Today’s question is a basic one we need to ponder in our hearts. The superficial answer is easy. However, living out this response is more difficult. My question is this: What is a Covenant? The standard response is: a covenant is an agreement between God and God’s people in which God said: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”
During Lent, we hear a lot about this Covenant – especially if we’ve been listening to the Old Testament readings for the first three weeks of Lent. These readings have focused on the Lord God’s Covenant with the Israelites. In the First Reading for the First Sunday of Lent, we heard about the Covenant God made with Noah and with every living creature when the Lord God said: “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark.”
Last week, on the Second Sunday of Lent, we heard about the renewal of this Covenant with Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. We heard about Abraham’s faith that God would fulfill his word and make Abraham’s descendants … “as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing – all this because you obeyed my command.”
Today, on this Third Sunday of Lent, we hear God’s renewal of this Covenant as he gave specific Commandments to Moses. In ten statements, God outlined the laws to govern the relationship of the Israelites with their God – and with one another. The first three commandments focus on the relationship between God and God’s people.
● The Lord God is to be their only God.
● The name of their Lord God is most sacred; it is not to be taken lightly.
● Furthermore, the Israelites are to honor the Lord God on the Seventh Day of the week by avoiding all secular work and worshiping only Him.
The seven remaining commandments tell the Israelites how to relate with one another. To begin with, they are to honor their parents who gave them life. The following six commandments address interactions they should not do:
● They should not kill, commit adultery, steal or bear false witness against a neighbor.
● They should not covet their neighbor’s property or possessions – including wives, slaves and animals.
These Ten Commandments were so important that the Israelites carried the stone tablets on which they were inscribed everywhere they went – even into battle. This Covenant was an important foundation for their Exodus and for the founding of their kingdom on earth.
But throughout the years, the Israelites did – on occasion – try to break their Covenant agreement. At times, they disregarded the teachings found in the Torah, the Law, the Way of the Lord God. However, each time they wandered from the Covenant, God sent one of the prophets to lead them back. This is why the Lord God sent to them men such as Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isaiah.
At the urging of their priests and prophets, the Jews rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem that originally held the stone tablets of the Covenant and which, later, became the site of the Holy of Holies – the mercy seat where God was to be found on earth. It is here they offered holocausts to seek the blessings of the Lord God.
In today’s Gospel we hear more about this Temple in Jerusalem. It was here Jews from all around the Mediterranean world returned to offer their animal sacrifices to the Lord God – just as Abraham and Moses had offered them centuries before. They arrived from everywhere with the foreign coins they needed to purchase animals for their holocausts. However, the coins they carried bore the likeness of foreign gods and were deemed to be “unclean.” These pilgrims needed to exchange these “unclean” coins for “clean” shekels in order to purchase the animals to be sacrificed.
Over the years, this simple exchange of coins for the purpose of buying animals for sacrifice became corrupted. It seems the money changers two thousand years ago were subject to the same desires as those found with some modern money changers. These ancient bankers tried to make money by defrauding their clients. (It appears some things never change.) Seeing this, Jesus became angry that his Father’s house – the Temple where the Covenant was to be honored – became a mere marketplace. We heard how he drove out the moneychangers and their corrupt colleagues from the Temple so it would no longer be a mere marketplace, but the house of God.
When other Jews became angry with his actions and questioned whether he was attempting to destroy their Temple, he responded that the destruction of a physical temple – which had taken almost five decades to build – was not important. In its place, a new temple would arise – the temple of his own body. A temple of the Body of Christ.
Their Covenant with the Lord God would no longer be confined to a physical temple in Jerusalem – not to a single place which once housed the Ten Commandments. Now, a New Covenant was being made, not in the blood of sheep and oxen, but rather in the blood he would pour out for them from his own body.
By driving out the moneychangers, Jesus seems to be saying no longer is there to be an economic exchange of money for animal sacrifices in order to obtain God’s blessings. Rather, God’s gifts are freely given through His love and through the once and only sacrifice His son makes on our behalf. Complete atonement comes in the New Covenant made through his own suffering, death and resurrection.
In a few weeks, we will celebrate the beginning of this New Covenant during the Triduum – the three-day remembrance of the Last Supper Jesus ate with his disciples and of the horrific two days which followed – until that morning he returned to them from an empty tomb.
A few minutes ago, I began by asking the question: What is a Covenant? I also said the answer was an easy one to make with our lips. It is a more difficult one to respond with our hearts. In order to live out our response, we must remember that each day – at each Mass – we celebrate this New Covenant made between God and all of God’s people. Every day, and at every Mass, we deepen our understanding of this New Covenant made by our Lord God with all of us. Each time we consume our consecrated bread and wine we take part in this Covenant which was begun with Noah, renewed through Abraham and Moses and finalized through Jesus the Christ. With each Eucharistic celebration, we once again become part of this agreement, this Covenant which promises that God is our only God and we are his people, the sheep of his flock.
Third Sunday of Lent; March 15, 2009
Ex 20:1-17; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25