Breath of the Spirit

RVC’s Weekly Spiritual Essay

MARCH 24, 2005: EUCHARIST OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Readings

Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14

I Corinthians 11: 23-26

John 13: 1-15

Only one of the three biblical traditions of the Lord’s Supper intertwines Jesus’ actions and words during that evening’s meal with the Jewish feast of Passover. Yet most Christians presume that’s the only way to understand the Eucharist. No doubt that presumption contributed to the use of the Passover reading in tonight’s liturgy.

It makes little difference whether Jesus’ Last Supper actually was a Passover meal or not, many of his early followers looked at that Christian event against the background of this Jewish feast. As we know from our Easter Vigil liturgy, they also looked at Jesus’ dying and rising through the filter of that same celebration. Eventually John the evangelist would go so far as to depict Jesus as the symbolic lamb sacrificed to save the Israelites from the Passover destruction which befell the oppressive Egyptians.

Ironically, tonight’s second and third readings employ no Passover imagery. Paul speaks only about a meal shared “on the night in which Jesus was betrayed.” John places Passover on the day after the Lord’s Supper. Each emphasizes a different dimension of Jesus’ words and actions.

Yet one line in Paul’s account ties Jesus’ last meal into the whole Exodus event, not just the Passover. “This cup,” Jesus informs his disciples, “is the new covenant in my blood.”

This entire I Corinthians pericope is close to, or at the top of everyone’s list of the Christian Scriptures’ top 10 passages. It contains the earliest account of the Last Supper we possess. (Paul was martyred almost 10 years before the first gospel – Mark – appeared.) These words probably were put into the form we have them in this passage within four or five years of the original Last Supper!

When Jesus talks about the “blood of the covenant,” he’s referring back to the Exodus covenant which the Chosen People made with Yahweh at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Blood was sprinkled on the covenant makers during the ceremony as an outward sign that they were determined to fulfill the responsibilities of their agreement with Yahweh.

Scripture scholars believe Jesus, on the night before he died, was likewise

asking his followers to be responsible for fulfilling the covenant with Yahweh that he personally had entered into; a covenant of total giving leading to his death. His disciples would demonstrate their determination to “remember” Jesus and his commitment not by having blood sprinkled on them, but by drinking Jesus’ blood. Taking from the cup wasn’t something for “extra credit,” as it is in today’s Church. It was essential for determining who was going to carry on Jesus’ ministry and who was not. Eating the bread supplied Christians with the strength to drink from the cup.

John hammers home a similar theme in his Last Supper narrative. He gives us no “words of institution.” (He takes care of that in chapter six, during Jesus’ bread miracle.) Though John has Jesus deliver a more than four chapter discourse during the Last Supper, he performs only one action: he washes his disciples’ feet. John makes that humble act a symbol of Jesus’ entire ministry. He believes that when we imitate that action, we’re showing that we’re not only remembering Jesus, we’re keeping his ministry alive. “If I washed your feet,” Jesus commands, “I who am teacher and Lord, then you must wash each other’s feet. What I did was to give you an example: as I have done, so must you do.”

Jesus’ biblical followers were convinced that if they were committed to Jesus, they were also committed to his ministry. It’s often difficult to surface such commitment in a highly structured liturgy. That’s why we never stop trying to change our rubrics. Perhaps one day they’ll line up with the things Jesus had in mind when he originated this meal of remembrance.