Key Passage
Then Jesus took a cup of wine. He thanked God for it and gave it to the followers. All the followers drank from the cup. Then Jesus said, "This wine is my blood. My blood (death) begins the new agreement {from God to his people}. This blood is given for many people."
— Mark 14:23-24 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
Jesus' blood, remembered in this last supper with his followers and continually celebrated by his followers today, seals a new covenant between God and Jesus' followers. This is a covenant of grace, love, and life brought about by the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. This new covenant is our way of life as Jesus' followers and is a better and eternal covenant provided to us by the blood of Jesus.
Prayer
Father in heaven, thank you for the price that was paid to bring us into a new covenant relationship with you. May my life be lived to honor that price and to fulfill that covenant. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Related Scriptures
In the same way, after they ate, Jesus took the cup of wine. Jesus said, "This wine shows the new agreement {from God to his people}. This new agreement begins with my blood (death). When you drink this, do it to remember me."
— 1 Corinthians 11:25
God made us able to be servants of a new agreement {from God to his people}. This new agreement is not a written law. It is of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life. The old agreement (the law) that brought death was written with words on stone. It came with {God's} glory. The face of Moses was so bright with glory that the people of Israel (the Jews) could not continue looking at his face. And that glory later disappeared. So surely the new agreement that brings the Spirit has even more glory. This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin, but it had glory. So surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory. That old agreement had glory. But it really loses its glory when it is compared to the much greater glory {of the new agreement}. If the agreement that disappeared came with glory, then the agreement that continues forever has much greater glory.
— 2 Corinthians 3:6-11
But the work that has been given to Jesus is much greater than the work that was given to those priests. In the same way, the new agreement that Jesus brought from God to his people is much greater than the old one. And the new agreement is based on promises of better things. If there was nothing wrong with the first agreement, then there would be no need for a second agreement. But God found something wrong with the people. God said: "The time is coming, says the Lord, when I will give a new agreement to the people of Israel and to the people of Judah. It will not be like the agreement that I gave to their fathers. That is the agreement I gave when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not continue following the agreement I gave them, and I turned away from them, says the Lord. This is the new agreement I will give the people of Israel. I will give this agreement in the future, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write my laws on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Never again will a person have to teach his brother or God's other people. He will not need to tell them to know the Lord. Why? Because all people—the greatest people and the least important people— will know me. And I will forgive the wrong things they do against me, and I will not remember their sins." God called this a new agreement, so God has made the first agreement old. And anything that is old and useless is ready to disappear.
— Hebrews 8:6-13
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