Blood And The Covenant

Saturday of the 16th Week in Course 2023 Ss Mary, Martha, Lazarus

We should all remember that in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, Jesus reminded the Jewish audience in the Capernaum synagogue that their fathers many generations earlier had eaten God-given manna in the desert, but had died. And then He promised that the bread that He, Jesus, would give them would enable those who ate it to live forever–never die. Moreover, the bread would be His flesh and the drink would be His very blood. Thus what St. Paul says about our communion is logically true: when we eat the bread and drink of the cup, we proclaim and partake in Christ’s death until He comes in glory.

Jesus, at the Last Supper, told His disciples “this cup is the new covenant in my Blood.” That causes us to ask what was the old covenant. Our reading from Exodus answers the question: the old covenant in blood was sealed on Mt. Sinai between God and the Israelites He redeemed from Egyptian bondage. Animals were sacrificed and Moses sprinkled half the blood on the altar with twelve pillars standing for the twelve tribes. He then sprinkled the rest of the blood on the individual Hebrew refugees, to show that the covenant, the blood oath, bound not just the whole people but every one of the men, women and children and their descendants.

The downside of this wonderful ceremony, this almost wedding ceremony between God and His people, is that the covenant agreement bound the people to obey the Ten Commandments. Now those laws are really just positive laws that specify actions already commanded or forbidden by the natural law written on every human heart. Who disagrees with a ban on murdering the innocent–perhaps except for abortionists and their allies? Who thinks adultery is a good thing–other than the adulterers? And even they know that it may feel good, but is really evil against the human family.

But Israel did not keep the covenant obligations. Read the OT. It is a record of how, over and over, Israelite kings and people broke every one of the commandments. Smashed the covenant. And they brought on themselves the curses listed in Deuteronomy.

But that was not the end. No indeed. Man’s faithlessness did not end the story. The Old Covenant was not kept, but, thank God, in an earlier covenant, God had promised Abraham that in Abe’s descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He had made a one-sided covenant with him and his descendants promising redemption and life. To fulfill that agreement, that covenant in blood, God became human, lived and died and rose again so that we could through faith and sacrament become one with Jesus, Son of God, who paid the price of our salvation. That is why we gather each Sunday, to celebrate and to beg for the grace to live lives of faith, hope and charity with and in Christ for all eternity.