This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me

When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him.  Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."  And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."  Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.  But behold, the hand of My betrayer is with Me on the table.  And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"  Then they began to question among themselves, which of them it was who would do this this thing.

Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.  And He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called 'benefactors.'  But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.  For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves?  Is it not he who sits at the table?  Yet I am among you as the One who serves.  But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials.  And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

- Luke 22:14-30

Yesterday we read that the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover.  And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him, for they feared the people.  Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve.  So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and the captains, how he might betray Him to them.  And they were glad, and agreed to give him money.  So he promised and sought opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of the multitude.  Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed.  And he sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat."  So they said to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare?"  And He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will met you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters.  Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"'  Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready."  So they went and found it just as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.

When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him.  Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."  My study bible says that the root of Christ's fervent desire for this Passover is the fact that this meal is the occasion for imparting the mysteries of the new covenant to His followers.  This event also inaugurates the great deliverance of humanity from sin through the power of the Cross. 

Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."  The first cup is the conclusion of the Old Testament Passover meal that Christ eats with His disciples; my study bible points out that this fulfills the Law.  Until the kingdom of God comes means until the Resurrection of Christ -- at that time He will again eat and drink with His disciples (24:43; Acts 10:41).

 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."  And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."  Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."  The Greek word "eucharist" is the root of the word translated as gave thanks.  This word immediately came to refer to both the Liturgy and the sacrament of Holy Communion.  My study bible notes that before the end of the first century, a teaching manuscript called the Didache refers to the celebration of the Liturgy as "the Eucharist."  In AD 150, St. Justin says of Holy Communion, "This food we call 'Eucharist,' of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing [holy baptism] for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ commanded us."  Jesus teaches:  This is My body.    St. Justin writes regarding the Church's acceptance of the truth of Christ's words, "that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from Him is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."  For many churches, including the both Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and various Western denominations, Christ's words continue to teach a spiritual and sacramental Mystery, and mean that His body and blood are mystically present so that all may partake of Him and participate in His sacrifice.  No other explanation -- either an attempt to rationally define the nature of how this happens or to give it a purely metaphorical significance -- adequately reflects His teaching as repeatedly found in the Scriptures (see John 6:51-66, 1 Corinthians 11).

"But behold, the hand of My betrayer is with Me on the table.  And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!"  Then they began to question among themselves, which of them it was who would do this this thing.  We note that Judas is also invited to the table for this mystical supper.  Jesus is seeking by all means to save him, and continues to give Judas a chance to repent even at His arrest and following Judas' kiss of betrayal, when Jesus asks him, "Friend, why have you come?" (Matthew 26:50).   My study bible says that Judas' unworthy participation leads to his utter destruction (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-30; compare to Esther 7).

Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.  And He said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called 'benefactors.'  But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.  For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves?  Is it not he who sits at the table?  Yet I am among you as the One who serves."  My study bible calls this a small-minded dispute among the disciples, and says that it is entirely out of place in the context of the mysteries which Christ has just revealed.  He corrects the disciples first by comparing them to the power-hungry Gentiles, whom they themselves consider to be an abomination.  Then He contrasts them to Himself, who serves all even though He is Lord of all.

"But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials.  And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."  My study bible quotes St. Ambrose of Milan, who writes, "Christ judges by discerning the heart, and not by examining deeds.  So also the apostles are being shaped to exercise spiritual judgment concerning faith, and in rebuking error with virtue."  My study bible adds that the apostles will judge not with earthly judgment, but by the witness of their own lives.   Since, as indicated in verse 16,  God's kingdom begins with Resurrection of Christ, the authority of judgment has already been given to the apostles and their successors in the journey of the Church on earth (Matthew 16:19; John 20:23). 

The concept of Christ's Incarnation is bound up with the mystery of the Eucharist, and inescapable for us.  He tells us, "This is My body which is given for you," and "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."  There are at least two things which spring up at us from Christ's words.  The first is His solemn declaration regarding His body and blood in the broken bread and in the cup.  This is a specific declaration, a reference that is vivid and made so that we will remember it.  Secondly, He is declaring that His body is given for us, and His blood is shed for us.  Not only does this imply that His death on the Cross makes Him our Passover, sacrificed once and for all time for us.  It also gives us the understanding that by partaking of this mystical Eucharist, this giving thanks for what He has done for us, we also are to participate in that sacrifice.  He teaches elsewhere that we, too, are each to take up our crosses and follow Him (see Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27).   Moreover, John's Gospel makes this participation even more explicit, and Jesus' language ties this participation to the wine of the Eucharist in the metaphor of the vine and branches, when He teaches His disciples, "Abide in Me" (John 15:1-8).  Our very lives, and all that we are as beings in this world, is tied up in our faith.  Like Christ, we also devote whatever we are and have to this Kingdom, and consecrate that sacramentally by participation in the Eucharist.  We do not separate our creation into components, but understand that body, soul, mind, and spirit are one.  It is a way of declaring that we are to follow Him, to be like Him, to take up our own crosses daily and follow in His footsteps, whatever way that means in our personal lives.  He is the firstfruit, and we follow as those who bear fruit, as He explicitly indicates in this passage cited in John's Gospel.  This is why the Eucharist is at the center of our faith, and was so from the beginning.  As such, and especially at this time of the year when we enter into festivities marking Christ's Nativity, let us consider in particular the meaning of the word Eucharist, that its root is the Greek word for giving thanks.  St. Paul writes, "Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).  Many have remarked that giving thanks itself is a form of worship.  It invites us to "remember God."  To give thanks is to remember where our Source is, the gift not only of who we are, but also of every element of what it means to be a person:  from spirit and soul to body and blood.  Our giving thanks via the Eucharist not only allows and enables us to remember Christ, but it give us communion with Him.  Through the Eucharist, we remember His Incarnation and we may participate in His very life with Him, becoming also servants and members of this Kingdom with Him.  He is the firstfruit, and we become also part of this vine, branches, and fruit.  Therefore this reading comes at the very time of the year when we must consider how gratitude is part of our wholeness.  We are not disjointed beings, stretched between body and blood on the one side, our capacity for abstract reasoning on another, mystical connection to God at yet another, and the soul another point on in a scattered and disjointed plane of identity.  Christ offers us just the opposite:  this central, unifying cup that gives us purpose and function, that gathers all that we are and even all that we may be or become into this ground of being which includes the fullness of His Incarnation:  both divine and human, eternal and temporal, limited yet infinite, the One who was both crucified and resurrected, the Lamb who was slain and yet stands on the throne of the kingdom of heaven (Revelation 5:6).  This is the slain Lamb who conquers, who is Lord of lords and King of kings (Revelation 17:14), and with whom we are raised at the last day (John 6:39-40).  All of this is contained in the Eucharist, as our partaking of it contains the promises of the crucified and risen Christ, the Lamb slain who yet rules.  He invites us to participate in His life and its fullness, and to abide in Him.  The Eucharist is the way that He has given us to do this; let us not minimize all that it is, and promises to us.

I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.  But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."  And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:

'I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'

"But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble."  Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times."  Peter said to Him, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!"  And so said all the disciples.

- Matthew 26:26-35

Yesterday we read that on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?"  And he said, "Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, 'The Teacher says, "My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples."'"  So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.  When evening had come, He sat down with the twelve.  Now as they were eating, He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me."  And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, "Lord, is it I?"  he answered and said, "He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me.  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 not been born."  Then Judas, who was betraying Him, answered and said, "Rabbi, is it I?"  He said to him, "You have said it."

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.   This is the institution of the Eucharist.  On the evening He is about to be seized and arrested, this is the long-awaited messianic banquet, to which He admits even Judas (compare to Esther 7), and seeks by all means to save him.  My study bible says that because of his wicked heart, Judas' participation leads to his condemnation (1 Corinthians 11:27-30).   In the Divine Liturgy, Jesus' words are repeated, which invite the faithful to receive His body and blood.   Holy Communion is meant to unite us to Christ.  Here Jesus gave thanks (which is from the Greek word for "eucharist").  My study bible says this is in order to teach us: first, how to celebrate the sacrament; second, that He comes willingly to His Passion; and third, to accept sufferings with thankfulness, knowing that God can use sufferings for ultimate good.  The Old Covenant was sealed with the blood of bulls and goats, but the New is sealed by the git of Christ.  He shed His own blood to conquer sin and death, and to reconcile us with God.  This Jesus calls the blood of the new covenant, which is God's promise and the fulfillment of the Law.  By new, my study bible says, Jesus means that this covenant brings immortality and incorruptible life.  We are to understand that this covenant will always have the quality of newness; this is the very nature of Christ Himself and the power of God (Revelation 21:5).

"But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."  And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.   My study bible tells us that patristic writers teach that Jesus also drinks the cup of His own Blood.  He does so in order to lead all believers into participation in His heavenly mysteries.  In My Father's kingdom relates to the time after His Resurrection, when Christ will eat and drink to show the reality of His victory over death (see Luke 24:41-43).  Moreover, it directs our understanding to the eternal banquet of the Kingdom in the age to come.

Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:  'I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'  But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble."  Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times."  Peter said to Him, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!"  And so said all the disciples.   Jesus quotes from the prophecy of Zechariah 13:7, and He makes His own prophecy of what is to come for the disciples, particularly for Peter.  But they all deny what He tells them about themselves.

There are two extraordinary things that happen in today's reading.  The first is the institution of the Eucharist, in which Christ not only prepares us for this time in which we await His Return, but also initiates the presence of the Kingdom in the world, and our way of participating in it and in His very life.  The second is Peter's (and the rest of the disciples') denial of Christ's prophecy that Peter will deny Him three times this night.  Peter vows that this will never happen, as do the other disciples.  But it's a very important lesson for us about reliance only upon ourselves for something.  We can't really calculate all our own weaknesses.  Only Christ understands that about His disciples, and about the powerful forces that will be at play to scatter His followers; these forces are both worldly and those described as the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12, Luke 22:31).   So often we are simply unaware of our real struggles and real needs, but Jesus is not "in the dark" about the reality of the present time and the dangers that are there.  Peter, and the subsequent story that is to come in his denial of Christ, illustrates an important story about our own confidence in ourselves.  While confidence is generally a good thing, and our culture certainly seems to admire it or form cults around those who seem to possess it to a great degree, there are different kinds of confidence.  There is a kind of toxic side to self-confidence (if we may call it that) when we fail to understand our vulnerabilities and weaknesses as human beings, and most particularly when we are blind to our own spiritual needs.  But having confidence that comes from a spiritual orientation to Christ and His promises is a completely different kind of confidence.  It is rather a confidence in the reliance upon Christ that acknowledges vulnerability and is aware of our need for spiritual strength in faith and communion.  And therein comes the Eucharist, which Christ institutes at this Last Supper before He is taken by the authorities.  Christ institutes the Eucharist in order to initiate us into the Kingdom that is present even while we live in a world full of threats and insecurities.  He allows us through the Eucharist to participate in His very life.  He gives us strengths, confidence, and nourishment of a kind we can't find elsewhere.  He gives us what we need for confidence in Him, even as He predicts that all of His followers will be scattered, but that He will meet them again in Galilee.  He meets us in the Eucharist.  Until He returns at the Second Coming, He is with us mystically in His presence through this communion that includes all of us in His mystical connection with us; His very Body and Blood allow us to participate in Him as He also is in us (John 14:19-24).  In order to find a genuine and realistic sense of confidence and security, this is what we need for a life in a world that is never without its risks and a life in which our imperfections and weaknesses are part of our very nature.  Life is a learning curve, but through reliance on God we pray that we may walk in the ways that are best for us, and that even our mistakes are used to bring us closer to God and more deeply into true communion and confidence.  In this way it is truly our humility that gives us the greatest strength, the reality of wisdom, and the capacities for faith through all things.  Let us be filled with the food He offers us.