First Mennonite Church
March 29, 2026
A New Covenant In My Blood
Text: Matthew 26:17-30
Just a couple of weeks ago, we considered the passage in Exodus where Yahweh established his covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, according to Exodus 19. A covenant or testament is the binding agreement between two parties. Therefore, the Old Testament indicates the first covenant God established with Israel. When the Lord gave his commandments to the Israelites, and they replied with one voice, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Later, in chapter 24 when the covenant was confirmed and Moses read the Book of the Covenant to the Israelites, they all replied a second time, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” The Bible said on this occasion, Moses took the blood from the sacrificed oxen, and sprinkled it over the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” In other words, the blood of the oxen sealed and inaugurated the old covenant between the Israelites and the Lord. This ritual of sprinkling blood upon the altar and the people, although rationally inexplicable, yet the essence conveyed that blood is the distinctive element and the guarantor of the agreement. Thus, the covenant was sealed and instituted with the life-sustaining substance—animal blood.
In Deuteronomy, Moses read one last time Yahweh’s covenant with Israel on the plains of Moab, before the Israelites crossed the Jordan River and entered into the Promised Land. There, God made it absolutely clear: “I shall be your God and you shall be my people” Deuteronomy 28 sums it up— if you obey God’s commandments, God will love and bless you. But if you disobey, all the curses that came upon Egypt will come upon you and you will be scattered throughout the face of the earth (Deut. 28:64-68).
The biblical story says that it did not take long before Israel breached the covenant and continued on prompting the Lord God to promise the establishment of a new covenant.
When Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he did something radically unusual during the meal. After declaring that one of those seated at the table will betray him, he took the bread and blessed it, gave it to his disciples and proclaimed: “Take and eat; this is my body.”
(Here is some we should take notice of. It is likely that Jesus during his ministry spoke Aramaic and not Hebrew and much less Greek. But the word “body” is non-existent in Aramaic. The word is both in Hebrew and Greek, but not Aramaic. So, it is likely that what Jesus must have said is something like this: “Take and eat; this is myself.”[1])
Then as he continued to preside over the meal, Jesus took the cup and he gave thanks for it. He, then, gave it to the disciples and said, “This cup is the [new] covenant in my blood” Or as Paul claims to have received the tradition, “This cup is the NEW covenant in my blood. (1 Corinthians 11:25).
As we can see now, God’s two covenants involved blood—the life-sustaining fluid. But unlike its use when the first covenant was established, where Moses only sprinkled the animal blood to seal and enact the agreement between God and Israel, after the Israelites had promised to obey God, Jesus says that his blood of the new covenant is for the forgiveness of sins of many. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the new covenant is not to bind us to love and obey God, whether we want it or not. It is not conditional, that if we love God, he will love and bless us in return. The new covenant in the blood of Jesus is given freely, unconditionally, whether we respond or not. The new covenant in the blood of Jesus means that God’s love becomes a suffering love: a love that suffers if it is not reciprocated. It is a love that suffers if we fail to love in return. By giving us the cup to drink, Jesus is saying that God loves us to the point of “bleeding” for us. As Paul says in part, “If we remain faithless, he remains faithful because God cannot deny himself”
God keeps his part of the covenant whether we keep our part or not. There is nothing that can change the fact that God loves us so much as expressed through the death of his Son on the cross. It is a love that should inspire love. It’s a sacrificial love that should instill concern and regard for one another in the name of Christ. It is a love that, as the apostle John writes, empowers us to love because God has loved us first.
That was the reason the apostle Paul made reference to Jesus last supper when he addressed the internal problems of the church in Corinth as we read in 1Corinthian 11. Some church members were not displaying Christ-like love towards their fellow members. Therefore, Paul warned them: Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup (11:28).
Today, as we anticipate participating in the Lord’s Supper, let us examine our hearts. Are we loving God in response to his sacrificial love? Are we following him wholeheartedly as he gave himself without reservation?
Let us be sure of this, God’s love is greater than our failures and his love covers our sins and transgression. Jesus said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Let us receive God’s forgiveness through Jesus, his Son. Amen!
Pastor Romero
[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, Matthew, Abington Press, Nashville, 1995, p. 471.