Luke 22:20
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
A number of years ago I spent two summers with short term mission teams in Bolivia, South America. The trips were designed around sports evangelism, using basketball as a vehicle to communicate the gospel, and were run through an organization led by a missionary named Paul Johnson. Paul was an amazing guy. The son of missionary parents, Paul was raised in the jungles of the Amazon basin alongside the indigenous tribes of Indians that his parents served. He told stories of learning to hunt monkeys with bows and arrows; of killing and skinning giant Anaconda snakes; of fishing at midnight on the Amazon and having flying fish actually leap into his dugout canoe. By the time he was a teenager he could slaughter and gut a tapir (a large hoofed animal resembling a cross between a pig and a cow) by himself and bring the usable meat back home. Like I said, Paul was an amazing guy.
But we eventually discovered there was one thing Paul could not do. He could not tolerate the sight of his own blood. One night we were playing a basketball game in a small village and, although Paul was not a basketball player, he played a bit in this particular game. Late in the game he took an elbow to the nose and when he reached his hand to his face and saw the blood, he said to my brother, “Catch me, Joe,” and immediately fainted. When he came to, Paul explained that while blood, in general, did not bother him, the sight of his own blood always caused him to faint dead away. He had no idea why.
Most of us, if we are honest, are at least a little freaked out by blood. We might not faint but my guess is, unless you are a trained medical professional, the sight of blood makes you at least a little uncomfortable. So it stands to reason that we might find it a bit disconcerting that blood plays such a big role in the story of the cross; and is, in fact, central to the story of salvation.
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” Luke 22:20
The Bible is a pretty bloody place. The Old Testament in particular is filled with bloody battles, with blood spilled in murder, and blood offered in sacrifice. When Jesus refers to the “new covenant” he is assuming his disciples understand very well the original covenant established by God in the Old Testament. In Exodus 24, after God has given Moses the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), we read:
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Exodus 24:8
The “old covenant” was established and sealed by the blood of animals offered to God in sacrifice. These sacrifices were offered over and over again to atone for the sins of the people. But when Jesus speaks of the “new covenant in my blood” he is talking about the same covenant but with a new sacrifice. He is talking about his own blood, offered as the final sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world.
The writer of Hebrews says of Christ:
He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:12
But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Hebrews 10:12
As we have mentioned over the past couple of weeks, the cross was an instrument of torture and death. Crucifixion, as a form of capital punishment, was a bloody process. As those living in our modern and supposedly more civilized world, we can scarcely imagine the brutality and bloodshed of the cross.
Jesus hints at such when he says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
“Poured out,” he says.
Poured out; as in poured out from the nail wounds in his hands and feet; as in poured out from the dozens of punctures in his scalp and forehead from the wicked crown shoved onto his brow; as in poured out from his nose and mouth from the beating administered the night before; as in poured out from the mutilated flesh on his back due to the scourging; and finally, as in poured out from the gaping wound in his side.
“Poured out,” he said, “for you.” This is the gospel of the cross. This is the gospel of blood.
Brian Coffey
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