The First Eucharist

Mk 14:17-26
I believe I was a junior in high school when I realized that Jesus was Jewish. He attended the synagogue, read the Torah and the Prophets (he was especially fond of Isaiah), he was buried according to Jewish custom.

I was baptized as in infant at Christ Methodist Church, and attended until I was 8 or 9. I don't suppose the Methodist church of the early 60s was anti-Semitic. It's just that the topic never came up.

We started attending the Episcopal church in ~1966. Fr. Connolly was rector of St. John's, OKC, and was one of the first I know of who hosted a celebration of the Seder at Passover. I have no doubt this planted the seed for my realization that Jesus was Jewish.

What is here called "The First Eucharist" is more often known as "The Last Supper". For the disciples, it was another Jewish Passover.

Passover is the traditional commemoration of the Jews' delivery from Egypt, when the Angel of Death "passed over" them. The people of Israel also passed over into the Promised Land. Toward the end of the meal, Jesus announces the betrayal which will lead to his "passing over" from life to death.

We've skipped some action to get from the feeding of the five thousand to this point. Jesus has not exactly gone out of his way to endear himself to the religious leaders. He calls them a pit of vipers and white-washed tombs. He reminds them that, however hard they try to follow the Law, they still fall short of perfection. He has the audacity to tell them the Law was made for humans, rather than the other way around.

Up to this point, he'd just been a preaching annoyance. But when he attacked the commerce in the Temple, he was meddling.

We know the rest of the story.

Yesterday, I talked about how Jesus' ministry seemed to be spreading further and further out. Now, we seem to have shrunk down to thirteen guys in a room. But have we?

As the "First Eucharist," this simple meal shares with communions in a variety of churches for over two thousand years. It's not a meal that will feed the body, as the loaves and fishes did. It's a meal that offers a deeper feeding. A meal to feed the soul.