Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Presbyterian Church of Easton
Sermon Mark 14:12-25 - The Law of God
February 28, 2021
I’d like to begin this morning with an Interim Update. Almost a year ago your pastor, the Reverend Duke Dixon, accepted a new call from God to serve the Presbyterian Church of Dover. A thirteen-year bond between you and your pastor was broken. And a transition began. New Castle Presbytery sent in a bridge pastor, the Reverend Susan Bennett, and she shepherded you through the summer. In September I arrived as your Interim Pastor.
This month, the session of the church has appointed a committee to begin the process of writing a Mission Study. In this Mission Study, there will be sections concerning the history of the church, a description of the operation of the church and the demographics of the surrounding community today, and your hopes for how the church will develop over the next 5-8 years. Once this Mission Study is written and approved by both session and presbytery you will be ready to start looking for a new pastor. This new pastor has already been chosen by God. All we have to do is to discern whom God has chosen. Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, bless us as we begin the process of writing a Mission Study. Help us to remember our past and celebrate our present. Help us to dream of a future and find a pastor who will lead us there. We pray all this in the name of the head of the church, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is the second Sunday in the season of Lent and we have already started on our way with Jesus, to the cross, with the Gospel of Mark leading us. We saw last week how the High Priests and scribes wanted to arrest and kill Jesus, and how one of Jesus’ followers, Judas, decided to help them after being disillusioned with Jesus who had started on the road to the cross after being anointed for death in Bethany. Today we will gather with the 12 as they eat their last supper with Jesus and are confronted with the reality of Jesus’ upcoming death.
You have probably noticed that we have been saying the Ten Commandments in worship each week during Lent. And some of you have been wondering why we say them after the Prayer of Confession and the Assurance of Pardon. Wouldn’t the Ten Commandments make more sense if we said them before the Prayer of Confession to convict ourselves as sinners with our need for forgiveness? Of shouldn’t we place the Ten Commandments at the end of the service where they would be a warning to us that if we did not keep them in the coming week we could expect God’s wrath to come upon us? Why worry about the law after we have confessed and have been forgiven; isn’t that too late? Others may be wondering why we say the Ten Commandments at all. Aren’t they in the Old Testament? We are not a people of the law anymore. We are a people of the new covenant of grace; graciously forgiven by God. So why are we worrying about God’s law anyway?
All of these questions are reasonable. And they can be answered with the understanding of how God’s law is used. Accord to John Calvin (Institutes II-VII-6-12) there are three uses of the law. First, the law convicts us of our sin. It shows us how far we have fallen below God’s expectations. Through this, we realize that we are sinners in need of a forgiving God. With this use of the law, we are humbled ready to confess and receive the grace of God. To use the law in this way in worship we would say the Ten Commandments before the Prayer of Confession so that we would realize the reality of our sinful nature and willingly fall on our knees in confession.
The second use of the law, according to Calvin, is to teach people what God requires and the consequences of disobedience. This is especially useful when teaching children so that they learn what God expects and they develop appropriate attitudes and behaviors. It also helps us to repent, amend our lives, and cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in restoring God’s image within us. To use the law in this way in worship, I would preach on the Ten Commandment telling you concrete ways that you could live lives pleasing to God.
The third and final use of the law is that it helps us, the forgiven and restored believers, to have the knowledge of what the will of God is for us each day. This helps us to conform our lives to the wishes of God. In this way, the law becomes an instrument of God’s grace helping believers to lead holy lives. To use the law in this way we would recite it with joy after hearing of how God has graciously forgiven our sins and offers us the opportunity to start over with new lives. This is why I have put the Ten Commandments after the Assurance of Pardon to help you to know what God expects of you as His forgiven children.
Today we will see that Jesus uses the law of God in all three of these ways. Let’s look at Jesus’ use of God’s law during his last supper with his disciples.
Mark 14 12 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?" 13 So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." 16 So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.
Jesus commanded two of his disciples to go into Jerusalem, find a man with a water jar, follow him into a house, ask the owner a question, find the room, and then prepare the Passover meal. Jesus is giving commands. This is the law of God. Jesus is using law as a way of teaching the disciples what he wants them to do. The disciples now know what Jesus wants and they can choose to either obey or disobey the law. In this instance, they obeyed the law by doing exactly what Jesus wanted them to do. Jesus was using the law as a teaching tool for his disciples, Calvin’s second use of the law. Let’s go back to Mark.
17 When it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." 19 They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, "Surely, not I?" 20 He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born."
Here, the scene shifts to the Passover dinner. Jesus uses the law in a very different way. During dinner, Jesus informed his disciples that one of them was going to betray him. Of course, we have already heard of Judas’ decision to betray Jesus to the authorities. We know that Judas is the guilty one. Certainly, this was what Jesus was talking about. But only Jesus and Judas knew that. All of the others began a self-examination to determine if they too were capable of betraying Jesus. Each one was worried that Jesus was talking about him. So Jesus was using the law to convict each of his disciples of their sin, humbling them to the point of confession and repentance in preparation for what was to follow. Jesus was convicting the disciples of their own sin, Calvin’s first use of the law. Let’s return to Mark’s story.
22 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." 23 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24 He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
The third episode is a scene most familiar to us. We repeat it each month as we gather around this table for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The twelve disciples have gathered around the table with Jesus. Here Jesus explained his death. Just as bread can be torn in two so too will Jesus’ body be torn in his crucifixion. And just as wine is poured from a pitcher into a cup, so too will Jesus’ blood be poured on the ground in his death. And just as the bread and wine are symbols of the death of Jesus Christ, so too will his death be a symbol of the covenant between God and us. In this new covenant, God promises to forgive us all of our sins through the death of his son, and give us new life in the kingdom of God.
It is in this new life, free from sin, where we have the strong desire to obey God. God’s law for us is a great blessing because it tells us how to lead our new, forgiven, and restored lives; the way God wants us to live them. Therefore the covenant that Jesus proclaimed at the Lord’s Supper paved the way for Calvin’s third use of the law as a joyous response to the grace of God.
So where do we fit in all of this? We need to use God’s law in all three ways. The law should humble us because it shows us how far we fall short of what God expects of us. We were created in the image of God, free from sin and enjoying the fruits of the tree of life, but as a result of sin our very nature has been corrupted; the image of God in us has been defaced. We deserve punishment for our disobedience. We, therefore, have a need to approach God and ask for forgiveness. And we satisfy this need by coming to church and confessing our sins before God.
We come to church filled with guilt for the sin in our lives. We realize that there is nothing we can do to justify ourselves. So we humbly confess our sin corporately and then silently. The law of God convicts us of our sin. Then, when we receive God’s grace and the full forgiveness of sin through the death of Jesus Christ, we express our great joy by desiring to obey God and by living according to God’s laws. So we remind ourselves of God’s law and use it to live new lives in Christ.
As forgiven sinners, we attend worship and Bible studies where we learn more about God and how we are to obey our creator. The law becomes, for us, a teaching tool.
So the law of God benefits us in three ways. It shines a light on our sin so that we may confess and repent. As we receive God’s forgiveness it gives us a way to joyfully lead new lives in Christ. And as we grow as Christian we use the law to see how God created us and our world to be obedient. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, we are grateful for the sacrifice you made for us. In your death on the cross, your body was broken and your blood spilled to the ground. Through this, all of our sins have been forgiven. You have offered us new lives in your kingdom, which we joyfully accept. And we now desire to follow you and obey God’s will. So we thank you for the law which blesses us with the knowledge of what God requires of us. In great joy we praise you! Amen.
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