Sacred Promise

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Abraham, blood sacrifice, communion, Corpus Christi, covenant, disciples, Exodus, Last Supper, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is one of remembrance of God’s enduring and evolving covenant with us – from the days of Abraham and then during the Exodus (EX 24:3-8) when Moses related his conversation with God to the Israelites in the desert and they exclaimed, “We will do all that the Lord has told us!” At that time the covenant was sealed by a “blood sacrifice” when half the blood of the animal that had been slain was poured over the altar and half sprinkled on the people. With Christ came a new iteration of covenant which Christians see as the fulfillment of what God and Abraham had promised at the beginning of our salvation history. When Jesus took bread and wine at the Last Supper and said to his friends, “This is my body; this is my blood…Whenever you do this, remember me,” (MK 14: 12-26) he gave us a memorial – a way to remember the love that exists between God and humans – in a way that we could celebrate and which would create the community that would spread that love throughout the world.

Today is the celebration of that covenant, the feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). Lots of wonderful hymns will be sung today, motivating congregations to the remembrance of Christ’s willingness to pour himself out for us, being a model of God’s side of the covenant while also teaching what is possible on the human side. It’s a day to ask ourselves about the level of our own willingness to act as disciples, recognizing the reality that lives in the words we say and sing, according to whatever tradition of the covenant we follow, and living into that reality with all that we are and all that we are becoming.