# Drinking the Blood of Christ - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 14 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72754550/drinking_the_blood_of_christ_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends. Now on this fifth Sunday
[0:03] Speaker 1: of Lent, things are intensifying as these marvelous of spiritually
[0:09] Speaker 1: packed readings come to a kind of climax. We're preparing
[0:12] Speaker 1: for Holy Week, and so we're dealing with some of
[0:15] Speaker 1: the most sacred texts in the Great Tradition. Reading one
[0:19] Speaker 1: I want to spend some time with. This is from
[0:21] Speaker 1: the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, and the passage here
[0:24] Speaker 1: is one of the most pivotal in the Old Testament.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Easy to remember by the way, it's Jeremiah thirty one
[0:30] Speaker 1: thirty one and then following, but remember that get your
[0:34] Speaker 1: bibles out, Jeremiah thirty one thirty one. Here's the text.
[0:40] Speaker 1: The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
[0:43] Speaker 1: make a new covenant with the House of Israel and
[0:47] Speaker 1: the House of Judah. Covenant language. It was Saint Irenaeus
[0:53] Speaker 1: long ago said the best way to read the Old
[0:55] Speaker 1: Testament is in terms of the covenants that God makes
[0:59] Speaker 1: with his people. Go back to a kind of covenant
[1:01] Speaker 1: with Adam, a covenant with Noah, covenant with Abraham, a
[1:05] Speaker 1: covenant with Moses, a covenant with David. What are these
[1:08] Speaker 1: covenants not contracts? So much we're like an exchange of goods,
[1:14] Speaker 1: but more like a pledge of life. The basic form
[1:17] Speaker 1: of covenant in the Old Testament is this, I will
[1:21] Speaker 1: be your God and you will be my people. A
[1:25] Speaker 1: covenant means a sort of sharing of life. It's a
[1:30] Speaker 1: pledge of life one to the other, God saying I
[1:34] Speaker 1: will be loyal and faithful to you, Israel saying Lord,
[1:37] Speaker 1: we will be loyal and faithful to you. The heart
[1:41] Speaker 1: of Israelite religion, anyways, is the fact and the struggle
[1:46] Speaker 1: of the covenant, because what do we know now from
[1:49] Speaker 1: even the most cursory reading of the Old Testament, very
[1:52] Speaker 1: often these covenants were violated. Hence, I will make a
[1:58] Speaker 1: new covenant. What Jeremiah is envisioning here is the day when,
[2:04] Speaker 1: in a definitive way, God will establish this relationship permanently
[2:11] Speaker 1: with his people Israel. Now here's something very important to
[2:14] Speaker 1: get when talking about covenants. They are almost invariably ratified
[2:20] Speaker 1: in the Old Testament by blood. So think of Noah.
[2:26] Speaker 1: You know, when God makes the covenant. The rainbow and
[2:28] Speaker 1: the sky is the sign of it, but it's sealed
[2:30] Speaker 1: by a blood sacrifice that Noah makes. Think of Abraham
[2:35] Speaker 1: when he makes his great covenant with the Lord. The
[2:38] Speaker 1: Lord tells him to slice these various animals into Remember
[2:41] Speaker 1: that dramatic scene from the Book of Genesis, and Abraham
[2:46] Speaker 1: passes through the severed sections and then the light of
[2:50] Speaker 1: a torch symbolizing God's presence. They say. The idea was
[2:56] Speaker 1: the person was saying, may this happen to me? What's
[2:59] Speaker 1: happening animals? May this happen to me if I violate
[3:02] Speaker 1: this covenant? But they were sealed in blood. Think of Moses,
[3:08] Speaker 1: you know when the Ten Commandments come and the Sinai Covenant,
[3:11] Speaker 1: how is it sealed? Well, this great sacrifice of animals,
[3:14] Speaker 1: and part of it is splashed on the altar, the
[3:18] Speaker 1: other part is splashed upon the people. What's the idea?
[3:24] Speaker 1: It's the exchange of blood, blood meaning life Israel. Is
[3:30] Speaker 1: it worth shedding its blood on God? God shedding his
[3:34] Speaker 1: blood on Israel? Think of the old you know, becoming
[3:37] Speaker 1: blood brothers. If you cut the wrists and then you
[3:40] Speaker 1: blended the blood of two people, that's the idea. See
[3:45] Speaker 1: so much more than a contract, which is sort of
[3:48] Speaker 1: a legal contrivance, a legal arrangement, a covenant is a
[3:54] Speaker 1: blood bond between God, and His Holy people. And then think,
[4:00] Speaker 1: you know the great covenant with David, which is sealed
[4:05] Speaker 1: by the thousands upon thousands of sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple.
[4:11] Speaker 1: What was that but the pouring out of blood. Same idea,
[4:18] Speaker 1: the one making the sacrifice, saying, may this happen to me,
[4:22] Speaker 1: the death of this animal. May this happen to me
[4:25] Speaker 1: if I break this bond and the blood poured out
[4:29] Speaker 1: symbolizes my life. Blood Lord poured out for you, the
[4:33] Speaker 1: blood then being sprinkled upon the people. Go back now
[4:37] Speaker 1: to the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the
[4:41] Speaker 1: Israelite liturgical calendar, and the high priests that day alone
[4:45] Speaker 1: going into the Holy of Holies, and he would place
[4:48] Speaker 1: the sins of Israel on the scapegoat and send him
[4:50] Speaker 1: out into the desert. But the other animal he would slaughter,
[4:53] Speaker 1: sprinkle the blood around the Holy of Holies, and then
[4:56] Speaker 1: carrying the rest in a bowl, he'd come out and
[5:00] Speaker 1: wrinkled upon the people. Same idea, the people saying, Lord,
[5:04] Speaker 1: we pledge our life to you. That's the sprinkling around
[5:07] Speaker 1: the Holy of Holies. But then as the priest came
[5:10] Speaker 1: out bearing the blood and then sprinkling upon the people.
[5:14] Speaker 1: That's Yahweh, the God of Israel, pouring out his life
[5:20] Speaker 1: upon his chosen people. All right, that's the wonderful, rich,
[5:25] Speaker 1: strange to us, but marvelous Old Testament theology of covenant
[5:32] Speaker 1: blood sacrifice. Now, as I say, one of the sad
[5:38] Speaker 1: marks of the Old Testament story is that the covenant,
[5:43] Speaker 1: though ratified again and again, God making this agreement again
[5:47] Speaker 1: and again with his people, it's typically honored. In the breach,
[5:52] Speaker 1: it's typically violated. So the prophet Jeremiah, who knew about
[6:00] Speaker 1: all the covenants I've just mentioned, knew about that whole
[6:04] Speaker 1: history of Israel. He's standing on the terrible brink of
[6:10] Speaker 1: destruction because the Babylonians are about to come to destroy
[6:14] Speaker 1: the Temple of Jerusalem. But Jeremiah knows the long history
[6:19] Speaker 1: of covenant and of blood sacrifice, and of the attempt
[6:23] Speaker 1: by God's seed to bring his life and his people's
[6:26] Speaker 1: lives together. And he says again, Jeremiah thirty one, thirty one,
[6:31] Speaker 1: The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
[6:34] Speaker 1: make a new covenant with the House of Israel. So
[6:40] Speaker 1: all the old ones he knew about those, something new
[6:44] Speaker 1: is coming. Now, what will be the mark of it.
[6:47] Speaker 1: Listen as he goes on. It will not be like
[6:50] Speaker 1: the covenant I made with their fathers. But this is
[6:54] Speaker 1: the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel.
[6:57] Speaker 1: In those days, I will place my law within them
[7:03] Speaker 1: and write it upon their hearts. I will be their
[7:07] Speaker 1: God and they will be my people. Okay, so the
[7:12] Speaker 1: law God's commands. You know. I'll be a God, you'll
[7:16] Speaker 1: be my people. And here's the way I want you
[7:18] Speaker 1: to live. The law in a way was external to
[7:22] Speaker 1: the people. It was out there, and they were called
[7:24] Speaker 1: upon to abide by it. What's he saying here, the
[7:28] Speaker 1: prophets Jeremiah, The days are coming when I'm going to
[7:32] Speaker 1: make a covenant where the law is not just outside
[7:35] Speaker 1: of you, but the law is inside of you. That
[7:40] Speaker 1: this sharing of blood will become so intense that God
[7:45] Speaker 1: and his people will be melded together. God's Law in
[7:50] Speaker 1: their hearts. Okay. The Church wants us to meditate upon
[7:57] Speaker 1: Jeremiah thirty one thirty one because fast forward about six
[8:02] Speaker 1: centuries from the time of Jeremiah and we come to
[8:06] Speaker 1: a Passover supper hosted by this young rabbi and his
[8:11] Speaker 1: twelve disciples. Passover Supper. Over the passover bread, he says,
[8:22] Speaker 1: this is my body given for you. And then over
[8:28] Speaker 1: that second cup.
[8:31] Speaker 2: He says, this, this is the chalice of my blood,
[8:39] Speaker 2: the blood listen now of the New and eternal Covenant,
[8:44] Speaker 2: which will be poured out for you and for many
[8:47] Speaker 2: for the forgiveness of sins.
[8:49] Speaker 1: Nobody hearing him at that table that night would have
[8:53] Speaker 1: missed the reference. These were intensely biblical people. They wouldn't
[8:58] Speaker 1: have missed the reference to Jared Jeremiah thirty one thirty one?
[9:02] Speaker 1: What's he talking about? The New Covenant that Jeremiah predicts,
[9:09] Speaker 1: this ultimate sharing of blood between God and his Holy people.
[9:16] Speaker 1: So Jesus, this is the chalice of my blood, of
[9:21] Speaker 1: the New and eternal Covenant, poured out for you and
[9:24] Speaker 1: for many for the forgiveness of sin. And He's offering
[9:30] Speaker 1: this blood for them to drink. Moses indeed splashed the
[9:37] Speaker 1: blood on the people. The high priest at Yam Kippur
[9:41] Speaker 1: indeed came out and splashed the blood symbolically on the people.
[9:48] Speaker 1: What's happening here? God himself is offering his life blood
[9:57] Speaker 1: for his people to to take into themselves, to become
[10:06] Speaker 1: their life. What Jesus of Nazareth is saying, here is
[10:12] Speaker 1: Jeremiah thirty one. Thirty one has been fulfilled. And watch
[10:22] Speaker 1: where does the law of God go? Now? As the
[10:26] Speaker 1: Church drinks in the blood of Christ. It's not out
[10:31] Speaker 1: there anymore written on stone tablets. It's not just there
[10:36] Speaker 1: as a moral challenge. Jesus is himself the law of God. Right,
[10:45] Speaker 1: Jesus himself is the Torah made flesh. Therefore, when we
[10:52] Speaker 1: drink his blood, God is writing his law upon our hearts.
[11:04] Speaker 1: Everything anticipated, in other words, in the Old Testament history
[11:08] Speaker 1: of Covenant, everything that Jeremiah foresaw is fulfilled. At the
[11:17] Speaker 1: Last Supper is fulfilled with the pouring out of the
[11:22] Speaker 1: blood of Christ. You know, I've said before the whole
[11:26] Speaker 1: purpose of Covenant, law, temple, prophecy, everything was to bring
[11:32] Speaker 1: divinity in humanity together. Right, that was the whole purpose
[11:36] Speaker 1: of it. Who is Jesus, He is in his person
[11:42] Speaker 1: the coming together of divinity in humanity. He's the Covenant
[11:46] Speaker 1: in person. Therefore, watch, when we eat his body and
[11:52] Speaker 1: drink his blood, the Covenant comes inside of us, the
[11:59] Speaker 1: law written on our hearts. The last step we go
[12:05] Speaker 1: from Jeremiah to the Last Supper now to every time
[12:11] Speaker 1: you attend the mass. Ohe the mass. It's a nice
[12:16] Speaker 1: time to get together, celebrate our community, nice time to
[12:19] Speaker 1: hear the word of God, to sing together. And yeah, great,
[12:23] Speaker 1: I agree with all those things. That's not the heart
[12:27] Speaker 1: of it, though. What's the heart of the mass. Behold
[12:31] Speaker 1: the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God, who
[12:35] Speaker 1: takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those
[12:38] Speaker 1: who are called to the supper of the Lamb. And
[12:43] Speaker 1: then one by one people come forward to eat and
[12:47] Speaker 1: drink the body and blood of Jesus. The days are coming,
[12:52] Speaker 1: says the Lord. Well, I will make a new covenant
[12:54] Speaker 1: with the House of Israel. It will not be like
[12:57] Speaker 1: the old covenant written on stone. I will write my
[13:01] Speaker 1: law in their hearts. It comes true everybody, every single
[13:07] Speaker 1: time you come forward and you eat and drink the
[13:10] Speaker 1: body and blood of Jesus, the Lord is writing his law,
[13:15] Speaker 1: his covenant upon your heart. That's why do you want
[13:21] Speaker 1: to be happy? Do you want to find the point
[13:23] Speaker 1: and purpose of life? Come to Jesus and stay with him,
[13:28] Speaker 1: eat his body and drink his blood. Bring his law
[13:33] Speaker 1: literally inside your body. In that God's great revelation comes
[13:40] Speaker 1: to its fulfillment, and God bless you.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.