Sunday, June 6, 2021
If you’ve spent any time around the ocean, you’ll know that anything that hangs around in the water for very long sooner or later gets encrusted with barnacles: little sea creatures that build themselves tiny shell castles out of calcite. It’s not only the sea that does this: just about everything that hangs around long enough gathers accretions. Even people can become “moldy oldies.” Our beliefs are not immune. It seems that the more that people try to explain their beliefs, the less understandable they become. That certainly is true of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as well as the sacrifice of the Mass. On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we can take this opportunity to scrape away some of the barnacles.
Here’s what many of us learned from Sister Mary of the Tabernacle with the Door Half-open in catechism class. The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. They did something they were told not to do, and God became so angry that he punished them—and all human beings after them—by throwing them out of paradise and letting them die. People tried to appease God by sacrificing animals, but God wasn’t satisfied. So, finally, God sent his Son to be sacrificed on the cross to atone for our sins and to appease the angry God. God was satisfied, and let us back into heaven, but we have to continue Jesus’s sacrifice in the Mass, so God stays satisfied. Of course, if we disobey again, God’ll send us to hell. If that’s what we believe, it’s no wonder so many people turn away from that vengeful and brutal god.
The reality of our Christian faith is much different. It’s a lot harder to understand than that simplistic story told to us when we were seven or eight years old. It’s challenging even for spiritually mature adults to grasp. Yet, the real story is spelled out for us in the three readings chosen for us today.
Let’s begin with the first reading. Moses brings the commandments he was given on Mount Sinai down to the people. He presents to them the offer of a covenant—similar to marriage or adoption—between them and their God. The terms of the covenant are simple: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” Attached to the covenant is a promise: “I will give you a home for all eternity.” There are also stipulations: “If you want a relationship with me and to receive my promises, here are the things you must do.” Moses presents to the people the commandments of the Law. The people listen and give their assent: “All that Yahweh has said, we will heed and do.” What happens next? Moses offers young bulls in sacrifice to God as a peace offering. He gathers their blood, which for the Israelites, is their life, and he pours half of it on the altar as a symbol of Yahweh, and he splashes the other half on the people. God and the people become “blood brothers” of the covenant—so long as the people uphold their end of the bargain. But, of course, they don’t.
The center of worship in Israel from that moment on is the Ark of the Covenant. It’s a wooden box in which the tablets of the Law are kept as a witness to the people’s covenantal agreement with God. On top of the Ark is the golden cherubim throne where the Presence of Yahweh manifested itself. The Ark was so sacred that is was preserved in the innermost recess of the sanctuary: first, the meeting tent—the tabernacle, then, after King Solomon, in the Holy of Holies of the temple. No one was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies except the high priest and then only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. By disobedience to the Law and breaking the commandments, the people had broken the covenant—and their relationship to Yahweh present on the Ark in the temple. They had defiled it by their actions. So, on the Day of Atonement, the consecration of the people that Moses had performed at Sinai was repeated. Bulls were sacrificed and the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies with the blood. First, he sprinkled the cherubim throne to consecrate it, then, he sprinkled the Ark, then he came out and sprinkled the altar of sacrifice and the walls of the temple, and finally, he sprinkled the people. Once again, the covenant was renewed, the temple and the people purified, their relationship with God and their eligibility to receive his promises was restored.
If we understand all that, then we’re in a position to re-read the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews we read today. The author ties Jesus’s death on Calvary to Moses’s sacrifice that ratified the covenant as well as to the renewal of that covenant every year on the Day of Atonement. The Ark of the Covenant and the temple are but symbols of God’s presence. In Jesus’s time, the Ark was long lost, and the Holy of Holies was empty. In Jesus, and his offering of himself to the Father, God’s Presence with his people is realized. Heaven is wedded to earth. A new and eternal covenant is established once and for all, and God’s promise of eternal life is fulfilled. The Ark of the Covenant, the throne of God, and the temple that housed them are moved from a place and a building to within each one of us. We can hear the words of Saint Paul ringing in our ears: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
So, what of the Body and Blood of Christ given to us at the Last Supper? Far from a sacrifice to appease and angry God, the eucharist is our participation in that new covenant that Christ ratified for us in his death and resurrection. It is our union with him—crucified and risen, our union with the Father through his Holy Spirit, and our union with one another.
Today, we adore the Body and Blood of Christ because it is both the symbol and the reality of the divine life we share. It is God’s Presence confirmed, God’s promise fulfilled. It is our redemption from separation and isolation, our life as one people, one church, one mystical Body, and our hope, freed from fear and freed from death.