world. This may attest to some sort of cataclysmic event in early human history of the region, or may be oral tradition passed around civilised world.

Two cases in point: famous Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and the very similar Atrahasis. The Atrahasis also contains account of creation of human beings from clay before its account of the flood. Bible account differs in that there is a future for human kind. There is a Babylonian Noah in Gilgamesh but nothing about what happened to survivors of flood. In Atrahasis the flood comes about after a quarrel amongst the gods.

The author of Genesis by contrast has a theological reason for the story. It’s about the universal wickedness and sin of human beings. God is faced with the apparent failure of all his hopes in creation. God regrets his decision to create humanity, and determines to destroy it and start again. God is represented as fallible and almost human himself, unlike how God is portrayed in the OT generally.

Noah is the only righteous man. He is sole exception to universal wickedness. So God decides to make a covenant – first mention of the word in OT. Covenant is with Noah and family – sole human survivors of flood. This is renewed in our passage today.

Like a totally new creation, Noah and sons are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But the animals are no longer to live alongside man in harmony: they are to be killed and eaten. They are to fear humans.

The origin of kosher laws comes from this time: life itself was thought to be contained in blood – so humans were not permitted to eat meat containing the essence of life itself. Nor are they to kill each other: humans are made in image of God himself, so homicide is forbidden.

First covenant by God developed throughout scripture. Rainbow a visible sign to remind us as well as God himself of this undertaking.

So in Luke 22 Jesus the account of Last Supper says:

¹⁷ After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. ¹⁸ For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

¹⁹ And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

²⁰ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

After our prayers, it is this new covenant we will commemorate once again in our Eucharist today.

Amen