This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?" And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him. Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" ' Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared; there make ready for us." So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover.

In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me." And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, "Is it I? And another said, "Is it I?" He answered and said to them, "It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born." And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat, this is My body." Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

- Mark 14:12-26

It is now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Jesus and the disciples are in Jerusalem. In yesterday's reading, Jesus was in Bethany, and a woman came to Him and broke an alabaster jar of expensive perfumed oil. She anointed Him with the oil. Some of the apostles criticized her: the oil could have been sold and the money distributed to the poor. But Jesus told them to leave her alone. What she had done was done from love, for the day of His burial, and she has done what she could. The poor would always be with them to do good things for, but He will not be with them always. He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her." After that, we are told, Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests to plot to betray Jesus.

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?" And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him. Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" ' Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared; there make ready for us." So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover. Just as when Jesus entered into Jerusalem (and told His disciples about the colt He would ride), Jesus again shows His deity and awareness of details for the provision of these momentous dates. He is aware of what will happen, even how the man with the pitcher of water will respond. On this day (14 Nisan in the Hebrew calendar system), the Passover lambs were slaughtered at noon. After sunset -- when the date is officially 15 Nisan, as sunset is the start of the next day -- Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread begin. The disciples need a place to commemorate, and Jesus' awareness extends to this upper room. My study bible says, "As with the colt, so with the upper room. Jesus is not presumptuous in the use of the room. It was a gift to the man to have the Son of God use it and thus forever set it apart as holy. Whatever gifts God asks of us today are similarly sanctified."

In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me." And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, "Is it I? And another said, "Is it I?" He answered and said to them, "It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born." Jesus again displays His divinity in His knowledge and understanding of what is happening. As the day of His death comes closer, He reveals Himself more deeply to His disciples, even in His omniscience. This would include His teachings about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the time of the end of the age (see the readings from Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday). But here we receive even more detail. My study bible has an important note about the betrayal: "Jesus says this not in deprecation of this man, His own creation, but in deprecation of that man's choice and rashness. For it was the rashness of Judas's own will that made the Creator's gift of goodness useless to him. Divine foreknowledge of the betrayal takes away neither Judas's moral freedom nor his accountability. For God all things are a present reality; He foresees all human actions, but does not cause them." We must also remember, I believe, Jesus' words about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In a sense, Judas's betrayal of Jesus is a denial of the Holy at work in Him and in the signs He has made; it is a denial and betrayal of the work of God in the world.

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat, this is My body." Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. But even in the midst of the time of Jesus' betrayal, He forges a new covenant with all of us. His sacrifice, His death, will serve to create a new bond between Creator and creature. Nothing, in the holy and divine economy of God, is ever wasted -- even every moment of betrayal and death. Jesus' great sacrifice, their tremendous loss, will serve as the blood of a new covenant for each of us. This sacramental view of life will serve every person who follows Christ, and it is the power of God that creates life even from death. My study bible says, "This Passover meal is the first Eucharist, the heart of Christian worship, which celebrates the New Covenant and sacramental union with Christ."

So, Jesus leaves them and us with this powerful "sacramental union." His willing submission to the evil in this world, the great betrayal by one of His own, becomes the launch, if you will, of a New Covenant for all of us. Betrayal becomes the step by which God will use His life in the world in order to bring about a closer union with us. How is this possible? The power of God at work makes it so, even as He blesses the sacrament Himself. It is a great and tremendous act of love, assuring us that when we take that sacrament so we also share in His body and blood, becoming closer, in greater union, with Him. His betrayal becomes an occasion of deeper relatedness to us, a New Covenant. How can we reciprocate that love but by giving ourselves and our whole lives to Him? In this sacrament, He lives in us and we live in Him. In the great mystery of His sacrifice, let us remember His great love, and that while we don't always understand the ways of God, so we must trust that love and its power at work in us. Have you suffered betrayals and unjust sacrifices in your life? Let Him teach us how to bear them together, in this covenant, as sacrament -- and go forward together, in deeper and deeper relationship. Forgiveness, we remember, is an act of letting go to God, as Jesus did. So we can do the same with the trials -- betrayals, suffering, and unjust sacrifice -- that we bear in life. In the depth of this way, in His New Covenant, Jesus invites us to bear our crosses together with Him and to share in the new life He makes possible for us.