“…as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 11:26)

To all outward appearances, the Crucifixion of Our Lord was the judicial murder of an innocent Person, devoid of all significance except as an illustration of the saying that might is greater than right. Certainly the Apostles, when warned by Our Lord beforehand, looked on it as a useless waste of life that ought at all costs to be avoided.

It was, therefore, essential for Our Lord to invest his death on the Cross with its true significance and purpose, and to reveal that through the struggle of the Crucifixion he had saved us from the bondage of sin and opened the way for our union with his Father. Next, he had to ensure that this significance and purpose should never be forgotten by humankind. And lastly, he had to furnish the means by which we could be reconciled to God and have free access to him in our daily life, and thus be enabled here and now to share in the fruits of his victory won upon the Cross.

The answer to these three requirements, without which the Crucifixion – and therefore Our Lord’s mission – would be robbed of its purpose and effective power, is to be found in the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. We must therefore consider exactly what did happen that night in the Upper Room in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago.

Like hundreds of similar groups of friends within the ordinary synagogue congregations, Our Lord and the Apostles formed a private religious fellowship. These fellowships used to meet each week for a corporate supper, the ceremonial at which, through force of custom, followed a recognised pattern. (1)

Jesus knew for certain that, no matter what happened to him, the Apostles would continue to meet each week for their fellowship supper in the future as they had been doing in the past; and therefore to the last of these suppers on Maundy Thursday he gave a completely new meaning by enshrining within it the true significance of his death on Good Friday.

It began, as usual, with the special grace before meals. Our Lord takes bread and breaks it, just as he had done so many times before. He ‘gives thanks’ over it in the words familiar to every Jew, “Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, eternal King, Who bringest forth bread from the earth”. (2) He then distributes it to the disciples as he had done so often in the past, only this time he breaks the customary silence with words he had never used before, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 11:24).

So the supper continues until a late hour and it is time to end with the final grace. This took the form of a long prayer of thanksgiving, introduced by the words “Let us give thanks” and recited over a special cup of wine known as the “cup of blessing”. (3) This was then, according to custom, passed round in silence for each to sip. On this occasion, however, while the cup was being handed from one to the other Our Lord again added words he had never used before: this is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins; do this, as often as you shall drink it, in remembrance of me (1 Corinthians 11:25; Matthew 26:28).

However puzzled the apostles may have been by his words at the distribution of the bread, they could be in no doubt this time of his meaning, in part at any rate. During the prayer of blessing over the cup he had given thanks, in words which were traditional, for the old Covenant or alliance between God and his Chosen People. But now, whenever this fellowship of his meets again for all time to come, it will give thanks for a new Covenant, an altogether new reconciliation with God, sealed in his Blood.

By these words at the Last Supper Jesus showed that, when his Body was nailed to the Cross and his Blood was poured out, he would be giving his life for us, so that we, instead of being separated from God by our sins, might be made at one with him.

So, when the Apostles had their next fellowship meal after the Crucifixion, they did as Jesus had commanded them and used the same words which he had first used at the Last Supper. It was in this way, and in this way alone, that they came to know and understand what Our Lord’s death had really meant, and so the fellowship meal became their chief service every Sunday at which they re-called before God the Crucifixion and thanked him for all Our Lord had done in saving us from the power of sin and uniting us to God. That is why this great Christian act of worship was called the Eucharist or Thanksgiving.

In course of time the supper was given up, leaving behind what had once been the grace over the bread and the grace over the wine but which were now charged with a new and sublime significance. So, within a few years after the Crucifixion, we find the Eucharist held by itself in the shape familiar to us today: ‘the taking of bread and wine’ (the Offertory), the prayer of blessing (the Consecration), the breaking of the bread, and the Communion.

Thus the Eucharist was not only the original and central devotion of the early Church but was the actual means by which the great truths of Christ’s Person and of the Christian religion were revealed to the first Christians, and preserved among them, years before the New Testament was formed.

And to this day it has remained as the central act of worship, lying at the very heart of the Christian religion. For the Eucharist is Our Lord’s own Service which he has given us with his own hands, a few hours before the nails were driven through them, in order to enable us to obtain what he won for us on the Cross. No other Service can take the place of the Eucharist and no Sunday can be complete without our taking part in it.

We are not fit to approach God because of our sins, and so we remember before him how Our Lord was crucified to save us from the power of sin and to bring us to him. And as we draw near to God in the Eucharist, he welcomes us.

As, therefore, the Crucifixion is the ground of our reconciliation to God, so the Eucharist is the means by which in our everyday life we make that reconciliation our own and enter into it.

References

1. Dix, Dom Gregory (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press.

2. Dix, Dom Gregory (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press.

3. Dix, Dom Gregory (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press.