I think we can get away with some Handel today. TOday is Easter, and the texts for today discuss explicitly the idea of covenant. A Covenant is a contract: in reformed theology it is a contract between God and man. In the first passage we talk about nationalism, in the second about covenant and the third resurrection.
What we neet be sure is who we are covenanted with. To whom we have our oaths, to whom we are handfasted: on whom we rely in the end. Is it our ambition, our power, Is it the nation state, or our ideology, for they will fall. And (I say this gently, is it our lover, our spouse, for that relationship will end (I pray by death, not divorce).
God does not favour one tribe nor one nation. God does not favour those who come from generations of believers over the new convert. God requires that we bond with Christ, who stands as the covering of us for the time when God will pass over the land in judgement.
34Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ — he is Lord of all. 37That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
You see, the work of Christ states clearly we need to place our trust in him. We cannot be in control. This offends our natural solipsism: our sense of control, and it will offend feminism. But we cannot find our way home alone. Only Christ can lead us. And Elie Goulding hints to this in the metaphors of this.
Most of the time as I am writing I have music randomly going. And this was following Elie: Birdy again with a metaphor about following and submission.
You see, we cannot get away from the truth. We are not big enough to worship. As a group we are not big enough to worship. Our ideas and ideologies are too flawed to worship. We can only worship God, and rely on his mercy. For in him only should our covenantal faith reside.