Sunday, 3/22/15
The first reading recalled how God promised that he would
make a new covenant with us, and the Gospel pictured Jesus in the weeks when he
was preparing to enact that covenant with his blood.
We get a better picture of the New Covenant by looking at
the other covenants with which we are familiar. First, we will look at the
marriage covenant.
As a priest I have hundreds of times asked a man and a
woman, “Have you come here freely, and without reservation to give yourselves
to each other in marriage?”
In conclusion I have said, “What God has joined, men must not divide.”
Next, let’s look at the Old Covenant. In advance of it, God
said, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.” Then in Chapter
Twenty-four of Exodus we read of how that covenant was ratified.
Below Mt. Sinai, Moses had constructed a stone altar to
represent God. Then, he had all the people of the twelve tribes assemble on the
plain before the mountain. Next, he sent young men to slaughter steers, and to
carry in the blood in large brass bowls.
With those preparations made, Moses told the people that if
they wanted to enter into a family-like relationship with God, they would need
to be like him by observing his commandments. He next called out each of the
ten commandments; and as the people were calling out their willingness to
observe each of them, the young men passed through the crowd sprinkling
everyone there with the steer blood.
The Israelites believed that blood, any blood, was life itself. By their all being sprinkled with blood, they became blood relations of one another.
That rite of sprinkling blood was concluded by the young men
pouring the last of the blood on God’s altar, making the Israelites his people,
and him their God.
At the Last Supper Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant
in my blood.” Then he asked them if they would keep his commandment, which was
that they “love one another, as he had lived them.”
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