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Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?" And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him. Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"' Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us." So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover.
In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray me." And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, "Is it I?" And another said, "Is it I?" He answered and said to them, "It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born."
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
- Mark 14:12-26
In yesterday's reading, we note that Jesus is in Jerusalem. He has just finished telling His disciples the prophecy of the destruction of the temple, and of the end of the age and His return. After two days it was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Him by trickery and put Him to death. But they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people." And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head. But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, "Why was this fragrant oil wasted? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they criticized her sharply. But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always. She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her." Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Him to them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. So he sought how he might conveniently betray Him.
Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?" My study bible tells us that this first day of Unleavened Bread is 14 Nisan, "when the Passover lambs were ritually slaughtered at noontime. Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread actually begin after sunset on that same day, which is then 15 Nisan, because the Jewish calendar counts days from sunset to sunset."
And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him." My study bible explains, "The deity of Christ again shows through. Jesus knows they will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water, and He knows how that man will respond." As on the other important occasion of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Jesus makes arrangements which His disciples carry out, to the last detail.
"Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"' Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us." So His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Passover. As with the colt in the story of the Triumphal Entry, my study bible tells us, "so with the upper room. Jesus is not presumptuous in the use of the room. It was a gift to the man to have the Son of God use it and thus forever set it apart as holy. Whatever gifts God asks of us today are similarly sanctified."
In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray me." And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, "Is it I?" And another said, "Is it I?" He answered and said to them, "It is one of the twelve, who dips with Me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born." My study bible points out: "Jesus says this not in deprecation of this man, His own creation, but in deprecation of that man's choice and rashness. For it was the rashness of Judas's own will that made the Creator's gift of goodness useless to him. Divine foreknowledge of the betrayal takes away neither Judas's moral freedom nor his accountability. For God all things are a present reality; He foresees all human actions, but does not cause them."
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. This Passover meal, we recognize, constitutes the first Eucharist. As my study bible puts it, this is "the heart of Christian worship, which celebrates the New Covenant and sacramental union with Christ. By uttering the solemn words this is My body and this is My blood, Jesus clearly refers to the bread and wine He offers to His disciples as His own body and blood. . . . The body denotes the totality of man. On behalf of all mankind, Christ offers Himself in the totality of His Person." When Jesus says that His blood is shed for many, He is using a Semitic expression, a way of saying "for all." As my study bible puts it, "for an innumerable people." Regarding the hymn sung, it also notes that "a hymn means a psalm from a group of psalms (Psalms 115-118) traditionally sung after the Passover meal. A detailed prophecy of the Crucifixion is found in Psalm 22:1-21. Psalm 22:22, as quoted from the Septuagint in Hebrews 2:12, reads, 'I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.' On the night of the arrest, Jesus sang praise to God 'in the midst of the assembly.'"
My study bible also points out that for the Eastern Church, the truth of Jesus' words, "This is My body" and "This is My blood," has always been affirmed, "no more and no less, but without scrutinizing or theorizing about this great mystery of faith." There is an emphasis here, therefore, not only on union, but on the totality of the human person being given the totality of the Person of God, Christ. If we look at the Eucharist this way, without measuring or asserting assumptions or premises, then what we really have here is a total Gift. (Hence the essential and important meaning of the word, Eucharist, which means to give thanks.) The other word we use for the Eucharist is Communion, also emphasizing this Gift of union of total person and total Person. There is nothing being held back here, and also in the depth of this union, nothing is held back. Somehow -- a great mystery we really can't explain nor fathom -- Christ gives us His body and blood to become a part of us, as food. This is what we're offered, a kind of totality we really can't know all the dimensions of in our lives, but which we can feel and know through relationship to Him, through the care of the Father and through the Holy Spirit. Another important dimension of this Eucharist is the depth to which we may rely on Christ. Sometimes in life we will experience the falling away of many things, the undependability of wealth (Jesus calls this the deceitfulness of riches in explaining the parable of the Sower), false friends and even family relations, as well as corrupt or imperfect institutions of all kinds. We may find a great stripping away in life, an emptying in our faith journey, of things we can no longer rely on -- especially assumptions we have made about ourselves and about life that the world has taught to us. But what we have as replacement is this goal of union, this place where Christ fills us when we are empty, and teaches us to rely on Him. The great gift we're given is no less than God, the Christ, who teaches us that He is our refuge and our strength, our daily bread, our food. Ultimately, when life is disappointing, the place where we turn to be filled with better things is Christ. His gift of Himself is in this Eucharist, this sacrifice, this new covenant which He not only makes as His human person, but in the whole of the relationship that is possible through the Holy Spirit. It is this action that constitutes what the Orthodox call theosis, a life-long process of union. In actuality, it is a gradual and constant process of repentance, of change of mind, of emptying in order to be filled. When life disappoints us, it seems that the real message of the Eucharist, this great Gift, is that we must seek His Way to be filled and to go forward. We may rely on Him, and this is the difference between stumbling in the dark, and having something that lights our way on sure ground. Every day, we may be given challenges to meet in our life. But every day becomes an opportunity for reliance on Him, on our true daily bread, to show us the way, to fill the empty spaces that once held something we thought was precious and wasn't, to show us the better way. "I am the light of the world," He said. His gift of Himself is the gift of light that shines in our darkness.
