Maundy Thursday Ponderings on the Historical Eucharist

There is a strong tradition of celebrating the institution of Holy Communion (also called the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist and the Last Supper) at today's Maundy Thursday service. Readings are read from the four gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke account Jesus changing the Passover meal with the sharing of "my flesh and my blood" while John's gospel has Jesus and the disciples gathered for a Passover meal that includes the washing of feet.

I wanted to share an historical take on what is often celebrated today. The following comes from Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Beacon Press. 2008.

Beyond the doors of its sanctuaries, the church sent people out into the world as agents of life, as those who resisted the exploitation and violence of the principalities and powers of the world. To teach them such resistance, the church immersed them in a ritual of life in paradise. Because beauty in such rituals had great power, it could also have dangerous consequences. If beauty was used to valorized or sanctify what was harmful to humanity, its power could be destructive. In this spirit, the early church avoided focusing on the Crucifixion, not only in its art, but also in its Eucharist. Some even avoided mentioning it (158).

The Didache (the oldest surviving liturgical handbook, from 1st century Syria) makes no reference to Jesus' crucifixion. Rather, "it's Eucharistic prayer gave thanks to God 'for the life and knowledge which you have revealed to us through Jesus your Child.' It explained the cup as a symbol for Jesus, 'the holy vine of David,' and associated the bread with the life of the church. 'Just as the bread broken was first scattered on the hills, then was gathered and became one, so let your Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into your kingdom'" (158-9).

Clement of Rome (who according to Irenaeus was the 3rd bishop of Rome) said that Jesus Christ, "the high priest of our offerings" had "opened the eyes of our hearts." Clement's prayer doesn't mention the crucifixion either:

Through him you have called us

From darkness to light,

From ignorance to full knowledge of your glorious name

And to a hope in your name,

Which is the origin of all creation.

You alone are the Most High in the heavenly heights,

the Holy One who rests among the saints.

You cast down the insolence of the proud,

You frustrate the plans of the nations,

You raise up the humble and abase the proud.

You enrich and you reduce to poverty

Sole benefactor of spirits and God of all flesh

You have taught us,

Sanctified us and glorified us (159).

Justin Martyr's account (mid-2nd cent.) of the Eucharist does mention Jesus saying "Do this in memory of me; this is my body," and "This is my blood," just as the synoptic gospels recall. However, Justin Martyr does not include the phrase "broken for you" nor Matthew's phrasing for the cup "poured out for the remission of sins." By the way, the phrase "broken for you" "is found in only some ancient versions of 1 Corinthians 11:24 but not in the four Gospels" (159). Justin Martyr explains "that the 'food over which the Eucharist has been spoken becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus, in order to nourish and transform our flesh and blood.' He explained that the liturgy was to take place on the day of the sun, because Sunday was 'the day on which God transformed darkness and matter and created the world, and the day on which Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead'" (159-60).

The first example of a Eucharist prayer that included words of brokenness in the anamnesis (remembrance) was the mid-third-century prayer of Hippolytus of Rome: "Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. ... This is my blood, which is shed for you; when you do this, you make my remembrance." But church teachers made clear that this remembrance referred to the living body and blood, the incarnate Christ who made the request before he was broken and who died "to destroy death ... to pour out his light upon the just, to establish the covenant and manifest his resurrection." The holy foods on the Eucharist table nourished those who received them to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" and "strengthened in faith."

In early Eucharistic prayers, when Jesus' crucifixion was mentioned, it was listed among a series of events. It was not the focus of the liturgy and was not the key to its meaning. The entire story communicated the Spirit in life. The Eucharist foods signified Christ's living body, the union of spirit and flesh in his incarnation, and the abiding power of life, manifested in his resurrection. The foods represented his miracles of feeding and healing and his post-resurrection appearances to the disciples, several of which involved meals. During the fourth century, associating the Eucharist with the Last Supper became commonplace, but even then references tot eh Last Supper were not universal. The liturgy of Addai and Mari, which originated in Edessa in Anatolia in perhaps the third century, is still in use today by Christians in the Assyrian Church of the East, once called Nestorian by their opponents. It has no words of institution and makes no connection to "the night before he died."

Eucharistic prayers went out of their way to make it clear that the Christian observance was not about shedding blood of any sort (160).

The political, social, and theological meanings of Christian Eucharist prayers varied over regions and diverse Christian sects, but early Christian rituals consistently placed the accent on Jesus' incarnation, his teaching and miracles of healing and feeding, his baptism, and his resurrection. The remembrance of the Crucifixion was not central to what the Eucharist memorialized; instead, the Eucharist focused on incarnation and Resurrection. The feast remembered how Jesus overcame death with life, never to die again (161).

[The Eucharist] ritual restored humanity's divinity in paradise, providing a basis for relationship rather than division among Christians, pagans, and Jews. The potential was there, even when imperfectly realized, for Christians to recognize all of humanity as created in the image of God. Grafted onto the tree of life and feasting at the wedding banquet through the Eucharist, Christians embraced a world of flesh infused with spirit. They received insight and strength to resist unjust principalities and powers, to live in freedom and responsibility, and to hold to nonviolence in the struggle against evil. They partook of the feast with doxology, praise for beauty and thanks for life. They went forth to live in the world as a life-giving presence. In the Western churches, the Eucharist continued to be understood as a feast of the Resurrection until the ninth century. Eastern Orthodox churches continue to regard it so, and in recent years some Western Christians have revived the ancient understanding and enlarged it in creative new directions (162-3).