In Remembrance

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

Every day, under my shirt, I wear a little cross. It is a staurolite, a crystal that naturally forms a cross. They are popularly called fairy crosses. My mom gave it to me and I wear it in memory of her. It is a concrete reminder of her love.

God made us as both spiritual and physical beings. We are, as C.S. Lewis said, amphibians, at home in both realms. The things we used to think were unique about humans—communication, toolmaking, etc.—we share with other animals. What really sets us apart is that the human is the only animal who worships. We have not only physical needs, desires and fears but spiritual ones as well. And we often express our spiritual longings in physical ways. And so God communicates spiritual truths to us in physical ways as well.

We see that in covenants. These were treaties and agreements made in the ancient Near East, usually between a high king or emperor and the vassal kings under him. A covenant was not made but cut. Usually there was a sacrifice. Sometimes sacrificial animals were literally bisected and the parties walked between the halves, symbolically saying, “May this happen to me if I break the covenant.” Incredibly, when God cuts his covenant with Abraham, it is God in the form of smoke and fire who passes between the halves, essentially incurring a self-curse if he doesn't fulfill his covenant.

Covenants were usually celebrated with meals. In today's Old Testament lesson, we read of the first Passover. Each Israelite household was to kill an unblemished lamb, drain the blood, and paint it on the door posts so God would pass over the house during the plague of the death of the first born. The lamb was roasted and eaten with unleavened or flat bread because there would be no time for bread to rise before the Israelites would be told to leave Egypt. The meal became an annual commemoration of the original Passover, when God's people were liberated from slavery and led out of Egypt to the promised land.

In tonight's New Testament reading, Jesus is taking elements of the Passover meal and repurposing them for the new covenant he is inaugurating. By this time though, the lamb was sacrificed at the temple, before being taken home to be roasted and eaten, and its blood was not smeared on the door frame. Also 4 cups of wine were added to the ritual meal. They are said to represent the 4 promises of deliverance that God makes in Exodus 6:6-7. He says, “I will bring out,” “I will deliver,” “I will redeem,” and “I will take you to me as a people.” Some also think the 4 cups might have to do with the Roman custom of drinking as many cups of wine as there were letters in the name of the chief guest. In Hebrew, God's covenant name has 4 letters.

The unleavened bread was called the bread of affliction, by which the Jews identify with the poor and suffering. At this particular Passover, Jesus takes this bread, gives thanks, breaks the bread and gives it to his disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Thus Jesus identifies himself with the least of these, his siblings, the materially and the spiritually impoverished. He came, not as aristocrat but as a poor man, a working man, a man who served the sick and fed the hungry. His body communicates that God has fully become one of us, not metaphorically but literally. And in less than a day his body, like the bread, will be broken.

Then after the supper, he takes the last cup of wine and gives thanks to God using the traditional prayer, “Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech ha'olam, bo're p'ri hagefen,” “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.” Then Jesus passes the cup to the disciples, and says, “This is cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” In scripture, wine is sometimes called the “blood of the grape.” (Deuteronomy 32:14) But on this occasion using the word “blood” would have recalled to his disciples the blood of the Passover lamb that protected God's people from death. They would later recall how John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God.” (John 1:29, 36) Indeed in 1 Peter, the readers are reminded that they were ransomed from their empty way of life “by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ.” (1 Peter 1:19)

And just as the yearly celebration of the Passover feast would give Jews who weren't then alive a taste of their ancestors' liberation from slavery, so our celebration of the Lord's Supper communicates in a concrete way God's love extended to us through Jesus' self-sacrificial death. Taking both our spiritual and physical natures into account, the Spirit channels God's grace to us through ordinary things like bread and wine, giving what is physical, meaning and giving what is spiritual, form. He who created our senses speaks through those senses—touch, sight, smell, taste—as we hear the words of Jesus echoing down the millennia: “This is my body, given for you...This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you...Do this in remembrance of me.”

Celebrations of the Eucharist have been going on for the better part of 2000 years. In fact, since the faith has spread to every part of the globe it is probable that at every moment of every day Christians somewhere are continuing to do what Jesus did in an upstairs room on a night like this. In almost every major city, and in many villages and rural communities, in homes, in cathedrals, churches and chapels, in hospitals and nursing homes, in airports, on cruise ships, naval vessels and boats, outdoors in National and State parks and amphitheaters, in camps grounds and trailer parks, in refugee camps and homeless shelters, in workplaces and factories, in schools and universities, people are reciting Jesus' words and sharing bread and wine in remembrance of him. Always and everywhere the body of Christ is nourishing itself on the body and blood of Christ. And in a few minutes it will be our turn to join in.