Mar. 17, 2024

“God’s Promise in the Cross”

Vicar Dylan Meyer

Fifth Sunday in Lent

    Throughout Jesus’ public ministry, many times He pointed His disciples to the way of the Cross. He told them plainly on several different occasions how it was necessary for Him to suffer and die someday. Yet, despite having faith in who He was (they believed Him to be the Christ and Messiah), they struggled with the idea that these things would happen to Him. In the Gospels, we hear of how Jesus tells them how “the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death… and after three days He will rise” (Matthew 20:17-19, Mark 10:32-34, and Luke 18:31-33). Jesus knew what was ahead for Him. He was to be the “slave of all” and to “give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:44-45). The prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament also points ahead to this work of Christ. Jeremiah emphasized a new relationship that God’s people would have with Him—a New Covenant that the LORD God would establish! Through this New Covenant, the LORD emphasized that “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” and also that, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34). This new relationship that God was going to establish through Christ was something He always had in mind! God always keeps and fulfills His promises!

Questions:

1.    What does the word ‘covenant’ mean?

2.    What do we mean when we say that God has made a New Covenant with us?

3.    How do we receive God’s promises today?