September 2 2007 Reading: Luke 22.14-20

Covenant Service: Theme – The Covenant

The archaeologists of the 19th. century, the men who went to Egypt to dig in the sand, were great characters – immensely strong men, taking mountains of equipment with them, hiring hundreds of workers, digging hundreds of tons of sand, in the hope of finding ancient tombs, ancient temples, or finding

gold !

It might surprise you to know that the men who went hunting in the Middle East for old manuscripts, the old papyri, old parchments of the Bible, were very much the same – they would cross mountain passes in the snows, rivers in spate, and thought nothing of walking through the baking heat of the noonday sun, if it meant the chance to find an old scroll, an old codex of the New Testament, hidden, kept in some out-of-the-way forgotten place.

One such man was Friedrich ConstantinTischendorf. Born in 1815 in Lengenfeld in Saxony, his great passion was the study of the New Testament in the original Greek. As a young man, he went tracking down ancient fragments of the New Testament in libraries all over Europe. He spent three years in Paris living on a shoe string, from 1840 to 1843 so he could study at the National Library there. But his great goal was to get to the Middle East. He had a hunch there were great treasures in the old monasteries of the east. They had libraries there, old collections of books, and something told him that there he would find those old, old manuscripts he was looking for. Setting off, he finally reached a remote monastery called St. Catherine’s, far in the desert mountains of the Sinai peninsula.

After a few days, he was allowed into the huge old library by the monks. You can imagine his feelings, in the old library - a dark place, with row upon row of ancient scrolls piled up on top of each other - when one of the monks brought to him a huge old book. It was the oldest full copy of the New Testament in Greek he had ever seen. As he turned its pages he knew a new era in the study of the New Testament had begun.

A new era dawned during the reign of King Josiah. We read about it in the second book of Kings. Josiah had come to the throne in Jerusalem at the age of eight, and now he had reached the age of 26. And the reason why we read of him in the book of Kings has to do with the discovery of a scroll. This scroll turned the country upside down, changed Israel for ever because of what it contained. Yet it all started so simply. At the age of 26, Josiah, with all the energies of his age, had decreed that the Temple in Jerusalem should be refurbished. Josiah sent his personal secretary Shaphan, to Hilkiah the High Priest, to set the wheels in motion. After a couple of days, Shaphan came back, and reported that he had passed on the young king’s orders to Hilkiah, and everything was in place for the necessary repairs and the planned refurbishment. The work was to get under way immediately.

‘Oh’, said Shaphan, ‘and this scroll was found in a side room while the Temple was being cleared’. Shaphan produced a rather dusty looking scroll. Read it, said Josiah, and Shaphan began to read. But this was no ordinary scroll, not a statement of accounts, not a dry record of Temple business from long ago. Though there was dust on it, it was dynamite.

The scroll which Shaphan read as King Josiah listened, was the long lost Book of the Covenant, the record of the covenant made between the Lord and His people long ago at Mt. Sinai, as recorded in Exodus 19. This was the Book of the Covenant, the details of the law, sacrifice and worship given by the Lord to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

2nd. Kings tells us that the young King Josiah was transfixed by what he heard. Struck with alarm, for this was the first time he had ever heard these words. Words forgotten by the line of kings and generations of the people of the land. Thus says the Lord:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, you shall have no other gods before me”.

These words struck Josiah with all their full force, freshness, power, and life. When the reading of the book was completed, Josiah, with all the energy that was in him, with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, set about restoring Israel to purity of life and worship.

We don’t need to go into all the details……..

Josiah went on to demolish the pagan altars actually set up in the Temple by the previous king. He cleared away the pagan shrines, on the hill tops east of Jerusalem. With the support of the priests and the people,

Josiah went on to clear away the great layers of paganism and idolatry that, like weeds, had overgrown and choked the country’s life. In a great culminating celebration, with all the people present, the festival of Passover was celebrated for the first time in decades in a great gathering in Jerusalem. When all was finished, Israel was restored to the clean, clear, solid, foundations of a renewed relationship with the living God.

There are occasions, I am sure we know them ourselves, when we need to do the same, re-assess our lives, our priorities, our direction, clear away the clutter, the rubble, back to the clean, clear, solid foundations, of a renewed relationship with God, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, Jesus says, and all other things will be added.

But let’s go back here for a moment and ask - What is the covenant that we have spoken about ? You could put it simply this way. In the Old Testament, the covenant is God’s relationship with His people. The covenant holds in place, enfolds, God’s relationship with His people. From the beginning God, in constancy and faithfulness seeks the salvation of His people. This is the same Lord who, in faithfulness and steadfast love has brought His people out of slavery in a foreign country, and has guided them through trackless deserts to the land that He has promised them. The Lord summons this down-trodden, disparate, slave people into being, into life. He calls them to stand before Him as His people – declares to them ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’. When God meets with them at Mt. Sinai, He declares that He

is eternally faithful to His people – and the response He looks for in them is faithfulness to Himself.

The covenant that He makes with His people, through Moses in the early days of their existence, sets this relationship out – with all its rich possibilities: ‘If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine – you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’. The Lord gives to His people – the Law, to frame and guide their lives, He gives them sacrifice, as a way to approach Him, and He gives them worship, as a way to stand in His presence. These three, the law, sacrifice and worship frame the whole life, of the whole people – set

in a unique relationship – between the living God and the people of Israel.

But the story of Josiah is a reminder, that the men and women of Israel

reached a point where they had completely forgotten the covenant that God had made with them. Forgetting the living God, their faith lost its power and life. How characteristic that is of human life, both then and now !

But the astonishing thing is that despite the weakness of Israel, their forgetfulness of God, their shallow faith.

God is faithful, God stays faithful………!

He declares through the prophet Jeremiah

“I will make a new covenant with my people. I will put my law in their minds, write it on their hearts. They will all know me – I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sin no more”

We have been speaking at length of history, perhaps too long - of Josiah, and the renewal that took place long ago in Israel…. So long ago that we might ask - what does that have to do with us today ?

Well, a renewal of the covenant has taken place, a renewal of our relationship with God has taken place, as God promised, and we stand in it !

The renewal which has taken place is in Jesus. For you see in Jesus the covenant is now renewed, offered to the whole world…the covenant made new, and offered anew includes us. In those quiet, solemn, words of Jesus ……

those tender words of Jesus at the last Supper, ‘This is the new covenant in my blood’ Jesus declares, holding the cup of wine.

Here, in these precious, everlasting, words of Jesus, is the turning point of life for the whole earth, for the whole world. This is the new covenant in Jesus Christ and His cross…. the new relationship with our Father in heaven is through Jesus Christ and His cross. And it is in that new relationship that you and I stand this morning.

The new relationship we have with God is through His Son Jesus Christ who says ‘I am the way’. As Jesus declares to us in those tender words at the last Supper when he says: ‘This is the new covenant in my blood’ that our relationship with God has been renewed .

In Jesus Christ, in His death and resurrection.

And it is in that relationship that you and I stand this morning,

it is in that new relationship that you and I live each day !

AMEN.