Unfolding in Time

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The Assignment: this is my final for Eucharistic Theology with Fr Dennis McManus. We were given a set of questions, from which pick one. The selected the option is take an image of the Eucharist in the pre-Incarnation scriptures and show how it was fulfilled in the Life of Jesus. We were required to use a seven-paragraph format which would work, one thinks, for blogposts. Our textbook for this course was the generally excellent Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Dr Brant Pitre. I say “generally” because there are some issues that drove me bonkers in reading it and they are highlighted well in this review from America magazine – most particularly, for me, the problem caused by the Johannine paschal chronology. Although it is not stated in the book review, some of the problems from from the author’s insisting on a particularly dry theology of the Liturgy that is missing from many patristic writings. “Pitre’s book is evidence of a new sort of Catholic biblical scholarship which desires to be both ancient – in its reliance on the Church fathers and spiritual interpretations of texts – and highly literal – in that texts can only say one thing, at least if it fits with the reading the author is proposing.“ If the Liturgy is “heaven striking Earth” then the same thing was happening at that first Pascha. How? (Insert joke here about a Dominican citing a Jesuit magazine on his blog…)

Jesus instituted the Eucharist as part of his final Passover Meal with the Disciples. In this meal, the Church sees a Paschal Sacrifice, paralleling the rite instituted by God through Moses. Jesus is the Paschal Lamb, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” as St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7. In the meal, itself, Jesus speaks of his blood poured out for the “forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28), however, the Passover was not a sacrifice for the forgiveness of, or in reparation for, sin. The Biblical Story of the Passover sees the sacrifice as a protection and a warding off of the Angel of Death. The annual family meal that was later celebrated around that story became one of thanksgiving for the resultant liberation from Egypt.

Jesus linked the ancient story of the Passover Meal and Sacrifice to the Last Supper and the Cross, showing the latter to be the fulfillment of the former. The full parallel between the meanings of Passover and Jesus’s Last Supper cannot be evident in a “Bible only” reading of the story recorded in Exodus. By the time of Jesus, a millennium and a half of Jewish tradition expanded the Biblical Passover meal to include multiple actions and rites both in the Temple and at the family table. It was this expanded Jewish festival liturgy, both domestic and public, that allowed Jesus to reveal himself in his table actions as the true Passover lamb and to give to the Church the fullest understanding of the Passover not as a celebration of the liberation from Egypt but as a presentation of the liberation of the human race from sin and death; not as something in the past but as something on-going and unfolding in the world.

To explore this idea this paper will highlight three points where the telling of the Jewish story of Liberation in the rites and traditions of Passover can be seen as fulfilled in Jesus’ actions on Holy Thursday. This paper will rely heavily on the work of Dr Brant Pitre’s Jesus in and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, especially pages 68-76. First, there is the timing of the meal: Jesus gathers his disciples at night after the lambs are sacrificed in the temple. Next, there are the actions at the table. In these Jesus draws between himself and the lamb of the sacrifice by liturgical actions. Finally, there is the command to do this “in remembrance” which echoes God’s command to keep the Passover as a perpetual memory. These points will be explored in turn, seeking to understand how they were prefigured in the Biblical story then expanded in the Jewish tradition, and finally fulfilled at the Table of the Lord.

The initial instructions for the Passover are in Exodus 12: the lamb is to be killed at twilight on the 14th day of the month of Aviv (verses 3-6). It is to be roasted entirely (vs. 8-9) and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (v. 7). Verse 11 says, “And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste.” Later in the Torah, however, in Deuteronomy 16, we have a better sense of how the Passover was celebrated after the Exodus. The instruction to eat it “in haste” is missing. The entire people of Israel are commanded to come to the “place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his Name” (v. 2) and there to sacrifice and eat the offering. The next day, having consumed all the offering while staying in the same place. The next day they can return to their homes (v. 7). By Jesus’ time this means that all the lambs for the entire feast are sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th day of Aviv (Nissan) and eaten that night within the City of Jerusalem. So the apostles prepare to eat the Passover that night within the city walls. They do so after the afternoon sacrifices are complete. Thus, in light of the timing of the meal, what is happening on this night is intended as a Passover celebration, a consumption of the sacrifice.

In light of the timing, it is important to note that in the text there is no mention of the lamb itself. Jesus takes bread and says it is his own body. In the text, this is the only mention of “meat” at the meal. Jesus makes bread to be to his own flesh given in sacrifice “for all of you”. Jesus’ actions, as well as the careful writing of the evangelists, make it clear that Jesus is the lamb eaten at this meal. There is not only meat symbolism, but also blood: the blood of the lamb would have been poured out at the temple, but, instead, the blood of Jesus, as seen in the wine, is offered at the table, “which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The actions of Jesus combine the Temple liturgy and the domestic liturgy of the traditional Passover into one table-based rite for the new people of God, gathered around the table of their one Lord.

Finally, Jesus commands his disciples to “do this in remembrance of me” recalling the command in the Torah to keep the Passover forever: So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14). By the time of Jesus this idea of “memorial” and “everlasting ordinance” had been expanded by Jewish oral tradition to a more complete understanding: Dr Pitre cites the rabbis as saying that each one must think of themselves as being liberated from Egypt at the Passover. It is not for those people way back then for whom this liberation was accomplished, but rather for the current generations. When Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me” he is marking his own sacrifice as always present and always acting in the presence and hearts of those who eat this sacred meal of his flesh and blood. His teaching that this is “for sins” fulfills the original Passover where Israel is released from slavery by showing that it was a prefiguring of how the human race is enslaved to sin.

At the Last Supper, Jesus’ actions and words marked both echoes of and changes to the existing Passover rites. The timing of the meal made it clear that this was the Passover, itself, being eaten. However, in reporting the events of the meal without any mention of the sacrificed lamb and the poured-out blood, the Gospel stories make it clear that it is Jesus himself who is the Passover being celebrated. Finally, in his command to repeat the same actions in his memory, Jesus opens the door for his disciples in all generations to be included in his new Passover. This last command calls all of the Church to the fulfillment of the Passover rites at the table of the Messiah.