2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Psalm 126:1-2ab.2cd-3.4-5.6 (R. see 5)
Matthew 20:20-28
Drinking the Chalice
As Christians we believe that through Jesus' death on the Cross we are saved. Without the Cross, all the Sacraments become useless. All the seven Sacraments are made possible because of his death on the Cross and his resurrection from death. Through the Cross and his death he is the Lord of life.
Luke 22:20
He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you.
The new testament is his blood, poured out for us, for our Salvation. The unbloody Thanksgiving sacrifice at the upper room on Holy Thursday transforms the bloody sacrifice on Good Friday. The violence of Good Friday was transform by Love on Holy Thursday. Death was conquered by Love which is eternal. So without what he did in the upper room on Holy Thursday, what happened on Good Friday will have made no sense to the Apostles and us.
Anticipating his death, he gives himself to us, therefore synthesizing the two greatest commandments of Loving God (cf. Deuteronomy6:5) and Loving Neighbors (cf. Leviticus19:18). Anticipating his death he fulfills the Old Covenant with Love.
In the Old covenant, when the covenant was been established, the blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the Israelites.
Exodus 24:8
Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it over the people, saying, 'This is the blood of the covenant which Yahweh has made with you, entailing all these stipulations.'
While the blood of the covenant was given to be sprinkled on the Israelites in the old covenant, it was given to us to drink as the blood of new covenant. The blood of the new covenant as a combination of what we hear of in Exodus 24:8, and Passover meal where the blood at their door prevented them from death, we find a union, a communion or a Love story.
So just as Moses changed water into blood, and is through the blood of Jesus that we a washed from our sins, Jesus changed water into wine during the wedding feast at Cana, and completed the Love story when he turned the wine into his own blood for us in the upper room and finally on the Cross. The Chalice contains Love. Thus the blood of Love invites us to respond to God's Love by drinking.
Why we don't sprinkle the blood of the covenant on us but drink is because, the covenant is about a love relationship and is obvious that love is between two hearts and the hearts is not on the body but in the body. We drink the cup of love to overcome that which comes from our hearts that defile us. We drink so that God helps us overcome evil intentions.
Matthew 15:18- 19 But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and it is this that makes someone unclean. |
For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander. |
Today as Jesus tells the sons of Zebedee that they will drink his Chalice, drinking together from the same cup, he invites them to communion. As he invites them to participate in his loving sacrifice, he invites them to assimilate the Violence of this world into their own flesh like he did. He invites them to let Love absorb and transform the evil or pains of the world. The Lord through the Cross is always victorious. He invites us to love unconditionally no matter whatever Persecution we may face because we stand for life, truth, justice and the like, especially love.
Today as we celebrate the feast of the First Apostle who was martyred for his love for the Truth, it reminds us of what the world needs. The world needs the physicality of Love and not an abstract Love. The world needs the love we can see, hear, touch, and smell so that we can accept, understand, and appreciate God. This is the mandate God has given you and me who drink from his cup, to make his love visible on earth, eschewing all evil intentions in our hearts.
The world needs the God who took flesh, and pitched his tent among us (cf. John 1:14). The world needs the God who loves them to the end(cf. John 13:1), even laying down his life for the love he has for us(cf.John 15: 13). The world needs a God who like the blood at the door during the passover event, will protect us from death.
The word of God is our food, our drink. So the world needs the God who gave himself to us in the form of bread and wine, the food for our souls, which is not like the food which when we eat transform to us, but the spiritual food that transforms us to God who is Spirit, so that, true worshipers worship God in truth and in spirit ( cf. John 4:23).
The God the world seeks will be made visible to the world if you and I really drink the Chalice, the blood of the new covenant he has given to us. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us" (2 Corinthians 4:7) . Let's serve the world for the greater glory of God [Ad maiorem Dei gloriam(AMDG)]. LOVE.
BySylvester Amakye-Quayson
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