God joins His life to ours – Exod 24:3-8, Mark 14:12-26

Corpus Christi, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I don’t know what you all think, but, the sprinkling rite that we do for some Masses during the Easter season, where the people get sprinkled with holy water… I think it’s kind of fun. That’s really why it’s assigned for Easter Sunday and an option for the other Sundays of the Easter season, because it’s kind of a joyful thing to do. It’s also a beautiful way of showing how God’s blessing is distributed with a divine playfulness. On the rare occasions we use incense, when the grains of incense are blessed and then vaporized and the vapor fills the whole space, whilst at the same time being more closely directed to certain iconic parts of our space, like the altar and the paschal candle, that’s a beautiful way too of showing how God’s blessing fills every space. I like these different physical symbols of how God’s blessing spreads, but I’m not sure, however, quite how I’d do with all of this sprinkling of blood that Moses was doing in the rite that made up our first reading.  I’m not sure how well we’d do at retaining sacristans or cleaners either, if we did all of that.  If the priesthood of the new covenant had inherited from the old the need to sacrifice young bulls… well, I don’t think I’d do very well at that either.  Praying with these readings, preparing to preach tonight, the thought did come to me, that was momentarily relieving: well, that’s not the question by which priesthood (either the ordained or the baptismal priesthood) is measured: “how good are you at sacrificing bulls?”  The question – which is actually much harder – is, “How good are you at sacrificing yourself?”  And that wasn’t immediately relieving, because the first answer that floated to my mind was: “honestly, not very.”  But, then I heard a deeper answer resounding: “but Christ is.”

Let me back up, and go back to that rite Moses led the people through. God had led them out of slavery in Egypt, and they had camped at Sinai.  God had given, and they had received, the Ten Commandments, and Moses prepares to ratify the covenant, the radical commitment wherein God commits to be their God and the people commit to be God’s people.  He builds an altar, just as has been done here for us.  He proclaims the word of God, just as has been done for us here, and the people respond with gratitude, “Thanks be to God!”  “Alleluia!”  “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ,” we say.  The bulls are sacrificed, the blood collected and splashed on the altar, representing God, and the people.  Blood: the symbol of life.  In ritual, God through Moses confirmed that their life would be forever connected most intimately with His.  God joined himself to them as blood-brothers.  He threw his lot in with theirs. And to celebrate, immediately afterwards, Moses and seventy of the elders go up the mountain, see God, and celebrate a feast.

Now, he goes even further.  He has done more than throw his lot in with ours, joining our lives; he has given us his life.  We are joined not by the blood of bulls, but by his own blood.  Christ, our Passover, both priest and victim, is sacrificed!  Jesus has his disciples prepare for him a place to celebrate Passover with them.  Passover: that great Jewish feast in which, in a meal, God’s saving action, leading his people out of slavery in Egypt, is recalled and made present for them anew.  Preparing for this feast is much simpler than building an altar as Moses did, but in this last preparation, Jesus shows his disciples his sovereignty, his providence. He gives them a role to play in celebrating this Last Supper, just as he gives each us a role too in the Mass.  And the strange instructions he gives them aren’t some showy trick, but a way to remind them that he is still in control, as in control then as he will be when he allows himself to be handed over for sake of our salvation.  He gives these strange predictions and provisions not to impress them, but to reassure them that the crucifixion is not failure on Jesus’ part: he’s in control, it’s his will, to give himself in this way.

But before the cross, at supper, he makes the table his altar.  He proclaims his death, and in doing so proclaims his resurrection.  He promises a future banquet when all will celebrate with new wine, and he proclaims his presence now, while we await that fullness, in the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine.  He promises to remain present to us in consenting to be broken for us, that we who like those first disciples scatter, might be made whole.  He promises to remain present to us in feeding us, that we who hunger might be built up.  He promises union: his blood coursing through our veins, enlivening body and soul alike.

And we become what we receive.  Here, at this twofold table of the Lord’s Word and the Lord’s Supper, we are fed with precisely what we need to receive to live out the gift of life that Christ laid down for us.  That self-sacrificial love that he showed perfectly and we long to live out, while we still find it within us to hold back… that love feeds us that we might become what we receive.