CORPUS CHRISTI

The Covenant: the ring of the bride

Introduction

In the Old Testament, the term covenant occurs 286 times, and this gives an idea of the importance Israel attached to this institution. It is used as an image to express his relationship with the Lord. But what does it mean to make a covenant with God?

To speak of a bilateral contract is approximate and even deviant. The first Covenant, made with Noah and, through him, with all humanity and “with every living thing, with birds, cattle and wild beasts, with all the animals that came out of the ark” (Gen 9:8-11), was unilateral; only the Lord made commitments and demanded nothing in return; He promised that there would be no more floodwaters, despite knowing that people would continue to be unfaithful, “because the instinct of the human heart is inclined to evil from adolescence” (Gen 8:21).

He called Abraham from Mesopotamia to give him land, although Abraham had done nothing to deserve this gift: he had only been asked to believe in gratuitous love. God made a covenant with him to convince him and sanctioned it with a rite (Gen 15). The patriarch did not have to fear; he would come into possession of the land because the Lord’s pact was inviolable: it was based on his word, solemn, confirmed by an oath.

Gratuity and unilateral commitment characterize God’s covenants. Throughout its troubled history, Israel kept this memory and, even in the most dramatic moments, never lost hope, knowing that the Lord’s predilection for them would never fail. She could have sinned as much as he wanted; the Lord would never have revoked his Covenant because, without asking for any compensation, He had promised to bless his people. God’s covenants have nothing contractual; they are pure grace.

Yet the Lord expects a response from man: he does not ask him to sign a pact but accept his proposal of mutual belonging, as happens between the bridegroom and the bride. The Eucharist… is the exchange of rings.

• To internalize the message, we will repeat:

“The Eucharistic celebration is the wedding banquet with the Lord.”

First Reading: Exodus 24:3-8

It is a human need to validate with some gesture the commitments we make. In the African tribe in which I lived for a few years, the pact was ratified straightforwardly: the two contracting parties took a long stalk of grass, broke it, and each threw the piece in his hand over his shoulder. In this way, they declare their mutual commitment to throw away all divisions, differences, and conflicts.

The rites with which, in ancient times, the great sovereigns sanctioned the alliance with their vassals were solemn and very complicated. The Bible relates some of them, also used by the Israelites. The bloodiest consisted of cutting a calf in two parts and making the contracting parties pass between its halves, declaring that they were willing to suffer the animal’s fate if they broke the pact (Jer 34:18). To this rite, God’s Covenant with Abraham refers (Gen 15), but it should be noted that, on that occasion, it was only the Lord who passed, in a burning flame, between the divided animals. The inviolability of a covenant could also be established through the gesture of eating bread and salt or salt alone together. This agreement was called a “covenant of salt” (2 Chr 13:5) because, like salt, it was to be kept incorruptible.

Today’s passage refers to another rite: the one by which Israel sealed its Covenant with the Lord. The event took place in the third month after leaving Egypt (Ex 19:1). The people were gathered at the foot of Sinai, and Moses, after repeatedly climbing the mountain to dialogue with the Lord, told the Israelites the words he had heard from God. The people had no hesitation and, convinced and committed, twice repeated their commitment: “All the commands that the Lord has given, we will carry out!” (v. 3.7).

Moses put God’s words in writing. He built an altar and placed twelve stone blocks around it. When everything was ready, he charged some young men to offer animals as a sacrifice to the Lord (vv. 4-5); he took the blood of the victims and poured half of it over the altar and half over the twelve stones (vv. 6-8).

To understand this rite, it should be remembered that for the Semites, blood was the seat of life (Lev 17:11-14). Pouring the blood of man, that is killing, was forbidden (Gen 9,5-6); the blood of animals belonged to God, Lord of all life, that is why, in the bloody sacrifices of the temple, the blood was shed on the altar, which represented God.

Now the meaning of the celebration of the Covenant at the foot of Sinai becomes clear. By pouring the blood, half on the altar and the other half on the people, symbolized by the twelve pillars, Moses established an intimate bond of communion between Israel and the Lord. From that moment, God and the people became sharers in the same life; they were like members of a single body, bound by a single destiny. The vicissitudes, sufferings, and joys of the one involved the other; touching the people was equivalent to striking God, because says the Lord: “For just as a belt is to be bound around a man’s waist so was the people of Israel and Judah bound to me to be my people, my glory and my honor” (Jer 13:11).

To be happy, to remain free, Israel would have had to keep the promise made at Sinai, would have had to believe that the Ten Words they had heard were not unjustified precepts, but a gift from the Lord that showed them the path of life.

Israel experienced that “man’s life is not within his own control and it is not for him to direct his steps” (Jer10:23). They broke the Covenant; they betrayed their commitments. Still, God did not give up and decided to make a new covenant, not a repetition of the Sinai covenant, but a qualitatively new one: “The time is coming—it is the Lord who speaks—when I will forge a new Covenant ... It will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. For they broke my Covenant… I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer 31: 31-33). “I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I shall remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezk 36:26-27).

Blood will also be needed to seal this Covenant, not the blood of animals which has proved ineffective, but that of the one who will offer himself as a sacrifice “for the new and everlasting covenant.”

Second Reading: Hebrews 9:11-15

To expiate one’s sin means, in the ordinary meaning, to expiate a fault by suffering its punishment. In pagan religions, expiation took place through sacrifices and offerings intended to appease the offended deity. In the Bible, atonement has another meaning. It is not designed to appease an angry God or punish man for the evil he has done but to act on what has interrupted their relationship.

This different way of understanding atonement stems from another way of understanding God and sin. The God of Israel never lashes out at his people, even if they have been unfaithful. He wants them to convert and return to life, and He asks for a change of thoughts and actions for this.

However, man needs to manifest, even through rituals, his repudiation of sin. For this reason, at the beginning of each new year, Israel celebrated the great day of forgiveness, Yom Kippur, dedicated entirely to fasting, prayer, reading of the word of God, and expiatory rites. The ceremonies and sacrifices took place in the temple and culminated in the ritual of sprinkling with the blood of animals—as had happened at the foot of Sinai—the lid of the Ark of the Covenant that was in the Holy of Holies and that indicated the presence of the Lord. With this gesture, the high priest intended to re-establish the communion of life between God and the people, which had been sanctioned by a covenant and which sin had destroyed.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews refers to this rite of Yom Kippur to establish a comparison between the ancient atoning sacrifices and the redemptive work of Christ. In the old Covenant, the blood of goats and calves was used. How could the blood of animals have achieved the desired effect? The high priest had to repeat the same rite every year precisely because of its ineffectiveness. On the other hand, Christ did not enter a stone sanctuary but into heaven. Once and for all, he offered his blood, a blood that truly atones, that is, it restores forever and definitively the relationship between God and man.

This is why the evangelists note that, at the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, “the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mk 15:38). It was not the material breaking of the curtain that separated the Holy from the Holy of Holies in the temple of Jerusalem, but of the barrier that separated people from God and that had been erected by sin: this barrier was torn down forever.

There is no longer any need for the blood of animals, which has always been ineffective. It is the blood of Christ that is offered today to those who participate in the celebration of the Eucharist. Whoever approaches to receive it obtains the forgiveness of sins, and in him is restored the bond of life with God.

Gospel: Mark 14:12-16,22-26 

Reading the first part of the passage (vv. 12-16), we perceive that we are approaching a dramatic moment, we have the feeling that Jesus and the group of disciples are moving with circumspection because they are in danger because of the hatred and threats of the high priest and Sanhedrin. They are in Bethany and, to celebrate the Passover meal, they must travel to Jerusalem, the only place where lamb can be eaten. There is a sign of recognition, agreed—it seems—by Jesus with the owner of a house located in the upper part of the city, where the rich live. This particular sign accentuates the aura of mystery surrounding the whole scene. Two disciples precede the group to prepare a large room for dinner on the upper floor of the house.

To grasp the message that the evangelist wants to convey, we must go beyond what, at first glance, seems a simple stenographic account, and the first detail that should be noted is that the initiative to celebrate the Passover does not start from Jesus, but from the disciples (v. 12). They are the ones who want to commemorate the liberation from Egypt, the liberation from which their story began. They do not imagine what will happen that very evening during the dinner: as representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel, they will be involved in the new Passover.

A second detail: the person in charge of accompanying the disciples into the banquet hall is a servant who performs a service reserved for women. This is not a trivial detail but a sign of the change in social relations. It is the perception of this reversal that guides the disciples towards the place of the feast, the one that Jesus is about to begin. Those who see people differently enter the banquet hall, those who allow themselves to be guided by the surprising signs given by Christ: the rich who become poor, the great who choose to become small, the men who take on the humble services imposed until then on women.

The accurate description of the room is also important: it is spacious because it is intended to accommodate many people, it is situated high up, like the mountain on top of which the word of the Lord resounded (Ex 24:1-4), and it is furnished with sofas, because whoever enters, even if poor, miserable or a slave, acquires freedom. These details clearly allude to the Lord’s Supper celebrated in Christian communities.

When evening falls, the Twelve gather with Jesus to eat the paschal lamb. They think they are celebrating the liberation from Egypt and the Sinai covenant, but instead, they become witnesses of the new Covenant announced by the prophets and receive the true Lamb as food.

We approach the second part (vv. 22-26) with trepidation because it is the liturgical text used in the first Christian communities for the celebration of the Eucharist, a text composed in the first years of the life of the Church and preserved to us by Mark, author of the first gospel.

There is no allusion to the Jewish Passover in the narrative. The Twelve who prepared the lamb see the Jewish Passover supper transformed into Jesus’ supper, the Eucharistic banquet. “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them” (v. 22). So far, nothing new compared to the traditional rite. As the head of the table, Jesus preceded the distribution of the bread with a prayer: “Be praised, O Lord, our God, king of the world, who brings forth bread from the earth.”

The invitation to the disciples, however, is unusual: “Take and eat” and, above all, the value attributed to the bread: “This is my body,” that is, “This is me.” The disciples are unable to understand the meaning of the gesture and the words. The Master has made his whole life a gift; he has become broken bread for people, now he wants his disciples to share his choice, enter into communion, and become one with him so that they will share in his life.

Now it is clear, even for us, what it means to approach the Eucharist: it is not a devotional encounter with Jesus, but the decision to be, like him, at every moment, broken bread available to our brothers and sisters.

At the end of the supper, Jesus drinks the chalice of wine. His gesture is full of symbolism because it is the last cup, the cup of farewell from the old Covenant; in fact, he declares: “I will not taste the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink the new wine in the Kingdom of God” (v. 25).

Unlike the Baptist, Jesus ate, drank (Mt 11:18-19), and accepted dinner invitations. To a group of Pharisees and followers of the Baptist, who had asked him why he did not fast, he replied, “How can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day they will fast”(Mk 2:19-20). For the community of his disciples, he foresaw a time of mourning, of sorrow, of abstaining from intoxicating drinks. The message is clear: wherever he, the bridegroom, is absent, there is no wine, there is no joy of celebration. The signs of the triumph of evil and death are present in the world, which saddens the disciples, but the “feast of rich food and choice wines, meat full of marrow, fine wine strained” (Is 25,6) will occur. Jesus will be present at the feast and will offer his wine to all: “I will drink it (with you), anew, in the kingdom of God.”

The cup is that of his blood, “the blood of the covenant, shed for all.” The Covenant stipulated at Sinai had not achieved the objective of keeping the people in communion with the Lord: it had been sanctioned with blood which, being of animals, did not possess any life-giving power. Jesus’ Covenant is celebrated with blood, his own, in which divine life is present, offered to whoever wants to receive it.

The blood of the new Covenant is shed for many, which means for all. The Eucharist was not instituted for individuals to allow each person to personally encounter Christ, to foster individual fervor or some form of spiritual isolationism. The Eucharist is the nourishment of the community; it is bread broken and shared among brothers and sisters (no less than two!) because the community is the sign of the new humanity, born of Christ’s resurrection.

The door of the great hall, which is at the top, is always wide open so that all may enter. The banquet of the kingdom of God, announced by the prophets, is prepared “for all peoples” (Is 25:6); all must be welcomed, no one excluded. There are no pure and impure people for God, no worthy and unworthy people; in front of the Eucharist, all are on the same level; all are sinners, unworthy, but invited to communion with Christ.

The bread that is Christ and the chalice of his blood create a community of “blood-relatives” with Christ and with each other, to constitute the new people whose only law is the service of their brothers and sisters to the point of giving their own lives as “food” to satisfy every form of human hunger.

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