Jesus is something different. He represents the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant. In him, we do not have a situation where we need to emphasize the day after day sacrifice. Rather, Jesus gave the one sacrifice for our sins that we participate in every time we go to Mass. Readings for Today.
Jesus is something different indeed
Jesus is something different indeed. Everything changes because of Jesus. In fact, what we see is a fulfillment of what had been happening for some time.
You know, the Council of Trent spent a fair amount of time trying to really articulate what the church had longed believed about the Eucharist, about our celebration. The Reformers challenged the view of the church that Mass was also a sacrifice. Their concern was that if we were sacrificing, if Jesus was being sacrificed, he was being sacrificed over and over and over again, which could not be true because of the book of the Hebrews that we read today.
But that was never what the church taught about the sacrifice of Jesus. Sacrifices had a really important role in the worship of the Jewish people. They sacrificed all over the place, really, ultimately building a temple for sacrifice, and the people of Jesus’ day also sacrificed. It was a way of making an offering to God for their desire for faith.
But the book of the Hebrews today tells us something different about Jesus. It tells us, first of all, how qualitatively different Jesus is than the sacrifices of old. The high priest, who changed each year, had to offer sacrifices day and day and day again because the sacrifices, while what God intended for the Jewish people, were not sufficient to be eternal. They were for a period of time for a variety of reasons.
But the letter to the Hebrews tells us that the ministry of Jesus is a more excellent one. He doesn’t need to offer sacrifice day after day because in his life, death, and resurrection, he offered the one sacrifice on the cross, which is eternal. It saves us from our sins.
The solution, not so much the solution, but the explanation from the Council of Trent is that the sacrifice of Christ was one sacrifice for all. That it was not the case that the church sacrificed again and again Jesus, which on some level might even have been a little cruel. Rather, the one sacrifice of Jesus was totally sufficient. It was completely fulfilling. And it is eternal.
Sometimes, though, I think we can get caught up in identifying with the ministry of Jesus on earth, which was miraculous in very many ways, but identifying with only the human Jesus, so that we forget just how dramatic was the incarnation in our lives and how tremendous is the total and complete sacrifice of Jesus in our own lives. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. And because of that, we enjoy eternal life.
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