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.
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