This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory. Luke 22:19 (MSG)
A New Kind of Exodus – The Holy Week Series – Part 4
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While living enslaved in Egypt the Israelites shared an important meal. Moses had tried to convince Pharaoh to let them leave Egypt once and for all. But he refused. So, under cover of darkness, each Israelite family sacrificed a lamb, painted the doorposts of their homes with the blood of their sacrifices, and ate together. The spirit of God was coming, and every family that did not have their door-posts painted in blood would lose their first born son. Those whose mantles were covered would be passed over.
Redemption, by blood.
There was a saying throughout the generations when speaking of Passover,
“In that night they were redeemed, and in that night, they will be redeemed.”
For Jews, the Passover feast is not a time to simply remember what God had done for their ancestors in Egypt. Mysteriously, it’s a way to participate in the Exodus, to share in the original act of redemption. In each home, the father presiding over the feast would not speak of it in past-tense, but as if they were participating in the Exodus themselves at that very moment. Not a memory, but a living story, stitching the time together. The salvation experienced in Egypt by the Israelites was not just for back then but for ‘now,’ too.
The night of Passover is called the ‘Night of Watching.' Just as they ‘kept watch’ in Egypt as the Spirit of God passed over and through them (Ex 12:42), on this night, there is an expectancy that God will do something throughout each generation.
Just days after he had entered Jerusalem and the crowds declared his Kingship; after throwing the money-lenders out of the temple, and delivering his sermon on the Mount of Olives, Jesus gathered with his disciples on Passover night to share a meal loaded with possibility.
Jesus intended on leading them on a new kind of Exodus.
“Taking the bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.” He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.” (Luke 22:19-20.)
Bread and Wine. Flesh and Blood.
Jesus was wholly divine and totally human: God incarnate in humanity, a mash-up of holiness and dust. One of the things that set the Christian tradition apart from other religions is that our God clothed himself in our humanity.
“God became flesh. The bread of life. Anyone who drinks of him will never grow thirsty again.” (John.)
Richard Rohr says, “[Jesus] did not say, “Think about this,” “Fight about this,” “Stare at this;” but He said, “Eat this!” A dynamic, interactive event that makes one out of two… He is bringing this whole mystery of presence to the material, physical level.”
And not just presence “with” us, but present in us. This is the redemption already seen in the incarnation: That God wouldn’t just come to us, but he became one of us. “The hiding place of God, the revelation place of God, is the material world.”
When Jesus said to the disciples, “Eat in remembrance of me,” he wasn’t encouraging them to have a nostalgic thought about him every year on this night. He was referencing the night of watching, not just remembering the Exodus, but becoming it, incarnating it into their lives.
We are to participate in his redemption, eat it in, become one with it. Eat his bread (body), drink his wine (blood), and let it mix into our lives. Get as close to his sacrifice as we possibly can.
Christ is our good gift, our Eucharist, broken and poured out for us, to lead us in a new kind of Exodus.
This is our Holy Week Series from 2017 – Join us in our App for a fresh look at the week leading up to Easter.
Go to Eat and Drink – The Holy Week Series – Part 5 »
Written by Liz Milani
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