Old Testament
Blood of the Covenant
“Take
and eat,” Jesus said to his disciples as he handed them some unleavened bread
on the night before he was murdered.
“This is my body which is given for you... And take and drink,” Jesus continued as he
handed them a cup of wine. “This is my
blood of the new covenant, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” It was a momentous occasion for his
disciples, a very special act of love on the part of their Savior. But these words must have taken the disciples
by surprise! It was such a strange thing
to say! And such a strange time to say it
as they were finishing the annual Passover meal in the upstairs’ room of a
house. But what probably made it even
more confusing for these faithful followers of the Lord was that they were already
very familiar with “the blood of the covenant” from as far back as they could
remember. Because “the blood of the
covenant” had been a part of their Jewish heritage for centuries.
Hundreds
and hundreds of years before these disciples were born, their ancestors had
stood at the foot of a mountain called Sinai, and there a covenant was ratified
with blood between God and his people for the generations to come. Moses had just finished publically reading
all of the commands and the laws and the decrees that the Lord had given to
them, and the people responded, “We will
do everything the LORD has said; we will obey.” And so Moses took the blood of some of the bulls
that had just been sacrificed and he sprinkled that blood on the people. “This
is the blood of the covenant,” he
said, “that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words,” (Ex.
24:7-8). And for the next 40 years
as they were lead through the desert, and then for hundreds of years afterwards
as they lived in the Promised Land, into exile and back, all the way up to the
time of these chosen disciples of Jesus, the blood of a bull was to be
sprinkled or poured out for every single burnt offering, for sin offerings, for
fellowship offerings, at every ordination of a priest, and most importantly on
the annual Day of Atonement. This blood
had been a part of the worship practices of the Jewish people for 1500
years. And so the disciples were well
aware of this “blood of the covenant.”
It signified the agreement their entire nation had come to with the Lord
himself many generations ago. It
represented what they had promised to do.
And so this blood of this covenant also probably reminded them of how
they had failed to do it.
New Testament
Blood of the Covenant
But now
these disciples were sitting in a room with their Savior, listening to him
speak about “the blood of the covenant” in a completely different way! “This is my
blood of the new covenant,” Jesus
clearly told them. And it wasn’t to
solidify an agreement between two parties; and it wasn’t to be a reminder about
what they had promised to do for the Lord; and it wasn’t to
be a visual cue that pointed out their sins. This new blood of the covenant was for the forgiveness of their sins; it was a
reminder about what the Lord had
promised to do for them; it was to
solidify a one-way agreement that
could never be broken. This new blood of the covenant wasn’t anything
like “the blood of the covenant” woven into the strict worship practices of the
past. Instead, this new blood of the
covenant gave them hope and comfort and freedom. This blood of the covenant did not bind them
to a contract; instead it released them from their sins.
Out of the Pit
Of
course, if the disciples had been paying attention to their Old Testament
Scripture lessons, they would have remembered that the Lord had been predicting
this new “blood of the covenant” for centuries.
We read earlier tonight how the Lord spoke about a new covenant of
forgiveness for his people through the prophet Jeremiah because they had broken
the covenant before. But the prophet
Zechariah also speaks about these things to come in even clearer terms. This is what the Lord promised to his people
through Zechariah, “Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I
will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, O prisoners of
hope.”
Even
though Zechariah lived in Old Testament times, this “blood of the covenant”
that he is speaking about cannot be the blood of the old covenant. Because it has
nothing to do with the commands and the laws that the people promised to
keep. This “blood of the covenant” in
the book of Zechariah has to be the blood of the new covenant, because here the Lord is the one who is doing the
promising. And he promises an amazing
thing through this covenant blood: to free their prisoners from the waterless
pit.
Back in
those times, prisoners of war were apparently held in cone-shaped or bottle-shaped
pits on occasion. And although these
large holes in the ground were probably temporary holding cells, they would be
able to hold multiple captives at one time and were shaped in such a way that
the top opening was significantly narrower than the dirt floor so that the
prisoners could not climb up the sides and escape. The opening would also be covered by a large
rock just to make sure that no one could get out.
And so for
the Israelites to hear that the blood of this covenant was to rescue them as if
they were prisoners in one of these waterless pits must have caught their
attention. Because they weren’t trapped
one of those holes at the moment, they weren’t prisoners of war, they weren’t
in need of any physical rescue; but they were certainly in need of spiritual
rescue. They were still prisoners of
that age-old agreement from Mt. Sinai after all. They were in a pit of guilt with no way out
because they had failed to keep that first covenant. And so these words from their Lord would have
meant something very special to them. Just
like I hope these words mean something very special to us. Because the holes we dig for ourselves each
week require that we need some rescuing too.
Prisoners of Hope
How you
ever tried to keep track of your sins? Try
it sometime - just for a day. It will be
an overwhelming and humbling exercise. Because
you can’t count fast enough! You can’t even
pause long enough to keep a tally! Our
sins continue to add up on us at an alarming rate because we are in a constant
state of imperfection. And so when we
take time to make ourselves aware of our sins we realize quickly that we too
are in some serious need of spiritual rescue.
We too find ourselves as prisoners in a waterless pit of our own making every
day with no way out. And so every day we
should be coming back to the words of our Lord through the prophet Zechariah: “Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from
the waterless pit.” These are the
words of God’s grace. These are the
words of his love. These are the very
words of the Lord’s Supper, aren’t they?
“Take and drink. This is my blood
of the new covenant, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” And because of these words of your Lord,
because of his promise connected with his Supper, you don’t have to keep track
of your sins. You don’t have to tally
them up somehow or audit your life. Because
Jesus’ blood washes your life clean.
Jesus’ blood grabs you and gives you hope. Jesus’ blood frees you from the pit and sends
you to the fortress. “Return to your fortress, O prisoners of
hope” Jesus urges you. Return to
this fortress where he gives you that blood.
Come back to this altar where he offers his love. Rush forward to this stronghold where he
showers you with his forgiveness. Take
and eat: this is his body. Take and
drink: this is his blood. The blood of
the new covenant. The blood that rescues. The blood that saves. Because this blood in the Lord’s Supper is
the very blood of his passion, O prisoners of hope. This is the blood of that he has always promised. Take and drink. It’s the blood of the covenant shed for you. Amen.
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