“Heavenly Pattern and New Covenant” Hebrews 8:1-13; Jer 31:31-34; Ex 25:40
Good Shepherd Lutheran – Yucaipa, California
March 10, 2021 – Midweek – Lent III
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Our Lenten depiction of Jesus both as our Great High Priest and as the Priest after the order of Melchizedek now brings us to another very important aspect of our Savior’s role as a priest. A priest needs a place to work. Everything that was important to the Old Testament priests, the ones who belonged to the family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi, everything that was essential to their priestly work is also absolutely important to the priestly work of Jesus. Yet there is also a very important difference, which could be described as the difference of a shadow to the real thing.

Finally, as we read in the book of Exodus, the Israelites were free and on their own out in the wilderness. They had eaten the Passover meal, left Egypt quickly and with a hefty plunder of gold, silver, bronze, fine linen, and other precious materials, and crossed the Red Sea that God had opened for them, but then closed the waters in on the Egyptians to overthrow them completely. Israel was saved. No more threat was posed to bring these people of God back under the scourge of slavery. Moses said they were to worship God in the wilderness, and that was the next item of business: get everything set up for worship the way God had intended for them. Now they would find out exactly why they needed all the precious metals, stones, fine wood and cloth that they were commanded to take with them as they left Egypt. Calling upon the name of the Lord in prayer, praise and sacrifice was going to look very different for the people of Israel from this time onward.

In the heart and center of their wilderness camp, a particular area was set aside to be holy. About a quarter acre would be enclosed by a fence of curtains seven and a half feet high. In the middle of this courtyard would be a tent that would be named the Tabernacle. This is the structure where the Levites and priests would serve their worship duties—sacrifices, burning incense, offering prayers, and the like. God gave Moses very specific dimensions concerning the layout of the Tabernacle, and as they constructed it they would use a cubit, which is a convenient measuring unit because everyone always has it along with them. A cubit was the length from a man’s elbow to the tip of his fingers. The pattern also of the Tabernacle furniture, the Ark of the Covenant, the altars of sacrifice and of incense, everything included in the new worship space and procedure, was a distinct pattern handed to Moses directly by God. This means that the greater, original, divine dwelling place is actually where Jesus, the Great High Priest, the one ordained by the Father’s oath after the order of Melchizedek, this is where He serves both His final and His eternally continuous priestly duties. The earthly tabernacle, copied after the heavenly dwelling place, which would later become a permanent (or rather permanent-ish) structure called the Temple, would only be used by the Levites and priests of the Old Testament so long as their ministry was necessary. After that, the new Great High Priest would take over, and the worship space made with human hands would be torn down, leaving the greater, heavenly, truly permanent original pattern temple to remain forever.

When that transition from earthly to heavenly Tabernacle takes place, there is another transition—a change in the covenant that God makes with His faithful ones. This too is a change from earthly to heavenly, from sin-caused weakness to resurrection-powered strength. The prophet Jeremiah highlights these two covenants and their differences in the portion that is quoted and re-presented to God’s people in the book of Hebrews. The old covenant, corresponding to the earthly Tabernacle, the Levitical priesthood, the animal sacrifices, that covenant had relied on man’s obligation to keep the law, and so since mankind sinned and we sinners could not fulfill the law’s obligations, that old covenant had to be replaced. The new covenant, as Jeremiah was inspired to describe it, is actually the original pattern, the heavenly reality that was foreshadowed all along in the old covenant. This covenant however, instead of relying on the failed obligations of men, now has its foundation on an obligation that God Himself fulfilled in Jesus Christ and all that He came on earth to do. Instead of the law that brought sin and death, we now have a life-giving guarantee that is proclaimed to the world in the Gospel– the message that Jesus and the work He accomplished is our permanent assurance of eternal life in God’s kingdom. In this kingdom God the Father daily and richly forgives our sins and creates His Church out of us forgiven and renewed sinners.

When the old covenant was put into place, the earthly tabernacle was set up as a tent in the desert, and God had saved His people from slavery to the Egyptians. Each man had to teach his neighbor, saying “Know the Lord.” The law had to be written on stone tablets and blood had to be shed (we’ll talk more about blood and the covenants next week) blood from animals was constantly flowing to make a constant atonement or sin-offering for the priests and the people. This blood would then be sprinkled on the earthly structures, worship furnishings and even the people themselves to mark them as a holy possession of God. When the new covenant was established, the Blood of Christ was shed one time as an offering of substitution, a sin-payment to God for our sakes, the whole world was saved from the slavery to sin and death, and complete forgiveness was declared upon the resurrection of Jesus on the Third Day. The law would now be written on our hearts of flesh and not of stone. Instead of a ritual blood-sprinkling, you have been sprinkled with the water of Baptism, and you drink the Blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper as your constant connection to this one-time Sacrifice for your holiness to continue. You do not need to construct an earthly copy of a tabernacle in order to gain your access to God through worship. The buildings we use are not designed in heaven to specific dimensions. A building itself isn’t even necessary anymore. What counts is the One who promised to be with us whenever two or three are gathered in His name. Jesus your Great High Priest has led you with Him into the inner sanctum, the Most Holy Place of the heavenly tent, not made with human hands. The shadow is no more; the heavenly real thing is here in your midst. God the all-knowing One has said He will remember your sins no more.

In the name of the Father, and of ✝ the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant