Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Exodus 24:3-8

Psalm 116:12-3, 15-16, 17-18

Hebrews 9:11-15

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,

when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,

Jesus’ disciples said to him,

“Where do you want us to go

and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”

He sent two of his disciples and said to them,

“Go into the city and a man will meet you,

carrying a jar of water.

Follow him.

Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,

‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room

where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’

Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.

Make the preparations for us there.”

The disciples then went off, entered the city,

and found it just as he had told them;

and they prepared the Passover.

While they were eating,

he took bread, said the blessing,

broke it, gave it to them, and said,

“Take it; this is my body.”

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,

and they all drank from it.

He said to them,

“This is my blood of the covenant,

which will be shed for many.

Amen, I say to you,

I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine

until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Then, after singing a hymn,

they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Opening Prayer: Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of the Eucharist. It is the memorial of your Son’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. It is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet and food for eternal life. May I always welcome this gift!

Encountering the Word of God

1. The Role of Animal Blood in the Old Covenant: In the First Reading, taken from Exodus 24, we learn about the ceremony by which Moses ratified the Old Covenant between the Lord God and the people of Israel. A covenant creates a kinship or familial bond, with conditions and obligations, between two unrelated parties. For example, when a man and woman get married, they enter into a covenant, become one family, and promise to be faithful to one another until death. When we read about the divine covenants in the Bible, we see how human beings become members of God’s family. Covenants were established and renewed through swearing oaths and performing rituals and ceremonies. The words and actions that ratified and renewed covenants reflect the kinship bond being created and the divine sanctions enforcing that bond. The blood rituals in the ratification of a covenant – shedding the animal’s blood and sprinkling it – symbolize both the covenant bond as well as the covenant sanctions. In Exodus 24, the blood first indicates kinship. That is why Moses sprinkles half of the blood on the altar of God and half of the blood on the people. This symbolizes that the Lord God and the people of Israel are now one family. Second, the blood symbolizes the curse that will be triggered if one of the parties is unfaithful to the covenant. Both parties are saying to one another: “May my blood be shed if I violate the covenant.” At the foot of Mt. Sinai, the people of Israel accepted the words and ordinances of the Lord: The Lord will be their God and they will be his people. If we continue reading the story of Exodus, we see that the sacrificial blood ritual was followed by a shared familial meal (Exodus 24:10-11).

2. The Role of Jesus’ Blood in the New Covenant: Many of Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper evoke the covenant ratification ceremony of Sinai from Exodus 24 (for the four points that follow see Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper, 94-95). First, Jesus identifies the cup with “my blood of the covenant.” This parallels Moses’ reference to “the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8). Second, Jesus’ image of his blood being “poured out” in sacrifice (Mark 14:24) is similar to the imagery in Exodus, in which the blood of the peace offerings was thrown against or poured out on the altar (Exodus 24:6). “Both are images of a sacrificial libation of blood, by which the covenant relationship is established and sealed” (Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper, 94). Just as the ancient priests would pour out the blood of a sacrificial animal, Jesus is the priest and sacrifice whose blood is poured out. Third, Jesus celebrates the Last Supper with the Twelve, who represent the twelve tribes of Israel (Mark 14:17). This recalls that Moses offered the blood of the covenant with the twelve tribes of Israel who are present and symbolically represented by the twelve pillars around the altar (Exodus 24:4). Fourth, Jesus speaks about his blood and the covenant in the context of a meal. In like manner, Moses’ offering of the blood of the covenant culminates in a heavenly banquet, in which he and the elders of Israel ascend Mt. Sinai into the presence of God and somehow eat and drink (Exodus 24:11). While the old covenant of Mt. Sinai was sealed by Moses through the offering of the blood of animals, the New Covenant of Mt. Zion is sealed by Jesus through the offering of his own blood. Jesus recapitulates the covenant actions of Moses but reconfigures them around his own suffering and death.

3. The Effect of Jesus’ Blood: In the Second Reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, we learn that Jesus’s blood is far superior to that of animals. The blood of animals cannot remove sin (Hebrews 10:4), but Jesus’ blood can remove our sin and purify our hearts. When Israel broke the commandments of the Old Covenant by worshipping the Golden Calf, they triggered the curse of death. They deserved death. Moses interceded for them and God did not wipe them out, but the covenant curse remained. “What then saves us from the curse of death for violating that covenant? Christ’s death does. He died on our behalf, in our place. But it is deeper than that. Through baptism, we actually participate in Christ’s death. In a real if mysterious way, baptism is a death that we undergo (Rom 6:3-11)” (Bergsma, The Word of the Lord: Year B, 502). The New Covenant offers us something the Old Covenant could not. While the Old Covenant promised the land of Canaan to Israel, we are invited, in the New Covenant, to enter into the true promised land – eternal life with God in heaven. The Eucharist we partake of here on earth is a foretaste of that eternal banquet.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you shed your blood to save and redeem me. You poured out your blood on the Cross to wash away my sins. You are the pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. Help me today to unite my sacrifice to yours and offer it to the Father out of love.

Living the Word of God: Can I set aside time today to contemplate Jesus’ Passion? How am I called this week to give myself as Christ did? What do those around me need from me this week?