Isn’t It Just Bread? (Part II)

Peace be with you my dear reader…

I have been struggling for the last two weeks on what to write for “Part II” of this series… Have you ever been SOO excited about something and had so many ideas running through your head that you didn’t know how you could possibly put it into words for other people even though it’s so clear inside of your own mind? Yeah… well that was me (and still is at the time of writing this).

To start off, I digress back to the question I ended my previous article with… “What did these martyrs, both young and old, die for? Surely it wasn’t for a simple symbolic piece of bread… Was it?”

“All the answers are in the tabernacle.” – Matthew Kelly

I agree with Dr. Brant Pitre and several other Catholic apologists, that it helps to understand our faith much better if we look at the subject of salvation through Jewish eyes in order to better understand what the first Christians believed. I am thoroughly convinced that we must know and study the Old Testament in order to properly understand Christ’s fulfillment of God’s plan for salvation as revealed in the New Testament. What was it that the Jews in Jesus’ day were waiting for? Of course you could say (and a lot of people mistakenly do) that they were waiting for a savior to come lead an army against the Roman occupation to set them free, but that was really only a small and radical portion of them…

What most Jews were waiting for was the coming of the Messiah, the promised deliverer, the one who would lead them in a new Exodus, as foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament, to the new promised land. So what do we mean by “new Exodus”? Obviously, in order to have a “new” one there has to have been an “old” one, right? Just in case you aren’t familiar with the story… At one point in history long before Christ’s arrival, God’s people were held in bondage in Egypt. After God chose Charlton Heston, (oops!) I mean Moses, to be his representative in convincing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, a series of plagues were unleashed on Egypt (each one worse than the last). Finally, the last plague was the plague of death in which all of Egypt’s first-born would die. This is the event which lead to the Jewish celebration called “Passover”.

What is the most important feast of the Old Testament Jews? The feast of Passover! What is Passover? Very briefly, it is a memorial meal celebrating the night that God allowed the final plague to come upon Egypt against the pharaoh who continually refused to grant God’s people freedom from bondage and slavery. Something to note is that during the first Passover meal, the Israelites were required to find an unblemished or unbroken lamb to use as a sacrifice, spread its blood with a hissop branch upon the doorpost (so that death would pass by the house and their first-born would be spared) and finally, they had to roast, then EAT the lamb.

The last point I want to make about the Old Testament Passover celebration is that, in later years (still prior to Christ), tradition became such that while celebrating Passover, a young child would ask the father “why is this night different than any other night?”. The father would answer him… “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8). Why would he say this if it happened many years beforehand? Because the Jews believed that somehow, in a miraculous way, every year when they celebrated Passover as a memorial meal, they were mysteriously transported back to that same night of the FIRST Passover!

”The New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.” – St. Augustine

So what was the purpose of all of this? Well in short, after this final plague the Israelites were set free by pharaoh and sent out from Egypt. Where were they going? Their ultimate destination was the promised land, the city of Jerusalem.

Okay, so now that we’ve taken a brief (very brief) look at the Old Testament Passover, let’s fast-forward to the New Testament… Let’s look at the night in which Jesus was betrayed… For a detailed description of what we know as “The Last Supper” you can take a look at Mark 14, Matthew 26 or Luke 22. It is made very clear from scripture that Jesus was celebrating a Passover feast on that night.

Mark 14:22-24 – ‘While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”‘

Matthew 26:26-28 – ‘While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.”‘

Luke 22:19-20 – ‘Then he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.”‘

Hmmm… in all of the accounts of that night, there seems to be something missing… The lamb?! Where is the lamb? This was something that was at the center of the meal, the sacrifice, the ritual… It’s what everything revolved around! Where is it??? SPOILER ALERT!!! Jesus IS the Lamb!! That’s why John calls Jesus, in John Chapter 1, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”. He could have just as easily called him “Jesus, who takes away the sin of the world…” or “The Messiah, who takes away the sin of the world…”, but no, he doesn’t does he? He calls Him “The Lamb”.

So what’s going on here? Jesus is, in fact, replacing the old sacrifice of the Lamb with Himself, which should cause the fact that He is called “The Lamb of God” to be understood in a new light. I’ll tell you… After I put all of this together for the first time, it made so much sense to me and I could not believe how I had ever strayed away from The Church… I mean… Here is Jesus Christ, my LORD and SAVIOR giving EVERYTHING He has and EVERYTHING that He is to me…

Who do I say HE is?! He is THE LAMB OF GOD!!!

The 1st Christians understood that, just as in the Old Testament, the celebration of the Passover was a participation in the sacrifice and meal of the original Exodus from Egypt, so the celebration of the Eucharist is actually a participation in the New Passover meal and sacrifice of Jesus, the new Passover Lamb.

A couple of other things that I learned during my journey, about Jesus’ institution of this new Passover meal, is that during the Last Supper, He instituted the 12 Apostles as priests… Jesus tells them to offer the sacrifice of flesh and blood at a time when only Levitical priests (of the tribe of Levites) were allowed to offer sacrifices. Jesus restores the sacrificial priesthood at the last supper. The 12 apostles are, of course, symbolic of the 12 tribes of Israel. Because of this, the priesthood would no longer be determined by a bloodline, but rather by relationship with Him.

So what’s the purpose of Jesus doing this? I’ll tell you… Jesus is the fulfillment of The Old Testament and He came to lead us on the new Exodus… To the NEW JERUSALEM! Our journey out of bondage from sin and separation from The Father… So, it is certainly reasonable for us to say that since we’re on a new Exodus we have to have a new Passover. This is what The Eucharist is all about… It is the food for our journey.

“We are not called to watch Mass, but to participate. It’s time to stop watching and start worshiping.” – Father Mike Schmitz

As Catholics in Christ’s Church, during EVERY Mass we celebrate the same Passover meal that Jesus instituted almost 2,000 years ago… Jesus is present in body, blood, soul and divinity in glorified form in every host that has undergone transubstantiation… EVERY celebration of EVERY mass places us at that table with the apostles on that fateful night and at the hill on Calvary at the foot of His cross… In our short lives here on this earth, there is nowhere else that we should desire more to exist, than at the Mass actively participating in The Eucharist. How do I know this? Because Jesus Himself tells us so in Sacred Scripture… And that, my dear reader is a great place for us to stop and reflect for now…

Until next time…

Your Humble Servant in Christ,

William