Exodus 24:1-7: a reflection

1He said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship from a distance. 2Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but they shall not come near. The people shall not go up with him.” 3Moses came and told the people all the LORD’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the LORD has spoken will we do.” 4Moses wrote all the LORD’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to the LORD. 6Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that the LORD has said, and be obedient.”

At Sinai, the covenant between God and Israel is solemnly ratified. Moses reads the book of the covenant aloud, and the people respond, All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient. Then Moses takes the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkles it, half on the altar and half on the people, sealing the covenant in blood. It is a solemn, binding ceremony: God's words read, the people's commitment given, and the whole covenant sealed with sacrificial blood.

Notice the role of the blood. The covenant is not sealed with words alone but with blood, sprinkled on altar and people alike, binding them together in a sacred bond. Blood signified the seriousness, the life-and-death gravity, of the covenant. And this pointed forward: at the Last Supper, Jesus would take a cup and say, This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many. The blood of animals at Sinai foreshadowed the blood of Christ, sealing a new and better covenant.

That gives this ancient ceremony its depth for us. The covenant we live under was sealed not with the blood of bulls and goats but with the blood of Christ himself, poured out for us. The seriousness signified at Sinai is fulfilled at the cross, where God bound himself to us in his own blood. When you come to the Lord's table and hear the blood of the covenant, remember Sinai, and remember that the bond between you and God was sealed at great cost, in his own life. Live as one bound to God in the blood of Christ, in a covenant sealed by his own life poured out for you.

Lord, at Sinai the covenant was sealed not with words alone but with blood sprinkled on altar and people, signifying its life-and-death seriousness, and this pointed forward to the blood of Christ, poured out for many. Thank you that the covenant I live under was sealed at great cost, in the blood of your Son. Help me live as one bound to you in that blood, taking the covenant with the seriousness it deserves. When I come to your table and hear the blood of the covenant, remind me of the love that sealed it. Let me never take lightly a bond secured by his own life poured out for me.