We come again to our most sacred time of the year, and stand once more with those who have celebrated so many Easters before us, and even more people of God who have and continue to celebrate the Passover (Ex 12:1-8, 11-14). Our celebration connects back to the most ancient roots of a people freed from slavery, and also looks forward to the perfection that God wants for his world. In recognizing this past and future we can also be very aware of how far our world, and each of us, are from that perfect creation that God wishes, but we also know that the promise of Easter points us and our world towards that perfection.
As we start this three day process, which is the summation of all we are about as followers of Christ, we focus first on what supports us in our effort, in our hope, in our expectation. And that is each other, all those people. We are bound together in a web of relationships and at the center, or the head, or the foundation, of those relationships is Jesus. Jesus bound himself to us, to all of us through the ages, in the simplest possible way, in the most basic act that we do as humans – eating.
Jesus took a meal and made it the foundation of all those relationships. When we share with each other we also share with him. It couldn’t be simpler. (1 Cor 11:23-26)
There is however more to this meal than just sating our hunger, than simply allowing our body to continue functioning.
We are used to John giving us a different perspective in his gospel from the other evangelists, but it’s still a shock to realize that John doesn’t actually include that last meal that Jesus shared with his friends in his Gospel. All he tells us about from that last occasion is how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples (Jn 13:1-15).
So does John not think the Eucharist is important enough to mention? Or does he take it so much for granted as part of the life of the early church that it doesn’t need to be mentioned?
John however has already told us about the Eucharist. He has Jesus explain all this almost at the beginning of his ministry. After he has fed the crowds with human bread, Jesus tells them about the bread from heaven (Jn 6:53-58). Not a bread from heaven like the manna which allowed the Israelites to survive in the desert, following that first Passover. That was still just a foodstuff. This bread is the most intimate form of relationship he could offer, equivalent to eating Jesus himself: “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink”. This idea is so shocking that we still struggle to absorb the enormity of it.
When he gets to that final Passover meal that Jesus has with his friends, John has already explained the Eucharist. So now he tells us something more about what this sharing in the body and blood of Jesus means. It means adopting a posture of service to all those who are with us. The meal and the service are one. There is no sharing with Jesus without the sharing in service with each other. “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”