When Columbus discovered America, the course of history changed forever. There was no undoing it. America could not be un-discovered.
After the Wright brothers bounced around in their kite-looking contraption on the beach, flying for short stretches, history moved in a new direction. Within one lifetime, astronauts walked on the moon.
When it seemed that millions might die to end the war in Japan in the 1940s, the power of the atom was harnessed. Two atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended. The nuclear age was born and there was no going back. The world has been a different place ever since.
In the 1970s a man named Marty was working for Motorola. He made the first cell phone. Can we even imagine a world without cell phones now?
All these changes in human history were profound yet they pale in comparison with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the great dividing line in all human history. The change made by Jesus is cosmic.
This is not to say that Jesus changed everything. He did not replace God and his revelation of himself in the Old Testament. Jesus did not do away with holiness. God is still holy and our goal is still to be holy.
Jesus did not cancel God’s promises to Israel. God made unconditional promises to his chosen people Israel and they will be fulfilled, like his promise to give them the Promised Land.
So, what exactly did Jesus change? Jesus opened a new and living way to God and his blessings. When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “It is finished.” At that moment, the curtain that blocked entry into the holy of holies in the temple in Jerusalem was torn apart. Suddenly, there was an opening to that place of God’s presence.
The curtain covering the entrance to God’s presence was not torn from the bottom up, as if people forced their way in, demanding to experience God’s presence. The curtain was torn from the top down. God invited us in because of the profound change accomplished by Jesus. We can now approach God’s presence with confidence because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross at Calvary.
We no longer bring a goat or a lamb to church when we gather to worship. We no longer pour out the blood of a sacrificial animal at the base of the altar. That was a vital part of worship for God’s people in the Old Testament, the old covenant.
Jesus shed his precious blood as the final and full sacrifice for all of God’s people for all time and eternity. We come before God by faith in him and his blood, no longer needing to bring our sin offerings over and over, year after year, generation after generation. It is finished!
On the third Day, God raised Jesus from the dead. He walked away from his tomb, alive forever, victorious over sin, triumphant over death. The course of time and eternity was altered permanently. Jesus is the agent of a new age, the age of God’s kingdom.
Thinking about Jesus as new may be difficult for those of us who have grown up in church hearing all the Bible accounts about him. Saying that Jesus is new may seem strange since his Church has now been in existence for two thousand years.
But Jesus is the new way. Any other way is the old way, the way of hoping our best will be good enough for God. Now we can be confident because God has given us his best, his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ.
We should rejoice that God has chosen to put us at this moment in history. Yes, the Old Testament saints had their blessings, but what an honor it is to live in the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection!
May our hearts and souls bless the Lord with great joy on Easter and always,
Brother Richard
brotherrichardsblog.com 