7 June 2015
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Memorable words, familiar rituals, recalled each Eucharist, arising from traditions detailed in the Book of Exodus. Words and rituals ever ancient, ever new.
The bloody ritual that Moses performs strikes a very unfamiliar chord with our modern understanding. We can hardly imagine an ancient custom of splashing blood on an altar and sprinkling it on God’s people. In scripture, blood was considered the source of life, a symbol of reconciliation and hope. This ritual signified the covenant relationship of God and Israel. By sprinkling "life" (blood) on the altar (symbolizing God) and on the people, the two become one life, sharing the life of God.
Of course, God shares life with us
more effectively in the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that we celebrate at each Eucharist. The author of Hebrews made sense of the bloody sacrifice of Jesus on the cross by drawing from ancient tradition. As the Letter to the Hebrews contrasts Jesus' sacrifice with the ritual action of Moses, the sacrifice of Jesus is revealed to be greater and more perfect because it is not made by human hands nor renewed annually with the blood of animals in a man-made temple. The mediator of the Old Covenant, through the annual ritual of animal sacrifice, brought God and the Israelites together in a renewable covenant that had to be repeated every time the people sinned. Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, offers redemption in a way that does not need to be repeated and promises a sharing in God's own life once and for all.
The author, Ms. Barbara Gawle, leads Bible studies at her parish, Incarnation Church of Wethersfield, CT. She is a CBS graduate and the 2012 recipient of the Biblical School's highest award, the Lawrence Boadt Memorial Medal.
