Signatures in Blood at Greyfriars

On February 28, 1638, hundreds of Scottish men and women crowded into the churchyard of Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. They came to sign the National Covenant — a solemn declaration binding themselves to worship God according to conscience, free from the crown's interference. Nobleman and merchant, farmer and tradesman stood shoulder to shoulder in the raw February air as the document was read aloud. Then, one by one, they stepped forward to sign. Some, finding ink insufficient for so grave a promise, opened veins in their arms and wrote their names in blood.

They understood what Israel understood at the foot of Sinai: a covenant with the Almighty is not a casual agreement. It costs something. When Moses sprinkled the blood of oxen upon the people and declared, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you," he was sealing a bond that touched the deepest current of life itself. Blood meant this promise was not merely spoken — it was embodied, visceral, irreversible.

The Covenanters at Greyfriars risked everything — property, freedom, their very lives — because they believed a covenant with God demanded nothing less than everything. And we who gather at the Lord's Table encounter that same costly bond. The blood of the new covenant was not drawn from oxen or from our own arms, but from the veins of Christ Himself — poured out so that God's promise to His people would never be written in fading ink, but sealed forever.