Have you ever made important promises? Signed a contract for a job? Bought a house? Stood in front of a whole church of people and promised to love and cherish your husband or wife for a lifetime? God is all about promises, making them and keeping them. In the Old Testament God made all kinds of promises: to Noah to never flood the whole earth again, to Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son and uncountable descendants, that one of their offspring will bless every person on the whole earth, to the Israelites that they will have home in the Promised Land, to King David that his dynastic line will last forever. All of these promises are covenants: two or more parties making promises to each other. Yet even when human beings fail, God keeps His covenants. Through joy, triumph, sorrow and defeat, God’s promises to His people are sure. This particular covenant came to the Israelites after they escaped from 430 years in slavery in Egypt (you can read about it in the book of Exodus). This great deliverance is central to the Jewish identity even today, and Passover is the feast that commemorates it. Moses, their greatest prophet, led the people out, through the Red Sea, arriving at Mount Sinai where God gives them the Law, including the Ten Commandments, all recorded in the first five books of the Bible.
Why is this important? Jesus was not born into a vacuum, but into a living framework of promise and salvation based on God’s covenant, and God’s historic faithfulness to Israel as His chosen people. Old Testament promises foretold the coming of a Savior, or a Messiah, who would be a prophet like Moses, a king in David’s line, a shepherd to the people, a sacrifice for sin. Jesus lived under the Law of Moses, yet He came to fulfill all of God’s promises, and to create a new covenant based on forgiveness and grace for all people. For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Prayer: Thank You, God, for making covenants and always keeping Your promises. Thank You for showing us the pattern of Your salvation in the Passover, so we can see it now in Christ Jesus, in Whose name we pray. Amen.