· Isaiah 50:4-9a
· Psalm 31:9-16 (5)
· Philippians 2:5-11
· Mark 14:1 - 15:47
The Eucharist is the central rite of Christianity.
Let me say this again: the Eucharist is the central rite of Christianity.
Finding fault with everyone's conduct, legitimising authority, and asking the divinity for loot, is done in every religion, as far as I know. But only Christians have the Eucharist. So we ought to understand it.
The institution of the Eucharist begins with the celebration of the Passover, so let's look at the first Passover.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: "Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."
At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians; and there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron in the night, and said, "Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord, as you said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And bring a blessing on me too!"
The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years. At the end of four hundred thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. That was for the Lord a night of vigil, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. That same night is a vigil to be kept for the Lord by all the Israelites throughout their generations.
(Exodus 12:1, 3, 6-13, 29-32, 40-42)
First, this gives us the context for the events of Jesus's last night. They have dinner, which would be roast lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, and then they are keeping a vigil for the Lord. In hindsight, this turns out to be also a death watch for Jesus, but the disciples don't know that. As far as they know, this is just the regular Passover vigil. And they're not doing a particularly good job of it, because they're complacent. With hindsight we say Jesus was preparing himself and the disciples let him down by not waking and praying with him, but they didn't know that. I don't know that Jesus himself knew this was his last night. As he always said himself, about the time and the hour no one knows but the Father.
Second, there is a point about the blood of the lamb. In our Christian jargon, we have many terms that are references to Judaism as Jesus knew it. We use these terms often with very little meaning and no understanding of their origin. To a Jew, we probably sound like a bunch of noobs when we use all these terms. The blood of the lamb, on the night of the first Passover, was used to mark the jambs and lintels of the doors of the houses were the Hebrews were, so that the Lord passed over those houses. Now we say we are washed in the blood of the lamb and this washes away our sins, but in reality the blood of the lamb doesn't "wash" anything, it is only a mark for God to recognise his own. A mark we choose and put on ourselves, incidentally. We choose to identify ourselves with a sign, to be recognised as the people of God. Nowadays we do this with baptism and cross-shaped ornaments, but originally it was the blood of the lamb that marked God's people.
Third, it is interesting that Jesus and the disciples are out of doors, in the garden at Gethsemane. This may seem like a detail, but on the night of the first Passover it was a matter of life and death. The Hebrews stayed in the houses marked with the blood of the lamb, and lived. The Egyptians were out and about, and the firstborn of Egypt died. And on this night, Jesus and the disciples go out to a garden instead of staying in the house, and Jesus, who was of course a firstborn himself, dies. So that creates a very interesting parallelism. On the first Passover, the firstborn of Egypt were killed to free the Hebrews from the Egyptians. On this Passover, it is the Lord's firstborn son who is killed. Who does he free, and from whom? As before, he frees those people who are marked with the blood of the lamb – those of us who choose to identify ourselves as God's people by making his mark on ourselves. But from whom are we freed? We routinely say it's from [SQG] "the devil." Well, Jesus is not the son of [SQG] "the devil", so there is no analogy there. Jesus is the firstborn of the Lord and a Hebrew woman, so we can see it two ways. Either Jesus frees us from the Hebrews, that is, from the Law, or he frees us from God himself. But either way it comes to the same thing, really. Jesus frees us from sin. Not from the Law or from the Lord, but from our obsession with the idea that anyone who transgresses the Law will be punished with eternal torture. Jesus frees us from the retributive, oppressive aspect of the Law, and frees us, as I always say, to do what he called us to, which is serve others.
And fourth, I kept this point for last because it will take the most explaining, we have to look at the institution of the Eucharist. And of course we always say that the death of Christ and therefore the Eucharist also are sacrifices of atonement for our sins, so let's look at what the sacrifice of atonement was. On the one hand, there is the regular sin offering, which people offer for their own sins that they know to have committed. The sin offering is a bull for the high priest or for the congregation of Israel, a male goat for a ruler, a female goat or ewe for an ordinary person, or two turtledoves or pigeons if you can't afford a goat, or a grain offering if you can't afford two turtledoves or pigeons. On the other hand, there is the Day of Atonement offering, which is for the sins we are not aware of, and is a bull for the high priest, a ram for the people, and two goats, one to be sacrificed and one sent off into the wilderness to carry away the sins of the people.
The procedure for sin offerings is described in Leviticus as follows:
(The priest) shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull; the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord. The anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the curtain of the sanctuary. The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is in the tent of meeting before the Lord; and the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. He shall remove all the fat from the bull of sin offering: the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is around the entrails; the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins; and the appendage of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys, just as these are removed from the ox of the sacrifice of well-being. The priest shall turn them into smoke upon the altar of burnt offering. But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, as well as its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung – all the rest of the bull – he shall carry out to a clean place outside the camp, to the ash heap, and shall burn it on a wood fire; at the ash heap it shall be burned.
The priest who offers it as a sin offering shall eat of it; it shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatever touches its flesh shall become holy; and when any of its blood is spattered on a garment, you shall wash the bespattered part in a holy place. An earthen vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken; but if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, that shall be scoured and rinsed with water. Every male among the priests shall eat of it; it is most holy. But no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought into the tent of meeting for atonement in the holy place; it shall be burned with fire.
(Leviticus 4:4-12, 6:26-30)
Now the sin offering for the congregation is one of those for which blood is brought into the tent of meeting, therefore none of it is eaten: it is burned entirely. So if we say that Jesus is a sacrifice of atonement for all of us, that is, for the congregation, then his body cannot be eaten. And second, Jews absolutely do not eat or drink blood. It is absolutely forbidden to them. So how would Jesus tell his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, if he is supposed to be a sacrifice of atonement?
On the other hand, there is a passage in Numbers that I didn't even know about until I actually read the whole Bible myself, which is as follows:
(When) you make an offering by fire to the Lord from the herd or from the flock ... to make a pleasing odour for the Lord, then whoever presents such an offering to the Lord shall present also a grain offering. ... When you offer a bull as a burnt offering or a sacrifice ... then you shall present with the bull a grain offering, three-tenths of an ephah of choice flour, mixed with half a hin of oil, and you shall present as a drink offering half a hin of wine, as an offering by fire, a pleasing odour to the Lord.
If you unintentionally fail to observe all these commandments that the Lord has spoken to Moses – everything that the Lord has commanded you by Moses, from the day the Lord gave commandment and hereafter, throughout your generations – then if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, the whole congregation shall offer one young bull for a burnt offering, a pleasing odour to the Lord, together with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat for a sin offering. The priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the Israelites, and they shall be forgiven; it was unintentional, and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their error.
(Numbers 15:3-4a, 8-10, 22-25)
The requirements for the grain offering are described in Leviticus:
When you present a grain offering baked in the oven, it shall be of choice flour: unleavened cakes mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers spread with oil. If your offering is grain prepared on a griddle, it shall be of choice flour mixed with oil, unleavened; break it in pieces, and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. If your offering is grain prepared in a pan, it shall be made of choice flour in oil... You shall bring to the Lord the grain offering that is prepared in any of these ways; and when it is presented to the priest, he shall take it to the altar. The priest shall remove from the grain offering its token portion and turn this into smoke on the altar, an offering by fire of pleasing odour to the Lord. And what is left of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the offerings by fire to the Lord. No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you must not turn any leaven or honey into smoke as an offering by fire to the Lord.
(Leviticus 2:4-11)
So. Let's get back to our gospel reading. "While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said 'Take; this is my body.'" (Mark 14:22) Again, being the night of the Passover, this is unleavened bread they're eating, therefore acceptable as a grain offering with a sin offering. And he blesses it and breaks it like a grain offering.
"Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.'" And this is a cup of wine, therefore acceptable as a drink offering with a sin offering.
Therefore to come to my point at long last, it makes no sense to say that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ offered as a sin offering, because that would be anathema to a Jew, which he was. But to say that the bread and wine are the grain offering and drink offering with the sin offering makes perfect sense. And by having the Twelve eat and drink of it, Jesus is creating them into priests. (As we know, the word of God creates what it declares.)
Is this contrary to Jesus's statements? I don't think so. I don't think Jesus said, literally, "this is my body" and "this is my blood", because that would have been crazy, especially for a Jew. The gospel of Mark, as far as we know, appears to have been written for Christian gentiles around 70 C.E., that is, forty years after the fact, and for people who didn't know the practices of Temple Judaism. The actual words of Christ were probably not remembered exactly 48 hours after the events, let alone 40 years, and now it needs to be made intelligible and catchy for the gentiles. So what got written down is one thing, and what was actually said was probably a longer, more technical statement that the bread and wine are grain and drink offerings along with the sin offering that is Christ's body.
There are several further analogies with the sin offering: Christ was offered as a sacrifice by the chief priests, his blood was poured out, his body was taken to a clean place outside the city, and it was entirely taken up to Heaven so that none of it remained. So the concept of Christ as sin offering is perfectly clear within the Temple Judaism tradition, and so is the offering of the bread and wine, but not the concept of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, real presence, or even symbolic meaning. The bread and wine are not the body and blood of Christ and do not represent the body and blood of Christ. They are simply additional offerings that are required with the sin offering that is Christ.
One last reason why I see it this way, is that it would be absurd to repeat the sacrifice of Christ in any way. If we have to do it again, then it didn't work the first time. And if it didn't work the first time, it's certainly not gonna work by being re-enacted. But of course it worked, and we're not doing it again. We're doing the grain and drink offerings, in remembrance of Christ, as he asked us. And in partaking of the grain and drink offering, we are identifying ourselves as priests of Christ.
Thank you for your patience with this lengthy sermon.
Praise be to God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
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