Introduction: The Old Testament Explains the Eucharist
The question is, “why do we even want to bother with the Old Testament when we’re doing evangelism?” To answer that, I’d like to start with a key verse of Scripture, Luke 22:20: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Let’s ponder that verse.
As Catholic Christians, we know that the source and the summit of our Christian life is the Eucharist. What are we trying to do in evangelism? We are trying to invite people into a Eucharistic relationship with Christ. That being the case, then we need to really ponder what the Scriptures say about the Eucharist. Our Lord, when He celebrates the first Eucharist, identifies it as the “new covenant.” At Mass, when we celebrate the Eucharist, we add another adjective in there from the prophets, and we say “this is the new and eternal covenant.” “New” implies that there were old ones and “eternal” implies that the old ones are temporary. If we really want to understand the Eucharist, which we claim is the source and the summit of our Faith, then we have to understand the old and temporary covenants that went before it in order to understand and appreciate why the new and eternal one is so great!
If we want to understand the new and eternal covenant as well as to understand the old and temporary ones that preceded it, then we need to begin with a definition of what a covenant is. The shortest definition I’ve ever found is this: “A covenant is the extension of kinship by oath. In other words, it’s a way of swearing someone into your family. Oftentimes, covenants, both in ancient times as well as modern, are made through rituals and some of the rituals often included in covenant making are meals and blood rites. Why is that? Well, that’s family symbolism. Families eat together and that’s why we frequently find meals being used as covenant-making events. Likewise, blood symbolizes family ties and as we move through Scripture, you’re going to notice this common theme of blood being used to form a covenant.
Of course, when we celebrate the Eucharist, that’s both a meal and a blood ritual. We come forward and we share a meal with God and God gives us His body and blood to consume, which makes us His body and blood, which, in other words, establishes divine kinship. 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 covenants lead to God’s last and perfect covenant, His last and perfect effort to make us His family by quite literally giving us His body, blood and His Spirit in the Eucharist. So, that’s what we’re going to discuss in this lesson. At this point, let’s jump into the story.
I’d like to say a few words about how covenants relate to evangelism. As evangelists, we’re trying to invite people into a family relationship with God the Creator. We’re not trying to attract them to a new life philosophy or a self-help program or some “raising of their consciousness.” No, it’s inviting them into a family relationship with God and this God is the Creator. No other religion or philosophy does this.
As Christians, we tend to have a kind of naïve optimism or a kind of a sanguine view of other religions. We tend to export our own religious values onto other religions and think that they are like us. But this is not the case. That’s particularly so with the issue of a family relationship with God. For example, Islam regards divine childhood or claiming that you are a son or a daughter of God, part of God’s family, that is regarded as blasphemy. It is a dogma in Islam that Allah has no children. In Judaism, the language of divine family or divine childhood is regarded as a metaphor, but not a reality. As Catholic Christians, it is very important that we know that we are not talking about a metaphor. We really believe that we and others are transformed in our nature by the Sacraments and elevated to become children of God.
Another major world religion, Buddhism, simply regards Divine Childhood as nonsense because Buddhism doesn’t even have a strong theology. This is a little-known fact, but you don’t need to believe in a God to be a Buddhist. To speak about divine childhood in such a context, it really doesn’t make sense.
It’s important as evangelists that we realize that we are, in a sense, not competing with other world religions because they are offering a different product. They are offering 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, but we have rejected Him. 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 “covenant.” Covenant is this way of bringing people who are not your family members into your 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. That’s what we’re trying to do as evangelists: bring people into the family of God.