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Reflections For Holy Friday 2026: The New Covenant*

Reflections For Holy Friday 2026: The New Covenant*

Last updated on: April 3, 2026 at 2:35 am by Henry Karlson

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Reflections For Holy Friday 2026: The New Covenant* 2026-04-03T02:35:12-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Westfalia, altare con la crocifissione di cristo, 1230-40 / Wikimedia Commons

Throughout history, God often reveals great truths in surprising ways. For example, when Abraham believed God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham was willing to do so. God stopped him, using that to show Abraham (and everyone else), that such sacrifice was not to be done. God used Abraham’s expectations, the expectations he had with others of his time, to deal with those expectations and put an end to the reasoning that lay behind them. God often works within history in this fashion. God first has humanity show itself and its own understanding, telling humanity to pursue that understanding until it leads to something problematic, and through that, reveal that it is not what God really wants. However, despite his confusion, despite accepting what was unacceptable, Abraham had an intuition of something greater, and intuition which allows Christians to find a greater meaning in his actions. He sensed that through his family line, there would be a special death, one which would fulfill all of God’s promises to Abraham. That is, Christians, looking back to the story of Abraham, see within it a foreshadowing or hint of Christ’s death on the cross. Obviously, the two events are different. The first story has Abraham, a righteous man, stop what he was doing when he was told it was wrong; on the other hand, with Christ on the cross, the dark side of humanity shows itself, so that in and through their combined sin, they would not stop until they took the God-man, Jesus, captive, bound him, and sacrificed him to appease their basest desires. It wasn’t God who desired human sacrifice, it was humanity as it was tainted and led by sin. And yet, despite what sin would have humanity do, God was at work in the incarnate God-man, Jesus, circumventing the power of sin (and the sting of death which comes as a result of its power), by voluntarily accepting death on the cross. He willingly took on himself all the hate which humanity produces, ad with it, the pain, sorrow, and death sin seeks to bring to the world. He knew by doing so, he would usher in a new and eternal covenant, one which takes all the preceding covenants of God with humanity and fulfills them all in ways which, up to that point, humanity would never have expected.

To be sure, before the incarnation, before the advent of Christ, God was at work with humanity, freeing it from the slavery of sin, sometimes by undermining the thought processes sin brought to humanity (like the need for human sacrifice), sometimes by liberating those who were oppressed (as represented in the story of Moses and the exodus). God was always working with humanity to show it that it could and should be better. Often, God would engage humanity in some way so as to foreshadow what God would do in the incarnation, when the second person of the Trinity would assume human nature and take part as man in human history. For example, we can see this in the way God interacted with Moses at Sinai. Scripture tells us that God originally gave the Decalogue to Moses on two tables of stone: “And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18 RSV). Many commentators point out that the first tablet deals with the way humanity is to interact with God, that is, gives us commandments dealing with the divine reality, while the second deals with and gives us laws in regards how humans are meant to deal with each other. In this way, we find the Decalogue deals with two different natures or realities, that is, the divine nature on one tablet, and human nature on another, but come together in one integral whole. From a Christian perspective, it is not difficult to see this as a reflection of the incarnate God-man, Jesus, who, as one person (in the way the Decalogue is one), can be found to possess two natures, one divine, the other human.

The sin of the people of Israel, their idolatry with the Golden Calf, enraged Moses; in his anger, he destroyed the original two tablets: “And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (Ex. 32:19 RSV). Christians can see in this the sin of humanity leading to the death of Christ on the cross, where Jesus is broken down and destroyed. He takes on the sin of the world on his shoulders, taking all the rage and hatred of humanity, letting humanity and sin do its worst to him. But in neither instance, does death or destruction have the final say. God does:

The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tables of stone like the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which you broke.Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let no flocks or herds feed before that mountain.” So Moses cut two tables of stone like the first; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD (Ex. 34:1-5 RSV).

Moses learned of God’s forgiveness and mercy, especially in the way he was told to recreate the tablets, and in the process of recreating them, reveal to the people of Israel the way God had forgiven them:

The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth, and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance” (Ex. 34 6-9 RSV).

Thus, it can be said, it was when the Decalogue was restored, God’s presence was once again found with the people of Israel, and with that presence, God’s mercy was with them. Just as the tablets were restored, so Jesus, after having been killed, rose from the dead. And, just as we are shown forgiveness was given to the people of Israel in the recreation of the tablets, so in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we are shown God grants forgiveness to all humanity, indeed, to all creation.

Jesus accepted the way of the cross, so that with it, and through it, he could show God’s infinite love for humanity. Nothing, not even sin, could override it. God engaged humanity in the incarnation in a way which relates to and connects to all of God’s former interactions with humanity, and yet, there was something new, something unexpected, something which transcended everything God had done before. That is, we are shown that while God did not demand sacrifice, God was willing to give everything for us, for creation, for the beloved. God was willing to be taken in to take sin on and overcome it, showing that its power is not endless, that it has an end, for once Jesus died, once Jesus was taken in by Hades, there was nothing more sin could do.

*Technically, in the Byzantine Calendar, Holy Week is no longer Lent, but its own special time period.

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