C5 - The Last Supper
Even more than Jesusâ eschatological discourse, which we considered in chapter 2 of this book, the accounts of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist are caught up in a dense undergrowth of mutually contradictory hypotheses, which seem to make access to the real event virtually impossible. Since the text in question concerns the very heart of Christianity and does indeed raise difficult historical questions, this is not surprising.
I shall attempt to follow the same path as in the case of the eschatological discourse. This book does not seek to address the many perfectly justifiable specific questions about every detail of text and history: our task instead is to become acquainted with the figure of Jesus, and we leave the details to the experts. All the same, we cannot prescind from the question of the actual historicity of the key events.
The New Testament message is not simply an idea; essential to it is the fact that these events actually occurred in the history of this world: biblical faith does not recount stories as symbols of meta-historical truths; rather, it bases itself upon history that unfolded upon this earth (cf. Part One, p. xv). If Jesus did not give his disciples bread and wine as his body and blood, then the Churchâs eucharistic celebration is empty - a pious fiction and not a reality at the foundation of communion with God and among men.
This naturally raises once more the question of possible and appropriate forms of historical verification. We must be clear about the fact that historical research can at most establish high probability but never final and absolute certainty over every detail. If the certainty of faith were dependent upon scientific-historical verification alone, it would always remain open to revision.
Let me take an example from the recent history of exegetical research. Amid the growing confusion of academic hypotheses, the great German exegete Joachim Jeremias set out with the utmost historical and philological erudition and with the greatest methodological precision to identify the ipsissima verba Iesu, Jesusâ own words, from the abundance of material handed down, hoping to find in them the bedrock of faith: surely we can build on what Jesus himself actually said. Even though Jeremiasâ results are still relevant and of considerable importance in academic circles, there are well-founded critical questions that show at least that there are limits to the certainty he attained.
So what may we expect? And what may we not expect? From a theological standpoint, it must be said that if the historicity of the key words and events could be scientifically disproved, then the faith would have lost its foundation. Conversely, we may not expect, as mentioned earlier, to find absolutely certain proof of every detail, given the nature of historical knowledge. The important thing for us, then, is to ascertain whether the basic convictions of the faith are historically plausible and credible when todayâs exegetical knowledge is taken in all seriousness.
Many details may remain open. Yet the âfactum estâ of Johnâs Prologue (1:14) is a basic Christian category, and it applies not only to the Incarnation: it must also be invoked for the Last Supper, the Cross, and the Resurrection. Jesusâ Incarnation is ordered toward his offering of himself for men, and this in turn is ordered toward the Resurrection: were it otherwise, Christianity would not be true. The reality of this âfactum estâ cannot - as we have seen - be viewed through the lens of absolute historical certainty, but its gravity can be recognized through correct reading of the Scripture as such.
It is faith that gives us the ultimate certainty upon which we base our whole lives - a humble commonality of belief in company with the Church of every age under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. On this basis, moreover, we can serenely examine exegetical hypotheses that all too often make exaggerated claims to certainty, claims that are already undermined by the existence of diametrically opposed positions put forward with an equal claim to scientific certainty.
On the basis of these methodological presuppositions, I shall attempt to select the questions that are essential for the faith from across the whole range of the debate. They will be grouped into four sections. In the first place, we will consider the dating of Jesusâ Last Supper, which is essentially the question of whether or not it was a Passover meal. Secondly, we will consider the texts that recount Jesusâ Last Supper, together with the question of their historical credibility. In third place, I should like to attempt an exegesis of the essential theological content of the Last Supper tradition. Finally, in the fourth section, we must briefly look beyond the New Testament tradition to the emergence of the Churchâs Eucharist - the development that Augustine described as the passage from the Last Supper to the âmorning offeringâ (cf. En. in Ps. 140, 5).
The Dating of the Last Supper
The problem of dating Jesusâ Last Supper arises from the contradiction on this point between the Synoptic Gospels, on the one hand, and Saint Johnâs Gospel, on the other. Mark, whom Matthew and Luke follow in essentials, gives us a precise dating: âOn the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, âWhere will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?â ⌠And when it was evening he came with the Twelveâ (14:12, 17). The evening of the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Paschal lambs are slaughtered in the Temple, is the vigil of the Passover feast. According to the chronology of the Synoptics, this was a Thursday.
After sunset, the Passover began, and then the Passover meal was taken - by Jesus and his disciples, as indeed by all the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem. On the night leading into Friday, then - still according to the Synoptic chronology - Jesus was arrested and brought before the court; on Friday morning he was condemned to death by Pilate, and subsequently, âaround the third hourâ (ca. 9:00 A.M.), he was led to the Cross. Jesus died at the ninth hour (ca. 3:00 P.M.). âAnd when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea ⌠took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesusâ (Mk 15:42-43). The burial had to take place before sunset, because then the Sabbath would begin. The Sabbath is the day when Jesus rested in the tomb. The Resurrection took place on the morning of the âfirst day of the weekâ, on Sunday.
This chronology suffers from the problem that Jesusâ trial and crucifixion would have taken place on the day of the Passover feast, which that year fell on a Friday. True, many scholars have tried to show that the trial and crucifixion were compatible with the prescriptions of the Passover. But despite all academic arguments, it seems questionable whether the trial before Pilate and the crucifixion would have been permissible and possible on such an important Jewish feast day. Moreover, there is a comment reported by Mark that militates against this hypothesis. He tells us that two days before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests and scribes were looking for an opportunity to bring Jesus under their control by stealth and kill him, but in this regard, they declared: ânot during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the peopleâ (14:1-2). According to the Synoptic chronology, the execution of Jesus would indeed have taken place on the very day of the feast.
Let us now turn to Johnâs chronology. John goes to great lengths to indicate that the Last Supper was not a Passover meal. On the contrary: the Jewish authorities who led Jesus before Pilateâs court avoided entering the praetorium, âso that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passoverâ (18:28). The Passover, therefore, began only in the evening, and at the time of the trial the Passover meal had not yet taken place; the trial and crucifixion took place on the day before the Passover, on the âday of preparationâ, not on the feast day itself. The Passover feast in the year in question accordingly ran from Friday evening until Saturday evening, not from Thursday evening until Friday evening.
Otherwise the sequence of events remains the same: Thursday evening - Jesusâ Last Supper with the disciples, but not a Passover meal; Friday, the vigil of the feast, not the feast itself - trial and execution; Saturday - rest in the tomb; Sunday - Resurrection. According to this chronology, Jesus dies at the moment when the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple. Jesus dies as the real lamb, merely prefigured by those slain in the Temple.
This theologically significant connection, that Jesusâ death coincides with the slaughter of the Passover lambs, has led many scholars to dismiss Johnâs presentation as a theological chronology. John, they claim, altered the chronology in order to create this theological connection, which admittedly is not made explicit in the Gospel. Today, though, it is becoming increasingly clear that Johnâs chronology is more probable historically than the Synoptic chronology. For as mentioned earlier: trial and execution on the feast seem scarcely conceivable. On the other hand, Jesusâ Last Supper seems so closely tied to the Passover tradition that to deny its Passover character is problematic.
Frequent attempts have been made, therefore, to reconcile the two chronologies with one another. A most important and indeed fascinating attempt to harmonize the two traditions was made by the French scholar Annie Jaubert, who developed her theory in a series of publications starting in 1953. We need not go into the details of this proposal here; let us confine ourselves to the essentials.
Jaubert bases herself primarily on two early texts, which seem to suggest a solution to the problem. First she refers to an ancient priestly calendar handed down in the Book of Jubilees, which was a Hebrew text produced in the second half of the second century before Christ. This calendar leaves the cycles of the moon out of consideration and bases itself upon a year of 364 days, divided into four seasons, each consisting of three months, two of them thirty days long and one thirty-one days long. Each quarter year, then, has ninety-one days, which is exactly thirteen weeks, and each year has exactly fifty-two weeks. Accordingly, the liturgical feasts fall on the same weekday every year. For the Passover, this means that the fifteenth day of Nisan is always a Wednesday and the Passover meal is held after sunset on Tuesday evening. According to Jaubert, Jesus celebrated the Passover following this calendar, that is, on Tuesday evening, and was arrested during the night leading into Wednesday.
Jaubert sees here the solution to two problems: first, Jesus celebrated a real Passover meal, as the Synoptic tradition maintains; yet John is also right, in that the Jewish authorities, following their own calendar, did not celebrate the Passover until after Jesusâ trial, and Jesus was therefore executed on the vigil of the real Passover, not on the feast itself. Both the Synoptic and the Johannine traditions thus appear to be correct on the basis of the discrepancy between two different calendars.
The second advantage emphasized by Annie Jaubert shows at the same time the weakness of this attempted solution. She points out that the traditional chronologies (Synoptic and Johannine) have to compress a whole series of events into a few hours: the hearing before the Sanhedrin, Jesus being sent over to Pilate, Pilateâs wifeâs dream, Jesus being handed over to Herod, his return to Pilate, the scourging, the condemnation to death, the way of the Cross, and the crucifixion. To accomplish all this in the space of a few hours seems scarcely possible, according to Jaubert. Her solution, though, provides a time frame from the night leading into Wednesday to the morning of Good Friday.
She also argues that Mark gives a precise sequence of events for âPalm Sundayâ, Monday, and Tuesday, but then leaps directly to the Passover meal. According to the traditional dating, then, two days remain of which nothing is recounted. Finally, Jaubert reminds us that, if her theory is correct, the Jewish authorities could have succeeded in their plan to kill Jesus in good time before the feast. Pilate then delayed the crucifixion until Friday, so the theory goes, through his hesitations.
One argument against this redating of the Last Supper to Tuesday, of course, is the long tradition assigning it to Thursday, which we find clearly established as early as the second century. Jaubert responds by pointing to the second text on which her theory is based: the so-called Didascalia Apostolorum, a text from the early third century that places the Last Supper on Tuesday. She tries to show that this book preserved an old tradition, traces of which are also found in other texts.
In reply it must be said that the traces of tradition to which she refers are too weak to be convincing. The other difficulty is that Jesus is unlikely to have used a calendar associated principally with Qumran. Jesus went to the Temple for the great feasts. Even if he prophesied its demise and confirmed this with a dramatic symbolic action, he still followed the Jewish festal calendar, as is evident from Johnâs Gospel in particular. True, one can agree with Jaubert that the Jubilees calendar was not strictly limited to Qumran and the Essenes. Yet this is not sufficient to justify applying it to Jesusâ Passover. Thus it is understandable that Annie Jaubertâs theory - so fascinating on first sight - is rejected by the majority of exegetes.
I have presented it in some detail because it offers an insight into the complexity of the Jewish world at the time of Jesus, a world that we can reconstruct only to a limited degree, despite all the knowledge of sources now available to us. So while I would not reject this theory outright, it cannot simply be accepted at face value, in view of the various problems that remain unresolved.
So what are we to say? The most meticulous evaluation I have come across of all the solutions proposed so far is found in the book A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, by John P. Meier, who at the end of his first volume presents a comprehensive study of the chronology of Jesusâ life. He concludes that one has to choose between the Synoptic and Johannine chronologies, and he argues, on the basis of the whole range of source material, that the weight of evidence favors John.
John is right when he says that at the time of Jesusâ trial before Pilate, the Jewish authorities had not yet eaten the Passover and, thus, had to keep themselves ritually pure. He is right that the crucifixion took place, not on the feast, but on the day before the feast. This means that Jesus died at the hour when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple. That Christians later saw this as no coincidence, that they recognized Jesus as the true Lamb, that in this way they came to see the true meaning of the ritual of the lambs - all this seems to follow naturally.
The question remains: Why did the Synoptics speak of a Passover meal? What is the basis for this strand of tradition? Not even Meier can give a truly convincing answer to this question. He makes an attempt - like many other exegetes - through redaction criticism and literary criticism. He argues that Mark 14:1a and 14:12-16 - the only passages in which Mark mentions the Passover - were later additions. In the actual account of the Last Supper itself, he claims, there is no reference to the Passover.
This argument, however many major figures have come out in support of it, is artificial. Yet Meier is right to point out that in the description of the meal itself, the Synoptics recount as little of the Passover ritual as John. Thus with certain reservations, one can agree with his conclusion: âThe entire Johannine tradition, from early to late, agrees perfectly with the primitive Synoptic tradition on the non-Passover character of the mealâ (A Marginal Jew I, p. 398).
We have to ask, though, what Jesusâ Last Supper actually was. And how did it acquire its undoubtedly early attribution of Passover character? The answer given by Meier is astonishingly simple and in many respects convincing: Jesus knew that he was about to die. He knew that he would not be able to eat the Passover again. Fully aware of this, he invited his disciples to a Last Supper of a very special kind, one that followed no specific Jewish ritual but, rather, constituted his farewell; during the meal he gave them something new: he gave them himself as the true Lamb and thereby instituted his Passover.
In all the Synoptic Gospels, the prophecy of Jesusâ death and Resurrection form part of this meal. Luke presents it in an especially solemn and mysterious form: âI have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of Godâ (22:15-16). The saying is ambiguous. It can mean that Jesus is eating the usual Passover meal with his disciples for the last time. But it can also mean that he is eating it no longer but, rather, is on his way to the new Passover.
One thing emerges clearly from the entire tradition: essentially, this farewell meal was not the old Passover, but the new one, which Jesus accomplished in this context. Even though the meal that Jesus shared with the Twelve was not a Passover meal according to the ritual prescriptions of Judaism, nevertheless, in retrospect, the inner connection of the whole event with Jesusâ death and Resurrection stood out clearly. It was Jesusâ Passover. And in this sense he both did and did not celebrate the Passover: the old rituals could not be carried out - when their time came, Jesus had already died. But he had given himself, and thus he had truly celebrated the Passover with them. The old was not abolished; it was simply brought to its full meaning.
The earliest evidence for this unified view of the new and the old, providing a new explanation of the Passover character of Jesusâ meal in terms of his death and Resurrection, is found in Saint Paulâs First Letter to the Corinthians: âCleanse out the old leaven that you may be new dough, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificedâ (5:7; cf. Meier, A Marginal Jew I, pp. 429-30). As in Mark 14:1, so here the first day of Unleavened Bread and the Passover follow in rapid succession, but the older ritual understanding is transformed into a Christological and existential interpretation. Unleavened bread must now refer to Christians themselves, who are freed from sin by the addition of yeast. But the sacrificial lamb is Christ. Here Paul is in complete harmony with Johnâs presentation of events. For him the death and Resurrection of Christ have become the Passover that endures.
On this basis one can understand how it was that very early on, Jesusâ Last Supper - which includes not only a prophecy, but a real anticipation of the Cross and Resurrection in the eucharistic gifts - was regarded as a Passover: as his Passover. And so it was.
The Institution of the Eucharist
The so-called institution narrative, namely, the words and actions by which Jesus gave himself to the disciples in the form of bread and wine, lies at the heart of the Last Supper tradition. In addition to the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Saint Paulâs First Letter to the Corinthians provides a further institution narrative (11:23-26). The four accounts are very similar in essentials, yet there are differences in detail that have understandably received a great deal of attention in exegetical literature.
Two basic models can be distinguished: first there is Markâs account, which is broadly similar to Matthewâs; then there is Paulâs text, which is related to Lukeâs. The Pauline account is the oldest in literary terms: the First Letter to the Corinthians was written around the year 56. Markâs Gospel in its written form came later, but it is widely agreed that his text is based upon very early tradition. The argument among exegetes is concerned with the attempt to establish which of the two models - Markâs or Paulâs - is the older.
Rudolf Pesch has argued impressively for the greater antiquity of Markâs tradition, which he dates back to the 30s. But Paulâs account has its roots in the same decade. Paul states that he is handing on the tradition that he himself received concerning the Lord. The institution narrative and the Resurrection tradition (1 Cor 15:3-8) occupy a special place in Paulâs letters: they are preexistent texts that the Apostle has already âreceivedâ and that he takes pains to hand on literally. In both places he states that he is handing on what he has received. In I Corinthians 15, he insists explicitly on the exact wording, as it is necessary for salvation that this be preserved. It follows that Paul received the words of the Last Supper from within the early community in a manner that left him quite certain of their authenticity - quite certain that these were the Lordâs own words.
Pesch bases his argument for the historical priority of Markâs account on the fact that his is still a simple narrative, whereas Pesch regards I Corinthians 11 as âetiology of worshipâ, that is to say, it is shaped by and for the liturgy (cf. Markusevangelium II, pp. 364-77, esp. 369). He certainly has a point. Nevertheless, it seems to me that, as far as their historical and theological character is concerned, there is ultimately no significant difference between the two texts.
It is true that Paul is using normative language to speak about the celebration of the Christian liturgy; if that is what is meant by âetiology of worshipâ, then I can agree. But what makes the text normative for worship in Paulâs eyes is the very fact that it reproduces the Lordâs testament literally. Hence there is no contradiction between holding that the text is intended for the liturgy, having been crafted earlier with the liturgy in mind, and holding that it represents a strict tradition of the Lordâs own words and intentions. Quite the contrary: it is normative precisely because it is true and authentic. At the same time, accuracy of transmission does not exclude a degree of concentration and selection. Yet whatever selection and shaping of material took place could never, in Paulâs mind, be allowed to misrepresent what the Lord entrusted to his disciples that night.
Similar selection and shaping of material for liturgical purposes took place in Markâs Gospel as well. For neither can this ânarrativeâ prescind from its normative function vis-a-vis the Churchâs liturgy: it, too, presupposes an already established liturgical tradition. Both strands of tradition set out to transmit the Lordâs testament to us accurately. Between them, they allow us to recognize the depth of the theological implications of the events of that night, and at the same time they highlight what was radically new in Jesusâ action.
Given the uniquely powerful event described in the Last Supper accounts, in terms of its theological significance and its place in the history of religions, it could hardly fail to be called into question in modern theology: something so utterly extraordinary was scarcely compatible with the picture of the friendly rabbi that many exegetes draw of Jesus. It is ânot to be believed of himâ. Neither, of course, does it match the picture of Jesus as a political revolutionary. Much present-day exegesis, then, disputes the claim that the words of institution go back to Jesus himself. As this concerns the very heart of Christianity and the essence of the figure of Jesus, we must take a somewhat closer look.
The principal argument against the historical authenticity of the words and actions of the Last Supper may be summarized as follows: There is an insoluble contradiction between Jesusâ message about the kingdom of God and the notion of his vicarious expiatory death. Yet the key element in the words of institution is the âfor you - for manyâ, the vicarious self-offering of Jesus including the idea of expiation. Whereas John the Baptist had called people to conversion in the face of the threat of judgment, Jesus, as the messenger of joy, proclaimed that Godâs lordship and unconditional readiness to forgive were close at hand, that the dominion of Godâs goodness and mercy had arrived. âThe final word spoken by God through his final messenger (the messenger of joy following the last messenger of judgment, John) is a word of salvation. Jesusâ proclamation is characterized by an unambiguously prior orientation toward Godâs promise of salvation, by the eclipse of the approaching God of judgment by the present God of goodness.â In these words, Pesch summarizes the essential content of the case for incompatibility between the Last Supper tradition and all that was new and specific in Jesusâ proclamation (Abendmahl, p. 104).
Peter Fiedler takes this argument to extremes by pointing out, first: âJesus taught that the Father is unconditionally ready to pardonâ, and going on to ask: âYet perhaps he was not so magnanimous with his grace or so sovereign after all, since he demanded expiationâ (SĂźnde und Vergebung, p. 569; cf. Pesch, Abendmahl, pp. 16, 106). Fiedler then claims that the idea of expiation is incompatible with Jesusâ image of God, and here many exegetes and systematic theologians would agree with him.
This is the real reason why a good number of modern theologians (not only exegetes) reject the idea that the words of the Last Supper go back to Jesus himself. It is not on the basis of historical evidence: as we have seen, the eucharistic texts belong to the earliest strand of tradition. From the point of view of historical evidence, nothing could be more authentic than this Last Supper tradition. But the idea of expiation is incomprehensible to the modern mind. Jesus, with his proclamation of the kingdom of God, must surely be diametrically opposed to such a notion. At issue here is our image of God and our image of man. To this extent, the whole discussion only appears to be concerned with history.
The real question is: What is expiation? Is it compatible with a pure image of God? Is it not a phase in manâs religious development that we need to move beyond? If Jesus is to be the new messenger of God, should he not be opposing this notion? So the actual point at issue is whether the New Testament texts - if read rightly - articulate an understanding of expiation that we too can accept, whether we are prepared to listen to the whole of the message that it offers us.
We will have to provide an answer to this question in the chapter on Jesusâ death on the Cross. Naturally this will require of us a readiness not only to form a âcriticalâ assessment of the New Testament, but also to learn from it and to let ourselves be led by it: not to dismantle the texts according to our preconceived ideas, but to let our own ideas be purified and deepened by his word.
Meanwhile, by listening in this way, let us try to take some tentative steps toward an understanding. Here the first question to consider is this: Is there really a contradiction between the Galilean proclamation of the kingdom of God and Jesusâ final teaching upon arrival in Jerusalem?
Some notable exegetes - Rudolf Pesch, Gerhard Lohfink, Ulrich Wilckens - do indeed see an important difference, but not an insoluble antithesis between the two. They argue that Jesus began by offering the good news of Godâs kingdom and his unconditional forgiveness, but that he had to acknowledge the rejection of this offer and so came to identify his mission with that of the Suffering Servant. They argue that after his offer was refused, he realized that the only remaining path was that of vicarious expiation: that he had to take upon himself the disaster looming over Israel, thereby obtaining salvation for many.
What is our response to this? From the perspective of the whole structure of the biblical image of God and salvation history, a progression of this kind, a move toward a new path of love after the initial offer was rejected, is entirely plausible. This âflexibilityâ on Godâs part is utterly characteristic of the paths that he treads with his people, as recounted for us in the Old Testament - he waits for manâs free choice, and whenever the answer is ânoâ, he opens up a new path of love. He responds to Adamâs ânoâ with a new overture toward man. He responds to Babelâs ânoâ with a fresh initiative in history - the choice of Abraham. When the Israelites ask for a king, it is initially out of spite toward God, who prefers to reign directly over his people. Yet in the promise to David he transforms this spite into a path leading directly to Christ, Davidâs Son. So a similar two-stage process in Jesusâ approach to the people is entirely plausible.
Chapter 6 of Johnâs Gospel seems to suggest just such a change in Jesusâ dealings with men. The people and many of his disciples turn away from him after the eucharistic discourse. Only the Twelve stay with him. There is a similar turning point in Markâs Gospel after the second miracle of the multiplication of loaves and Peterâs confession (8:27-30), when Jesus begins the prophecies of the Passion and sets out on the road to Jerusalem, toward his final Passover.
In 1929, Erik Peterson wrote an article on the Church - one that is still well worth reading - in which he argued that the Church came into existence only because âthe Jews as Godâs chosen people did not become believers in the Lord.â Had they accepted Jesus, then âthe Son of Man would have come again and the Messianic kingdom would have been inaugurated, with the Jews occupying the most important placeâ (Theologische Traktakte, p. 247). Romano Guardini in his writings about Jesus took up this idea and reworked it. For him, Jesusâ message clearly begins with the offer of the kingdom; Israelâs ânoâ leads to the new phase in salvation history to which the Lordâs death and Resurrection and the Church of the Gentiles belong.
What are we to make of all this? First of all, a certain development in Jesusâ message with a change of strategy is entirely plausible. Admittedly, Peterson himself does not locate the shift in the message of Jesus himself, but in the post-Easter period, when to begin with the disciples were still struggling to obtain a âyesâ from Israel. Only to the extent that this attempt proved a failure did they turn to the Gentiles. This second stage is clearly described for us in the New Testament texts.
On the other hand, developments in Jesusâ path can only ever be posited with a greater or lesser degree of probability, not with total clarity. The sharp contrast that some modern exegetes draw between the proclamation of Godâs kingdom and the Jerusalem teaching simply does not exist. We have already noted the evidence that points toward a certain development in Jesusâ path. Yet now we must acknowledge (as John P. Meier has clearly maintained) that the format of the Synoptic Gospels does not permit us to establish the chronology of Jesusâ proclamation. It is true that there is a growing emphasis on the necessity of Jesusâ death and Resurrection as the narrative unfolds. But the material overall is not chronologically ordered in a way that would permit a clear distinction between earlier and later elements.
A few examples must suffice. In Markâs Gospel, as early as chapter 2 during the dispute over the disciplesâ fasting, Jesus prophesies: âThe days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that dayâ (2:20). Still more important is the definition of his mission concealed beneath his speaking in parables - parables that convey to the people his message about the kingdom of God. Jesus identifies his mission with the one that Isaiah received after his encounter with the living God in the Temple: the Prophet was told that initially his mission would merely lead to further hardening of hearts, and only through this could salvation then follow. Even during the early phase of his preaching, Jesus tells the disciples that his own path will follow exactly the same pattern (Mk 4:10-12; cf. Is 6:9-10).
In this way all the parables, the whole proclamation of Godâs kingdom, are placed under the sign of the Cross. Viewed through the lens of the Last Supper and the Resurrection, we could describe the Cross as the most radical expression of Godâs unconditional love, as he offers himself despite all rejection on the part of men, taking menâs ânoâ upon himself and drawing it into his âyesâ (cf. 2 Cor 1:19). This interpretation of the parables and their proclamation of Godâs kingdom in terms of the theology of the Cross is also found in the parallel passages of the other two Synoptic Gospels (Mt 13:10-17; Lk 8:9-10).
The fact that Jesusâ message was shaped by the Cross from the outset can be seen in other ways in the Synoptic Gospels. I shall limit myself to two examples.
Matthew begins his account of Jesusâ ministry with the Sermon on the Mount, which opens solemnly with the beatitudes. These are colored throughout by the language of the Cross, expressed most vividly in the final beatitude: âBlessed are those who are persecuted for righteousnessâ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before youâ (Mt 5:10-12).
Finally, at the beginning of Saint Lukeâs account of Jesusâ ministry, we read of his rejection in Nazareth (cf. Lk 4:16-19). Jesus proclaims that Isaiahâs promise of a year of the Lordâs favor is being fulfilled: âHe has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressedâ (4:18). In response to this claim, his compatriots immediately become angry and drive him out of the town: they âled him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlongâ (4:29). At the very moment when Jesus announces the message of grace, the perspective of the Cross opens up. Luke, who took great care over the composition of his Gospel, used this episode quite deliberately to set the scene for Jesusâ entire ministry.
There is no contradiction between Jesusâ proclamation of joy and his acceptance of death on the Cross for many. On the contrary: only through this acceptance and transformation of death does the message of grace acquire its full depth. Moreover, the idea that the Eucharist originated within the âcommunityâ is quite absurd, even from a historical point of view. Who could possibly have dreamed up such an idea, such a reality? How could the first generation of Christians - as early as the 30s - have accepted such an invention without anyone calling it into question?
Rightly, Pesch comments that âso far, it has not been possible to come up with any convincing alternative explanation of the Last Supper traditionâ (Abendmahl, p. 21). No such explanation exists. Only from the mind of Jesus himself could such an idea have emerged. Only he could so authoritatively weave together the strands of the Law and the Prophets - remaining entirely faithful to Scripture while expressing the radically new quality of his sonship. Only because he himself spoke and acted thus could the Church in her various manifestations âbreak breadâ from the very beginning, as Jesus did on the night he was betrayed.
The Theology of the Words of Institution
After all these reflections on the historical background and authenticity of Jesusâ words of institution, it is now time to consider their content. First we should remind ourselves that the four accounts of the Eucharist can be grouped according to two strands of tradition with differing characteristics. Without examining the differences in detail, we should briefly draw attention to the most important ones.
Whereas Mark (14:22) and Matthew (26:26) give the words spoken over the bread simply as âThis is my bodyâ, Paul extends this to âThis is my body which is for youâ (1 Cor 11:24), and Luke fills out the sense further: âThis is my body which is given for youâ (22:19). For Luke and Paul, this is immediately followed by the instruction to repeat the action: âDo this in remembrance of meâ, but no such instruction is found in the accounts of Matthew and Mark. The words over the chalice, in Markâs account, are: âThis is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for manyâ (14:24); Matthew adds: âfor many, for the forgiveness of sinsâ (26:28). In Paulâs account, though, Jesus says: âThis chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of meâ (1 Cor 11:25). Luke uses a similar formulation, but with slight differences: âThis chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my bloodâ (22:20). There is no second instruction to repeat.
It is important to note two clear differences between Paul / Luke, on the one hand, and Mark / Matthew, on the other: Mark and Matthew make âthe bloodâ the subject: âThis is my bloodâ, whereas Paul and Luke say: This is âthe new covenant in my bloodâ. Many see here an acknowledgment of Jewish abhorrence at the idea of consuming blood: here the direct content of what is to be drunk is not âbloodâ but âthe new covenantâ. This leads us now to the second difference: whereas Mark and Matthew speak simply of âblood of the covenantâ and thus point to Exodus 24:8, the sealing of the Covenant on Sinai, Paul and Luke speak of a new covenant and thus refer to Jeremiah 31:31 - yet another strand of Old Testament background. Moreover, Mark and Matthew speak of the shedding of the blood âfor manyâ and thus point to Isaiah 53:12, whereas Paul and Luke say âfor youâ, bringing the community of disciples directly to mind.
Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of debate among exegetes over what Jesusâ actual words were. Rudolf Pesch has shown that there are forty-six prima facie possibilities, and this figure can be doubled by exchanging the introductory formulae (cf. Das Evangelium in Jerusalem, pp. 134ff.). These efforts are not without importance, but they cannot detain us here.
We take it as a given that the tradition of Jesusâ words would not exist without reception by the early Church, which was conscious of a strict obligation to faithfulness in essentials, but also recognized that the enormous resonance of these words, with their subtle references to Scripture, permitted a degree of nuanced redaction. The New Testament writers heard echoes of both Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31 in Jesusâ words and could choose to place the accent more on the one or on the other, without thereby being unfaithful to the Lordâs words, which in barely audible yet unmistakable ways gathered within themselves the Law and the Prophets. With these considerations we have already crossed over into the realm of interpretation.
In all four versions, the institution narratives begin by recounting two actions of Jesus that have taken on an essential meaning for the Churchâs reception of this whole tradition. We are told that Jesus took the bread, saying over it the prayer of blessing and thanksgiving, and that then he broke and distributed the bread. For the first action we find the word eucharistia (Paul / Luke) or eulogia (Mark / Matthew): each of these words indicates the berakah, the Jewish traditionâs great prayer of thanksgiving and blessing, which belongs both to the Passover ritual and to other meals. No one ever eats without first thanking God for his gifts: for the bread that he brings forth from the earth and for the fruit of the vine.
The two different Greek words used by Mark / Matthew, on the one hand, and Paul / Luke, on the other, point to the two strands contained within this prayer: it is thanks and praise for Godâs gift. Yet this praise returns as blessing over the gift, as we read in I Timothy 4:4-5: âEverything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (eucharistia); for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.â At the Last Supper (and earlier at the multiplication of loaves, Jn 6:11), Jesus takes up this tradition. The words of institution belong within this context of prayer; the thanksgiving leads to blessing and to transformation.
From her earliest days, the Church has understood the words of consecration not simply as a kind of quasi-magical command, but as part of her praying in and with Jesus; as a central part of the praise and thanksgiving through which Godâs earthly gift is given to us anew in the form of Jesusâ body and blood, as Godâs gift of himself in his Sonâs self-emptying love. Louis Bouyer has attempted to trace the development of the Christian eucharistĂa - the Eucharistic Prayer - from the Jewish berakah. Thus we can understand how the name âEucharistâ came to be applied to the whole of the new act of worship given to us by Jesus. We will return to this theme later, in the fourth section of this chapter.
The second action to note is that Jesus âbroke the breadâ. The breaking of bread for all is in the first instance a function of the head of the family, who by this action in some sense represents God the Father, who gives us everything, through the earthâs bounty, that we need for life. It is also a gesture of hospitality, through which the stranger is given a share in what is oneâs own; he is welcomed into table fellowship. Breaking and distributing: it is the act of distributing that creates community. This archetypally human gesture of giving, sharing, and uniting acquires an entirely new depth in Jesusâ Last Supper through his gift of himself. Godâs bountiful distribution of gifts takes on a radical quality when the Son communicates and distributes himself in the form of bread.
This gesture of Jesus has thus come to symbolize the whole mystery of the Eucharist: in the Acts of the Apostles and in early Christianity generally, the âbreaking of breadâ designates the Eucharist. In this sacrament we enjoy the hospitality of God, who gives himself to us in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Thus breaking bread and distributing it - the act of attending lovingly to those in need - is an intrinsic dimension of the Eucharist.
âCaritasâ, care for the other, is not an additional sector of Christianity alongside worship; rather, it is rooted in it and forms part of it. The horizontal and the vertical are inseparably linked in the Eucharist, in the âbreaking of breadâ. In this dual action of praise / thanksgiving and breaking / distributing that is recounted at the beginning of the institution narrative, the essence of the new worship established by Christ through the Last Supper, Cross, and Resurrection is made manifest: here the old Temple worship is abolished and at the same time brought to its fulfillment.
Let us now turn to the words spoken over the bread. The accounts of Mark and Matthew simply say: âThis is my bodyâ, whereas Paul and Luke add: âwhich is given for youâ. This addition makes explicit what is contained in the act of distributing. When Jesus speaks of his body, he is obviously not referring to the body as opposed to the soul or the spirit, but to the whole, flesh-and-blood person. In this sense, as Rudolf Pesch rightly observes: âJesusâ interpretation of the bread presupposes the particular meaning of his person. The disciples could understand that he was saying: this is I myself, the Messiahâ (Markusevangelium II, p. 357).
But how can this be? Jesus, after all, is standing there in the midst of his disciples - what is he doing? He is bringing to fulfillment what he had said in the Good Shepherd discourse: âNo one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accordâ (Jn 10:18). His life will be taken from him on the Cross, but here he is already laying it down. He transforms his violent death into a free act of self-giving for others and to others.
And he also says: âI have power to lay [my life] down, and I have power to take it againâ (ibid.). He gives his life, knowing that in so doing he is taking it up again. The act of giving his life includes the Resurrection. Therefore, by way of anticipation, he can already distribute himself, because he is already offering his life - himself - and in the process receiving it again. So it is that he can already institute the sacrament in which he becomes the grain of wheat that dies, the sacrament in which he distributes himself to men through the ages in the real multiplication of loaves.
The words spoken over the chalice, which we must now consider, are of extraordinary theological depth. As indicated earlier, three Old Testament texts are woven together in these few words, so that the whole of earlier salvation history is summarized in them and once more made present.
First there is Exodus 24:8 - the sealing of the Covenant on Sinai; then there is Jeremiah 31:31 - the promise of the New Covenant amid the crisis of the Covenantâs history, a crisis whose clearest manifestations were the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile; finally there is Isaiah 53:12 - the mysterious promise of the Suffering Servant, who bears the sins of many and so brings about their salvation.
Let us now try to understand these three texts in their individual meanings and in terms of their new interrelationship. According to the account of Exodus 24, the Sinai Covenant rested on two elements: first, on the âblood of the covenantâ, the blood of sacrificed animals with which the altar - as the symbol of God - and the people were sprinkled, and second, on Godâs word and Israelâs promise of obedience: âBehold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these wordsâ, as Moses said solemnly after the ritual sprinkling. Immediately before this, the people had responded to the reading of the book of the covenant: âAll that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedientâ (Ex 24:7-8).
This promise of obedience, which is an indispensable element of the Covenant, was broken immediately afterward while Moses was on the mountain, through the worship of the golden calf. The entire history that follows is a tale of repeated violations of the promise of obedience, as can be seen both in the historical books of the Old Testament and in the books of the Prophets. The rupture seems beyond repair when God hands his people over to exile and the Temple to destruction.
At this moment, the hope of a ânew covenantâ arises, one that is no longer built upon the perennially fragile fidelity of the human will but that is written indestructibly on menâs hearts (cf. Jer 31:33). In other words, the New Covenant must be founded on an obedience that is irrevocable and inviolable. This obedience, now located at the very root of human nature, is the obedience of the Son, who made himself a servant and took all human disobedience upon himself in his obedience even unto death, suffered it right to the end, and conquered it.
God cannot simply ignore manâs disobedience and all the evil of history; he cannot treat it as if it were inconsequential or meaningless. Such âmercyâ, such âunconditional forgivenessâ would be that âcheap graceâ to which Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly objected in the face of the appalling evil encountered in his day. That which is wrong, the reality of evil, cannot simply be ignored; it cannot just be left to stand. It must be dealt with; it must be overcome. Only this counts as true mercy. And the fact that God now confronts evil himself, because men are incapable of doing so - therein lies the âunconditionalâ goodness of God, which can never be opposed to truth or the justice that goes with it. âIf we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himselfâ, writes Paul to Timothy (2 Tim 2:13).
This faithfulness of his means that he acts not only as God toward men, but also as man toward God, in this way establishing the Covenant irrevocably. So the figure of the Suffering Servant who bears the sins of many (Is 53:12) goes hand in hand with the promise of the new and indestructible covenant. This planting of the covenant in menâs hearts, in mankind itself, in such a way that it can no longer be destroyed, takes place through the vicarious suffering of the Son who has become a servant. Ever since, standing against the whole flood of filth and evil is the obedience of the Son, in whom God himself suffered, and hence this obedience always infinitely surpasses the growing mass of evil (cf. Rom 5:16-20).
The blood of animals could neither âatoneâ for sin nor bring God and men together. It could only be a sign of hope, anticipating a greater obedience that would be truly redemptive. In Jesusâ words over the chalice, all this is summed up and fulfilled: he gives us the ânew covenant in his bloodâ. âHis bloodâ - that is, the total gift of himself, in which he suffers to the end all human sinfulness and repairs every breach of fidelity by his unconditional fidelity. This is the new worship, which he establishes at the Last Supper, drawing mankind into his vicarious obedience. Our participation in Christâs body and blood indicates that his action is âfor manyâ, for us, and that we are drawn into the âmanyâ through the sacrament.
Now there is one further expression in Jesusâ words of institution that needs to be explained, one that has been extensively debated in recent times. According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus said that his blood would be shed âfor manyâ, echoing Isaiah 53, whereas in Paul and Luke we read of the blood being given or poured out âfor youâ.
Recent theology has rightly underlined the use of the word âforâ in all four accounts, a word that may be considered the key not only to the Last Supper accounts, but to the figure of Jesus overall. His entire being is expressed by the word âpro-existenceâ - he is there, not for himself, but for others. This is not merely a dimension of his existence, but its innermost essence and its entirety. His very being is a âbeing-forâ. If we are able to grasp this, then we have truly come close to the mystery of Jesus, and we have understood what discipleship is.
But what does âpoured out for manyâ mean? In his seminal work The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (1935), Joachim Jeremias set out to demonstrate that the word âmanyâ in the institution narratives is a Semitism and must therefore be read, not in terms of Greek usage, but in terms of the corresponding Old Testament texts. He tried to prove that the word âmanyâ in the Old Testament means âthe totalityâ and is therefore most accurately translated as âallâ. This thesis quickly gained ground at the time and became part of received theological thinking. On this basis, during the words of consecration, the word âmanyâ has been translated in a number of languages as âallâ. âShed for you and for allâ is how the faithful in many countries today hear the words of Jesus during the Mass.
Meanwhile, though, this consensus among exegetes has broken down once more. The prevailing opinion today is that âmanyâ in Isaiah 53 and similar passages does indeed indicate a totality, but it cannot simply be equated with âallâ. On the basis of Qumranic usage, it is now generally held that âmanyâ in Isaiah and on the lips of Jesus means the âtotalityâ of Israel (cf. Pesch, Abendmahl, pp. 99-100; Wilckens, Theologie des Neuen Testaments 1/2, p. 84). It was only when the Gospel was brought to the Gentiles that the universal horizon of Jesusâ death and atonement came to the fore, embracing Jews and Gentiles equally.
Recently the Viennese Jesuit Norbert Baumert together with Maria-Irma Seewann has put forward an interpretation of âfor manyâ that in its principal outline had already been developed by Joseph Pascher in his book Eucharistia (1947). The essence of the thesis is this: according to the linguistic structure of the text, âbeing poured outâ refers, not to the blood, but to the cup; on this interpretation, âthe passage refers to an active outpouring of the blood from the chalice, by which divine life itself is liberally bestowed, without any reference to the action of executionersâ (Baumert and Seewann, âEucharistieâ, Gregorianum 89/3:507). The words spoken over the chalice would relate, not to the event of Jesusâ death on the Cross and its consequences, but to the sacramental action, and this would also shed light on the word âmanyâ: whereas Jesusâ death applies âfor allâ, the range of the sacrament is more limited. It comes to many, but not to all (cf. ibid., especially p. 511).
From a strictly philological point of view, this solution can be successfully applied to Markâs text in 14:24. If Matthewâs version is deemed simply to reproduce Markâs, then it would appear that the words spoken at the Last Supper have been convincingly explained. The allusion to the difference between the range of the Eucharist and the universal range of Jesusâ death on the Cross is helpful in any case and can take us a step farther. But the problem of the word âmanyâ is still only partly explained.
For we have yet to consider Jesusâ fundamental interpretation of his mission in Mark 10:45, which likewise features the word âmanyâ: âFor the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.â Here he is clearly speaking of the sacrifice of his life, and so it is obvious that Jesus is taking up the Suffering Servant prophecy from Isaiah 53 and linking it to the mission of the Son of Man, giving it a new interpretation.
What are we to make of this? It strikes me as both presumptuous and naive to seek to shed light on Jesusâ consciousness and to try to explain it in terms of what he could or could not have thought, given our knowledge of the period and its theological outlook. The most we can say is that he knew that the mission of the Suffering Servant and the mission of the Son of Man were being fulfilled in himself. This linking together of the two elements also represented an expansion of the mission of the Suffering Servant in terms of universalization, giving it greater breadth and depth.
We can see, then, that the infant Church was slowly arriving at a deeper understanding of Jesusâ mission and that the disciplesâ ârememberingâ, under the guidance of Godâs Spirit (cf. Jn 14:26), was gradually beginning to grasp the whole of the mystery behind Jesusâ words. First Timothy 2:6 speaks of Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God and men âwho gave himself as a ransom for allâ. The universal salvific meaning of Jesusâ death is here made crystal clear.
In the writings of Paul and John we can find answers to the question about the scope of Jesusâ saving work, answers that are historically differentiated yet fully in harmony with one another and that indirectly answer the many / all problem. Paul tells the Romans that the Gentiles âin full numberâ (pleroma) must attain salvation and that all Israel will be saved (cf. 11:25-26). John says that Jesus will die âfor the peopleâ (the Jews), but not only for the people: also in order to gather together into unity the scattered children of God (cf. 11:50-52). Jesus died for Jews and Gentiles, for the whole of mankind.
If Isaiah used the word âmanyâ to refer essentially to the totality of Israel, then as the Church responds in faith to Jesusâ new use of the word, it becomes increasingly clear that he did indeed die for all.
In 1921, the Protestant theologian Ferdinand Kattenbusch tried to show that Jesusâ words of institution at the Last Supper constituted the act of founding the Church. With these words, he argued, Jesus gave his disciples something new that bound them together and made them into a community. Kattenbusch was right: with the Eucharist, the Church herself was established. Through Christâs body, the Church became one, she became herself, and at the same time, through his death, she was opened up to the breadth of the world and its history.
The Eucharist is also a visible process of gathering. In each locality, as well as beyond all localities, it involves entering into communion with the living God, who inwardly draws people together. The Church comes into being from the Eucharist. She receives her unity and her mission from the Eucharist. She is derived from the Last Supper, that is to say, from Christâs death and Resurrection, which he anticipated in the gift of his body and blood.
From the Last Supper to the Sunday Morning Eucharist
In Paul and Luke, the words âThis is my body which is given for youâ are followed by the instruction to repeat the action: âDo this in remembrance of me!â Paul repeats the instruction in a more detailed form after the words over the chalice. Mark and Matthew make no reference to this instruction, but since the concrete form of their accounts is shaped by liturgical usage, it is clear that they too understood these words to be instituting something: they understood that what happened here for the first time was to be continued in the community of disciples.
Yet we may ask: What exactly did the Lord instruct them to repeat? Certainly not the Passover meal (if that is what Jesusâ Last Supper was). The Passover was an annual feast, whose recurring celebration in Israel was clearly regulated through hallowed tradition and tied to a specific date. Even if what happened that evening was not an actual Passover meal according to Jewish law, but Jesusâ last meal on earth before his death, still, that is not what they were told to repeat.
The instruction to repeat refers simply to what was new in Jesusâ actions that evening: the breaking of bread, the prayer of blessing and thanksgiving accompanied by the words of consecration of bread and wine. We might say: through these words our ânowâ is taken up into the hour of Jesus. What Jesus had proclaimed in John 12:32 is here fulfilled: from the Cross he draws all men to himself, into himself.
Through Jesusâ words and actions, then, the essentials of the new âworshipâ was given, but no definitive liturgical form had yet been established - this was still to evolve in the life of the Church. It seems likely that at first people celebrated a communal meal after the pattern of the Last Supper and then added the Eucharist. Rudolf Pesch has shown that, according to the social structure of the early Church and the customs of the time, the meal probably consisted only of bread, without any other food.
In the First Letter to the Corinthians (11:20-22, 34), we see how in another society things happened differently: the wealthy brought their own food and helped themselves enthusiastically, whereas the poor once again had nothing but bread. Experiences like this led very early to the separation of the Lordâs Supper from the regular meal and, at the same time, hastened the development of a distinctive liturgical shape. We should not suppose for a moment that the âLordâs Supperâ ever consisted simply of reciting the words of consecration. From the time of Jesus himself, these words have always been a part of his berakah, his prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
For what was Jesus giving thanks? That his prayer was âheardâ (cf. Heb 5:7). He gave thanks in advance that the Father did not abandon him in death (cf. Ps 16:10). He gave thanks for the gift of the Resurrection, and on that basis he could already give his body and blood in the form of bread and wine as a pledge of resurrection and eternal life (cf. Jn 6:53-58).
We may think of the structure of the âvow-psalmsâ, in which the one suffering tribulation announces that after he has been rescued he will thank God and will proclaim Godâs saving deed before the great assembly. The great âPassion Psalmâ (Ps 22), which begins with the words: âMy God, my God, why have you forsaken meâ, ends with a promise that anticipates the granting of the prayer: âFrom you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lordâ (vv. 25-26). In truth, these words are fulfilled now: âthe afflicted shall eatâ. What they receive is more than earthly food; they receive the true manna: communion with God in the risen Christ.
Naturally these connections dawned on the disciples only gradually. Yet from Jesusâ words of thanksgiving, which gave a new focus to the Jewish berakah, we see the new thanksgiving prayer, the eucharistia, gradually emerging as the definitive form, the liturgical shape that gives the words of institution their meaning. Here the new worship is established that brings the Temple sacrifices to an end: God is glorified in word, but in a Word that took flesh in Jesus, a Word that, by means of this body which has now passed through death, is able to draw in the whole man, the whole of mankind - thus heralding the beginning of the new creation.
Josef Andreas Jungmann, the great scholar of the history of eucharistic celebration and one of the architects of the liturgical reform, summarizes this argument as follows: âThe fundamental element is the thanksgiving prayer over the bread and wine. The liturgy of the Mass was derived from the thanksgiving prayer after the meal on that last evening, not from the meal itself, which was held to be so inessential and so easily detachable that it quickly died out in the early Church. On the other hand, the liturgy in all its manifestations has developed further the thanksgiving prayer spoken over the bread and wine ⌠What the Church celebrates in the Mass is not the Last Supper; no, it is what the Lord instituted in the course of the Last Supper and entrusted to the Church: the memorial of his sacrificial deathâ (Messe im Gottesvolk, p. 24).
A similar conclusion may be drawn from Jungmannâs historical statement to the effect âthat in the entire Christian tradition, from the time when the Eucharist was separated from an actual meal (indicated by such terms as âbreaking of breadâ or âLordâs Supperâ) until the sixteenth-century Reformation, no name meaning âmealâ was ever used to designate the eucharistic celebrationâ (p. 23, n. 73).
In the evolution of Christian worship, though, there is a further decisive moment. In his certainty that his prayer would be heard, the Lord gave his body and blood to the disciples during the Last Supper in anticipation of the Resurrection: both Cross and Resurrection are intrinsic to the Eucharist - without them there would be no Eucharist. Yet because Jesusâ gift is essentially rooted in the Resurrection, the celebration of the sacrament had necessarily to be connected with the memorial of the Resurrection. The first encounter with the risen Lord took place on the morning of the first day of the week - the third day after Jesusâ death - that is to say, Sunday morning. The morning of the first day thus naturally became the time for Christian worship - Sunday became the âLordâs dayâ.
This fixed time for the Christian liturgy, which is of defining importance for its character and its format, was established very early on. Thus in the eyewitness account related in Acts 20:6-11 of the journey of Saint Paul and his companions to Troas, we read this: âOn the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break breadâ (20:7). In other words, the âbreaking of breadâ was already fixed for the morning of the day of Resurrection in the apostolic age - the Eucharist was already celebrated as an encounter with the risen Lord.
In this context, it is also significant that Paul arranges for the Jerusalem collection to be taken on the âfirst day of every weekâ (1 Cor 16:2). While there is no talk of the eucharistic celebration here, it is clear that Sunday is the day when the Corinthian community came together, and so there can be little doubt that it was also the day of their worship. Finally, in Revelation 1:10 we find the first use of the expression âthe Lordâs dayâ for Sunday. The new Christian ordering of the week has clearly taken shape. The day of Resurrection is the Lordâs day, and thus it is also the day of his disciples, the day of the Church. At the end of the first century, the tradition is already clearly established. For example, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Didache, ca. 100) states quite unambiguously: âAssemble on the Lordâs day and break bread and offer the Eucharist, but first make confession of your faultsâ (14, i). For Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 110), life âordered by the Lordâs dayâ is already a distinguishing feature of Christians in contrast to those who celebrate the Sabbath (Ad Magn. 9:1).
It was logical that the liturgy of the Word - reading of Scripture, commentary on the reading, and prayer - which at first still took place in the synagogue, came to be joined to the celebration of the Eucharist. Thus by the beginning of the second century, the evolution of the essential elements of Christian worship was already complete. This gestation process forms an intrinsic part of the institution of the Eucharist. As we have seen, the institution of the Eucharist presupposes the Resurrection and hence also the living community that, under the guidance of Godâs Spirit, gives form to the Lordâs gift in the life of the faithful.
A âpuristâ attempt to cut out the Resurrection and its dynamic and simply to imitate the Last Supper would not in any way correspond to the nature of the Lordâs gift to his disciples. The Day of Resurrection is the exterior and interior locus of Christian worship, and the thanksgiving prayer as Jesusâ creative anticipation of the Resurrection is the Lordâs way of uniting us with his thanksgiving, blessing us in the gift and drawing us into the process of transformation that starts with the gifts, moves on to include us, and then spreads out to the world âuntil he comesâ (1 Cor 11:26).