The Blood of the Covenant (Corpus Christi Sunday)

Click here for this Sunday’s Old Testament readings

After their escape from Egypt, the second half of Exodus recounts how God established the Mosaic Covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. The Old Testament reading concludes a section where the Israelites receive their first set of laws, and undergo a sacrificial ceremony where they vow uphold all of the laws that God has enjoined on them.

As part of this ceremony, oxen were sacrificed as peace offerings. Moses took the blood of these oxen and sprinkled the people with it. This served to remind the people that they owed their entire lives to God. It is therefore fitting that they give back to Him a part of what He has given them by sacrifice.

There was more to this ceremony, however. The sprinkling of the blood also sacramentally bound the people to God. From that point forward, they were part of the Mosaic Covenant, and all of the promised blessings and curses attached to it were applied to them. If they obey, God will provide abundantly to them, but if they disobey, God will make them like the animals they have slaughtered, as the prophet Jeremiah declares: “And those who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make like the calf when they cut it in two and passed between its parts” (Jeremiah 34:18).

In the New Testament, the author of Hebrews looks back at this ceremony and notes how in the Old Covenant, nearly everything was purified with blood, and how without the shedding of blood, there was no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). The rest of Hebrews 9-10 explains how the Mosaic Covenant was merely provisional, and was always meant to point forward to something greater than itself. In particular, it pointed forward to the New Covenant, which was inaugurated through the blood of Christ.

Thus, every bloody sacrifice that we read of in the Old Testament serves as a type that pointed towards Him. His sacrifice cleanses us of our sins and brings us into the New Covenant, and in the Eucharist, that same sacrifice and its benefits are mystically made present once again. As we commemorate the Feast of Corpus Christi, we can look back at these Old Testament stories and see how God was preparing to bring this to us all along.

J. Luis Dizon