In the Gospel Reading for this Sunday we see Jesus confronting the religious leaders of his time, who did not accept him as the Messiah. He tells them that other leaders would take their place. The dire warning was already foreshadowed in the Book of Isaiah, as we see in the First Reading.
In the Old Testament, God established a covenant with the Israelites. The Covenant anticipated the coming of the Messiah, who would liberate the Israelites from their bondage. When Christ, who is God Incarnate, came among us, he fulfilled the Old Covenant and created the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, God established a special relationship with the people of Israel, giving them the land of Israel as their inheritance. In the New Covenant, that special relationship is extended to all of humanity and encompasses all who are baptized into Christ and who lead a life following him through the Church he established. Instead of a physical land in this world, the New Covenant focuses on our heavenly land, the New Heaven and New Earth that will be fashioned by Christ at the end of the ages. In the Old Covenant, the Israelites were to follow the Mosaic Law. But the New Covenant is founded on accepting and reciprocating the love of Christ.
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Photo Credit: Our Lady of Sorrows at Golgotha, the site of the Crucifixion of Christ (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.