Introductory Story
Craig grew up as a Southern Baptist and did not know about Catholic sacramental theology. Baptism and communion were merely symbols, not salvific in any way. They were just things that Christians “had to do” in order to obey Jesus who commanded that these things be done. They had no real purpose or meaning other than to obey Jesus and symbolize our salvation and communion with Him.
As an adult in college, Craig every so often would attend a “praise and worship” type of Protestant service. During such visits, he noted that there was a lot of talk about various “covenants” revealed in the Old Testament, leading up to a new covenant in the New Testament. In order to confirm what he was learning and to learn more, Craig asked various pastors about covenants.
They explained to him that a covenant was a legal binding contract between God and us. It was not unlike a contract between two people, for example, in the purchase of a car. The cost is agreed upon, the terms of the sale, monies are exchanged and a contract is formed. The difference, however, is that a contract with God was more important than one made with a fellow human being. God was the banker, the one holding the note (so to speak) so we had to take it more seriously than man-made covenants. Craig held to this idea for many years.
Later, after a profound encounter with God that changed his life, Craig was led to the Catholic Church. As he began to look at her theology, he noticed that the Church held a very different understanding of covenant, and it was connected to their more robust understanding of sacraments. He read that for Catholics, a covenant was much more than a contractual obligation — it was a family-making ritual. And the new covenant in Christ, for its part, established a real, transformative bond — a true family relationship between God and man. As he continued to study, what he found “blew his mind”: that Baptism replacing circumcision was not merely one symbol replacing another, but was actually a greater covenant-bond coming into existence — a transformative, saving encounter with the mystery of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Baptism actually placed a spiritual imprint upon our souls, marking us as members of God’s family on a supernatural level. This understanding was so far beyond the “Jesus said to perform this ritual” interpretation. Craig could hardly believe what he was reading.
The revelations did not stop there. As Craig continued to study, he read about the Holy Eucharist. His mind now being opened to a sacramental understanding of the Gospel and of covenants, he could see plainly now that the Eucharist was an actual participation in the Body of Christ in a very real and even metaphysical way. This view was so much more than the once-a-year grape juice and bread service that Craig knew. Partaking in the Eucharist, he learned, actually makes us more like Jesus Christ as we feed upon His true Body and Blood.
After coming to these realizations, Craig was able to attend a Catholic Mass. The ritual, in his words, was like “a beautiful pageantry befitting to the dignity of what the Eucharist is.” The liturgy itself was, when done in accordance with the mind of the Church, a re-affirmation of what Christ said of the Eucharist, a renewed participation in that very moment in time of the Eucharist’s institution nearly 2000 years ago in the upper room, and in the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
Craig was convinced that what he had learned made much better sense of the Sacred Scriptures than what he had been taught as a Protestant. He wanted to participate fully in these divine realities himself, and so he joined RCIA and became Catholic.
The Old Testament Covenants Shed Light on the Eucharist
One might ask, “What does the Old Testament have to do with evangelization?” One way to answer that question is to think about covenants. Consider the institution of the Eucharist in the Gospel According to Luke. In chapter 22, verse 20, Jesus declares, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
As Catholics, we know that the source and the summit of the Christian life is the Eucharist.[1] Evangelization, then, involves inviting people into a Eucharistic relationship with Christ. Our Lord, when He celebrated the first Eucharist, identified it as the “new covenant.” At Mass, the celebration of the Eucharist, another adjective is added in there from the prophets: “eternal,” as in “the eternal covenant.” A “new” Covenant implies that there were old ones and an “eternal” covenant implies that the old ones are, in some sense, temporary. To understand the Eucharistic Covenant, we must understand the old and temporary covenants that went before it. Evangelization, then, can make reference to the Old Testament — in particular to the various covenants — to help people understand the deeper meaning of the Eucharist, the New Covenant, and the Gospel kerygma.
What is a Covenant?
To understand the new and eternal covenant as well as the covenants that preceded it, one must begin with a definition of what a covenant is. A short and very helpful definition is this: “A covenant is the extension of kinship by oath.”[2] In other words, it’s a way of swearing someone into your family. Covenants, both in ancient times as well as modern, are made through rituals. Common covenant-making rituals are meals and blood-rites. Both meals and blood invoke family symbolism; for both represent family ties.
Of course, the celebration of the Eucharist is both a meal and a blood ritual. In and through Jesus Christ, Catholics share a meal with God, and God gives us His body and blood to consume, making us His body and blood — His kin. In that light then, the story of Scripture is really the story of God’s attempts to welcome us into His family through covenants. These old covenants lead us towards God’s final covenant, His last and perfect effort to make us His family by quite literally giving us His body, blood, and Spirit in the Eucharist.
Relation to Evangelization
Evangelists, then, invite people into a family relationship with God the Creator. No other religion or philosophy does this. For example, Islam regards as blasphemy the idea of divine childhood or claiming that you are a son or a daughter of God, part of God’s family. It is a dogma in Islam that Allah has no children. In Judaism, the language of divine family or “divine childhood” is regarded more as a metaphor than a reality. As Catholic Christians, it is very important to know that this language is not metaphorical. It is a tenet of our faith that our nature is transformed by the Sacraments. We are elevated to become — in very truth — children of God.
Another major world religion, Buddhism, simply regards such things as nonsense because Buddhism doesn’t have a strong conception of God. This is a little-known fact, but one doesn’t need even to believe in a God to be a Buddhist. The path of Buddhism is really a means to escape the cycles of reincarnation by losing the illusion of selfhood. One can believe in a God or not, but that’s a bit irrelevant to the whole program. To speak about divine childhood or family, in such a context, really misses the point.
It’s important for evangelists to realize that evangelization is not about “competing” with other world religions. The other world religions are offering a different product — a different solution to a different problem. The problem that Christianity, and specifically Catholic Christianity, seeks to address is our alienation from the Creator God who wants to invite us into His family. The path of Catholicism is the path back to experiencing God as a Father and living in perfect peace and in love with Him for eternity. That’s the whole idea behind a covenant. A covenant is a way of bringing people who are not family members into one’s family relationship. That’s what God does for us. We’re not by nature His children but He extends to us a covenant, raises us to the level of His children and invites us into His family. Evangelists attempt to bring people into the family of God — and hence into participation in the family-making ritual of the New Covenant: the Eucharist.
“This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Luke 22:20
[1] Cf. Lumen Gentium 11.
[2] Cf. Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009), 28.