A NEW AND EVERLASTING COVENANT

A SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD

In the course of history, that is, in all the time since the creation of the world, God has made but two covenants (or testaments) with man.  The first covenant, or Old Testament, was the promise of a Redeemer, a Messiah, who would save the people from their sin. The second, or new covenant, is none other than the most Precious Blood of Christ that we are celebrating today. Why do I say that?  Because these were Christ’s own words at the Last Supper, when he took the chalice of wine into his sacred and most venerable hands, and having given thanks unto God, he gave unto his disciples, saying: “Take ye and drink ye all of this, for this is the Chalice of my Blood, the new and everlasting Covenant: the mystery of faith, which for you and for many shall be shed unto the remission of sins.” The Old Testament, in other words, was the promise of a Redeemer, the New Testament was the Redeemer himself, and the act of Redemption he performed by shedding his Blood for us.

God wanted to prepare man for this extraordinary transition from the Old to the New Testament, from the promise to the fulfillment of our Redemption. He built into our very nature, our human nature, the notion that our willingness to sacrifice is the yardstick by which our love is to be measured.   Whether the object of our love is another human being or God himself, we show our love by giving up some of what we want for them.  We show them that they are more important to us even than our very own selves.  Love seeketh not her own, but is unselfish, giving. This is true love, not the emotional, sentimental stuff of Daniel Steele novels and Lifetime for Women movies.  

The highest measure of love is shown by our willingness to give up that which we cherish most, our very lives.  This is what Abraham Lincoln referred to as the “last full measure of devotion,” and what our Lord confirmed as the greatest act of love: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  And who are the friends of Christ?  At the Last Supper, which was the first Mass, he himself told us: “Henceforth, I call you not servants… but I have called you friends.”  This Last Supper was the transitional moment between the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the New.  This very first offering to God of the Chalice of Christ’s own Precious Blood was the signal that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were no longer acceptable to God, but only the new sacrifice, that of Christ, who, the very next day, would shed every last drop of his Blood.  For us, his friends.

In fact, those sacrifices of the Old Testament, although they may have been acceptableto God before the Last Supper, had never really been sufficient.  After all, how could the blood of animals ever balance out the infinite wickedness of just one offence against God.  And yet, God revealed to his patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament the importance of blood sacrifice.  

Before God sent his Only-Begotten Son, animal sacrifice was the only way the chosen people had to show love and respect for their God.  In return, God confirmed that these sacrificial actions were acceptable to him, providing, of course, that they were the best they had to offer.  When God sent his avenging angel to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, he gave explicit instructions that the sacrifice they were to offer, the paschal lamb, must be “without blemish”, in other words as perfect as it could possibly be.  After all, it was to be a foreshadowing symbol of the perfect Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world.  

But woe betide the man who did not give of his best.  Let’s not forget the sacrifices of Cain and Abel.  Abel offered the blood of the first-born of his flock, and this was acceptable to God.  Meanwhile, Cain offered merely the “fruit of the ground” which was notacceptable.  Only blood sacrifice was suitable to prefigure the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  Abel’s sacrifice of the firstborn lambs of his flock also prefigure Abel’s sacrifice of his own life at the hands of his jealous brother Cain.  Thus, Abel, the first-born son of the first man Adam, became the first man to die at the hand of another, foreshadowing the death of God’s own First- and Only-Begotten Son.  And we are reminded that like Cain, we have shed the blood of our fellow Son of Man, our “brother”, Jesus Christ.

In the second prayer after the consecration at Mass, the priest prays that God will accept the sacrifice of the New Testament just as he accepted the offering of Abel: “Vouchsafe thou also, with a merciful and pleasant countenance, to have respect hereunto; and to accept the same, as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy righteous servant Abel…”  The priest then mentions two other types of sacrifice mentioned in the Old Testament, the first being that of Abraham, and the second of Melchisedech.  So all together three types of Old Testament sacrifice are recalled, all of which point to the New Testament.

The second sacrifice mentioned by the priest is that of Abraham, who was asked by God to offer up the blood of his only begotten son Isaac.  As we call to mind the image of Isaac carrying the wood up the mountain for his own sacrifice, we foresee our Lord carrying the wood of the cross up the hill of Calvary.  We are giving the fleeting possibility for a moment that perhaps human sacrifice would be sufficient, or at least less insufficientthan animal sacrifice, to make reparation for the sins of mankind. Obviously though, such a thing would be abhorrent and contrary to the will of God.  Redemption was to come through the sacrifice of his own Son’s. God could hardly save us by killing us. And so God, as we know, ultimately refused to permit the sacrifice of Abraham’s son.  Instead, he repaid Abraham’s willing submission and generosity by allowing his own divine and only-begotten Son to be sacrificed.  Here was a sacrifice that was beyond merely human. Here was the infinitely sufficient sacrifice of a God-Man.

Finally, in the prayer of the Canon, the priest recalls the third type of sacrifice in the Old Testament, that of the undefiled host, the bread and wine, offered by the priest-king Melchisedech.  This prefigures of course the bread and wine offered by Christ himself at the Last Supper, and offered in Christ’s name by the priest at the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.  The bread and wine is miraculously transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, the supreme priest and King of Kings, whose bloody sacrifice of Calvary would thereby be continued in an unbloody manner.

None of these three Old Testament sacrifices are sufficient in themselves.  Animal sacrifice is not enough.  Nor even would human sacrifice have been enough.  Mere bread and wine alone certainly could never suffice as an offering to satisfy for all the sins of the world.  But if we consider all three elements, we see that we have three of the essential components of the Sacrifice of Calvary and Mass prefigured here.  There is lacking only one other component to render this Sacrifice holy and sufficient and abundantly pleasing to God, an essential component that makes all the difference between the Old and New Testament sacrifices.  That component is the divinityof Christ.  The Chalice of his Blood is infinite in its power to satisfy for all of men’s offences against an infinite God.  Today, we commemorate that which rendered perfect what until then had been imperfect, which provided the missing element necessary to placate God’s wrath, and which transformed the insufficient into something infinite and by itself enough to save all our souls, the Holy and Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, our new and everlasting covenant with God.