Category Archives: New Testament

Murder in the Dark? Or the Second Coming?

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Breaking the Holy Bread is often thought to be the signal that Christ is about to come again. “The Breaking of the Bread” often stands in as the name of the whole celebration of the Holy Communion in the Acts of the Apostles.


If someone breaks into my house at night and I kill them, I’m not guilty of murder. But if the sun has begun to rise when my home is broken into, then I am guilty of murder if I kill the intruder. (Exodus 22) What’s the reason for this distinction?

Modern electricity makes us forget how dark a dark night can really be. If I kill an intruder in the middle of the night, the presumption would be that I couldn’t see who it was and couldn’t really aim —with a bat? A club? A knife or sword?—at the intruder. But if the sun has began to rise, then I can presumably see well enough to simply injure—rather than kill— the intruder.

It was dangerous in the dark. In the days before modern police or electricity, no one walked around at night unless they could afford a bodyguard. If I invited people to my house for dinner, that generally meant they would spend the night and sleep over at my house as well because it would not be safe for them to go home in the dark.

Jesus told many stories about how he would come a second time, at the End of Days, in the middle of the night. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Without warning. Like an intruder or a thief breaking into a house. This second coming in the middle of the night was especially expected by early Christians at the Easter Vigil as the priest broke the Bread for distribution in Holy Communion. If the priest broke the Holy Bread and Christ did not return, Communion would continue as usual and the faithful would begin hoping that next year’s Easter Vigil would be the End of Days.

This expectation that Christ would return at the Breaking of the Bread came to be associated with the celebration of Holy Communion each Sunday as well. It became customary for the priest to break the Holy Bread and then pause, waiting to see if Christ would return to judge the world. If not, then Holy Communion would continue. But the whole congregation would hold their collective breath as the Bread was broken, waiting—hoping?—that today would be the day that time would end and Jesus would return.

“For when peaceful stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, your all-powerful Word from heaven’s royal throne leapt down into the doomed land ….” (Wisdom 18:14-15) This description of the night of the Passover in Egypt, when the firstborn died and Moses led the Hebrews to freedom, has also been seen as a description of the first Holy Saturday (when Christ smashed the gates of Death) as well as Christmas Eve (when the Word was born in Bethlehem). It can also be the description of the End of Time as the priest breaks the Holy Bread at the Easter Vigil. Darkness can be dangerous. Darkness can also be the time of salvation.

Read about Wisdom 18 as a description of Christmas Eve here.


Bulls and Justice

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The bull is typically associated with St. Luke because his gospel opens with events in the Temple connected to the priests offering sacrifices of incense—and possibly bulls. Bulls were extremely valuable animals and important sacrificial offerings. Bulls were also such strong animals that they frequently stood in as images for gods, such as the two bulls one of the idolatrous kings of Israel made in 1 Kings 12.

Bulls gore people. That’s what bulls do. That’s what makes Spanish bull fights exciting. It’s what makes bull herding dangerous. It’s what makes bulls dangerous to have around.

There are several commands about bulls in Exodus 21, just after Moses has been given the Ten Commandments. The text gives us three chapters of additional commandments before telling us that Moses went down from Mt. Sinai to discover that the people had begun to worship the golden calf. It’s as if the authors or editors of Exodus want us to understand that these commandments are the most important of all the commandments that were given after the Ten Commandments themselves on the two tablets of stone. Why are these commandments about bulls so important?

These commandments about bulls are important because of the possible danger to the people living in communities together. Rules for how to live together peacefully were important; rules about safety and how to settle disputes were especially important for the well-being of the People of God.

The rules about bull violence are very detailed and spell out what to do if the bull injures or kills a male or female slave, a free man, or a pregnant woman or her baby. Consequences vary, depending on if the bull has been known to injure people before or if the bull escaped its enclosure accidentally or if the owner was careless in his bull-tending.

Bulls were extremely valuable animals; anyone who owned a bull was—by definition—a rich man. Having to kill a bull that had killed someone was a severe financial loss on top of any fines the bull’s owner might be expected to pay to the community. Offering a bull voluntarily as a sacrifice was extremely expensive; such a sacrifice was especially valuable and precious.

Settling disputes involving bulls could easily become simply a matter of “might makes right” and the wealthy getting their way without any consequences for bad behavior. By having such complex rules for all the various possible situations involving violence done by bulls, Moses and Israelite society were attempting to use the law to guarantee the rights and safety of everyone, especially the poor. Throughout the Old Testament, the opposite of poverty is not wealth; throughout the Old Testament, the opposite of poverty is Justice. These rules about bulls and violence were meant to foster a just, law-abiding society. These rules were about making a society capable of welcoming the Sun of Justice when he came.

Bulls could be an image of the God of Israel (as in the psalms) or the image of a non-Israelite god. Read more about bulls in the Bible here.

Violence, Altars, and Modest Priests?

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Aaron, brother of Moses, offers sacrifice as High Priest.
This stained glass window can be found in
Cathedral of Our Lady and St Philip Howard, Arundel


And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offering, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. (Exodus 20:22-26)

Moses has just received the Ten Commandments and then God repeats what seems to be what he considers to be the most important commandment: “Do not worship any idols.” This is the summary of the Ten because authentic worship of the living God—not the futile worship of an idol, which stands for what does not exist or is untrue—covers and includes all the other commandments, just as Jesus summarizes the Law: “Love God …. Love your neighbor.”

Idol worship is not devil worship; an idol is not a devil, according to St. Paul. An idol is “no thing,” something that doesn’t exist. But we can insert ourselves into that empty space. Nature abhors a vacuum and we are made to worship. We will worship ourselves if we are not worshipping the true God.

Then God tells Moses, “Don’t use tools of violence to make an altar.” An altar is a place of peacemaking: making peace between God and humanity, God and specific persons, God and the whole created order. The place of such peacemaking should not be fashioned with iron tools (weapons). The sacrifice itself is violent enough.

Sacrifices were bloody affairs. Priests would cut the throat of the offered animal and blood would gush everywhere. He would catch the blood in a bowl. He would sprinkle the blood on the altar and the people. He would butcher the animal, cutting out the organs and cut the body into pieces; these organs and body parts—cuts of meat—would be roasted on the altar.

This was all very bloody, messy business. Priests wore very little as they did this, unlike the stained glass window of Aaron above. The vestments most priests wore during the actual sacrifice were loin clothes. (High priests would wear special vestments in certain occasions but these were constantly in need of being replaced because it was so hard to get the bloodstains out of the vestments.)

Because the vestments were so skimpy, it would be easy to see underneath the priestly loin cloth if the priest went up a few steps to the altar. So the altar was not meant to be more than a single step higher than the people on whose behalf the priest was making the sacrifice so that no one could see his nakedness.

Just like people are always wondering what a man is wearing under a kilt, people would peak to see what the priest had on under his loincloth vestment.