New Covenant

Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

In Jeremiah 31-33 we read: See, days are coming—oracle of the LORD—when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke my covenant, though I was their master—oracle of the LORD. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days—oracle of the LORD. I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Jeremiah refers to a new covenant with the old covenant being the one broken by the Jews’ ancestors.  Their sacrifices involved blood and its sprinkling or splashing on altars or on people.  

Jesus’s sacrifice is quite different.  Instead of blood being splashed on us, exteriorly, we take that blood within us.  It’s the Eucharist we receive internally. Big difference. 

If properly received and understood, Jesus’s law (commandments) is/are within us and written upon our hearts. We become his people.  Each and every day that’s a new covenant in Jesus's blood we must not break.  

Deacon David Pierce