Bible Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 5:7-9, John 12:20-33
The title of my message today is, “God has always wanted to be our God”. This phrase is something that has really touched my heart this week as I have reflected on our readings for today. It is something that I have carried with me all week. I have three reflections I want to share.
1. God wants to be our God
Right from the beginning of time when Adam and Eve walked in the garden, we see God wanting to be with us. He walked with them in the cool of the evening the Bible tells us. After the fall when Adam and Eve sinned, God provided a way for them to be right with Him again. They would sacrifice an animal and shed its blood to be a temporary covering for sin. As time went on we see there were sacrifices in the Temple. This was part of the Old Covenant God had with His people.
In the midst of this temporary covering, God was looking forward to a time of the New Covenant. The time when Jesus, His one and only Son, came into the world. The Prophets of the Old Testament spoke about this regularly to the people. And the people looked forward to it with great hope. Jeremiah 31:33 says, “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
God was looking forward to this time now. When we have His law written on our hearts, and He would be our God and we would be His people. This phrase is recorded 11 times in the Bible. It is first found In Genesis 17 and found lastly in Revelation 21. It is a recurring theme that not only shows His great love for us, but His greatest desire.
2. Jesus is our Perfect High Priest
We see in Old Testament times that once a year, the High Priest would be able to enter the Holy of Holies. No one else could do because it was where the presence of God came to rest on the Ark of the Covenant. Before he could enter though, he had to atone for his own sins. He had to undertake very elaborate rituals and dress perfectly to be just right. He even tied a rope with a bell around himself, so that if he did not properly atone and dropped dead from being unclean in the presence of God, his lifeless body could be dragged out by the other Priests. The High Priest would atone for all the sins of the people, and intercede on their behalf, and God would forgive them. This had to be repeated each year.
In our second reading we see that Jesus was called our Perfect High Priest. Why was He our Perfect High Priest? The reading says, “While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. [8] Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. [9] In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.”
Jesus was our Perfect High Priest because He lived a sinless life and He lived in complete and total obedience to the Father. He ran His race perfectly in a way that none of us can. We needed Jesus as our Perfect High Priest, so we could become the people of God- His children. Jesus made a way for this to happen.
3. Jesus had to die, so we can live for eternity
In our last reading we see Jesus uses the image of the wheat and the seed. He says, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. [24] I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels-a plentiful harvest of new lives.”
Jesus is at the time in His earthy ministry when He starts to talk about His coming death. I am sure His disciples did not fully understand what He meant by a kernel of wheat dying and being planted in the soil. But for us, we have the benefit of being on the other side of the cross, we know He was talking about His crucifixion. His death for our sins.
When I was a boy growing up in the 1970s I knew about Easter – Jesus died on Good Friday and He rose to life on Easter Sunday. We got to eat lots of Easter eggs and we got a long weekend off school. But I did not understand why Jesus died and what it had to do with me?! Thankfully, in my early twenties I learned that Jesus died on the cross for our sin. He died to pay the price or took the punishment we all deserved. I then realised that I was a sinner and I needed God’s forgiveness. The truth is we all need God’s forgiveness. We all need to accept what Jesus has done for us. We all need Him as our Lord and Saviour. This is why Jesus came. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).
Closing Reflection
Just before I pray I want to take you back to the title of this message and what God has caused me to reflect on this week, “God has always wanted to be our God”. Right throughout the Bible, God has told us that He wants to be our God, and He wants us to be His people. It was His heart way back in the Garden, it has been His heart through the words of the prophets, it has been His heart in the New Testament books.
It is my hope and prayer this week, as we approach Easter, that we will all put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That we will believe that He is the Son of God, that He died on the cross for our sins, and we will all accept Him as our Lord and Saviour this Easter. If you have already done this, it is my hope that you will be closer to Jesus than ever before. May this Easter season be a time of renewal that draws you further in to God’s plans, deeper in to His love and closer to One who died just for you.
Let us pray
