Although God is everywhere, yet when he became a human being in the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, it meant that the people who lived in Palestine at that time were able to find him. So, when Jesus came from Heaven and was born in Bethlehem, you had only to make your way there with the shepherds and the Wise Men, and you could look on God himself who was living a human life in a human Body. Thus, for 30 years, one had only to find Our Lord to find God.
The Last Supper
Before the Crucifixion Jesus offered himself to God
And so we come to Our Lord’s last night with his Apostles when he held the Last Supper. Knowing that the next day he would be giving his life on the Cross in order to save us from the power of sin, he offered himself beforehand to God by taking bread and saying: This is my Body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise after supper he took the cup of wine and said, This is my Blood of the New Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
Pattern for the Eucharist
The Last Supper was held, not only to give the Crucifixion on Good Friday its meaning, but also to provide a pattern for the Eucharist, so that after Jesus had been crucified, the Apostles might know exactly what to do and what to say; for not until the first Eucharist was actually held could these words of Jesus have their full meaning. At the Last Supper, when he said over the bread, “This is my Body”, and over the wine, “This is my Blood”, it was obvious that the bread and wine were not, and could not be, his Body and Blood at that moment because there was Jesus himself sitting at the table for them to see and touch.
The Lord’s Body and Blood
But when the first Eucharist was held, things were very different. For by then Our Lord’s Body, through which his Blood had coursed while on earth, had been changed at his Resurrection on Easter Day into a spiritual, heavenly Body. He could now appear or disappear in it indoors or out of doors as he wished. So during the 40 days from Easter to Ascension Day the Apostles knew that he was near them, whether they saw him or not. And after he had gone back to Heaven in his Risen Body on Ascension Day, he was still near them; for, since Heaven is where God is seen and God is not far away, so Jesus who is there is not far away either.
This is my Body, this is my Blood
At the Eucharist, therefore, the words, “This is my Body, This is my Blood”, could come true and did come true. And when the Apostles, in obedience to Our Lord’s command, did what he had done at the Last Supper, and took the bread and wine and offered his Body and Blood to God, then the bread and wine became what they offered, as he had said: “This is my Body, This is my Blood”. And the Apostles knew that, under the forms of Bread and Wine, Our Lord Jesus Christ was hidden in his Risen and Ascended Body, present unseen in their midst as surely as he had been on Easter Day.
This is exactly what he had promised them, and when Jesus gives his word he always keeps it. When he was in the synagogue at Capernaum a year before his Crucifixion and Ascension, he explained it very plainly in these words: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven …and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (NRSV, John 6:51). Some of those who heard him say this, not knowing that what he was talking about was going to happen after his Resurrection and Ascension, could not understand it at all. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked. But Jesus went on, “…my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (NRSV, John 6:52,55,56). That is what John the Apostle heard Jesus say with his own lips.
And in the year 110 AD, that is within about 10 years after the death of St John, St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in Syria, was being taken to Rome to be thrown to the lions there in the Colosseum. And in one of his letters which he wrote on that journey, he said, “…the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, which flesh suffered for our sins and which in his loving-kindness (God) the Father raised up (from the dead)”. (1)
Words of Institution
The words which Jesus has commanded the Church to use in the Eucharist, “This is my Body, This is my Blood”, are called the Words of Institution and they are recited at the Consecration of the Bread and Wine. When the priest, acting as Our Lord’s own representative, says these words, then the forms of Bread and Wine on the altar, and Our Lord’s Risen and Ascended Body and Blood in Heaven, become one. The consecrated Bread and Wine which hide Our Lord’s Body and Blood, we call the Blessed Sacrament.
At the Eucharist, therefore, we actually offer to God Christ himself, Crucified, Risen and present in our midst in his Ascended Body in the Blessed Sacrament, and God welcomes us with him.
Communion
And when we make our Communion, that is, kneel at the altar and receive the Blessed Sacrament, then Jesus himself comes into the very centre of our souls, so that we become part of him and he part of us, as he gave his word he would: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (NRSV, John 6:56).
So, just as in Palestine you could find Jesus in his earthly Body in Bethlehem, so now we can always find him in his heavenly Body in the Blessed Sacrament, that same Body which was born of Mary, was nailed to the Cross, was raised from the dead on Easter Day, ascended into Heaven, and is now for ever glorified.
As the Prayer Book Catechism puts it:
“Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified (in the Lord’s Supper, that is, the Eucharist)?
Answer. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper”. (2)
SUMMARY
1. The words which, at the Last Supper, Our Lord commanded the Church to use – “This is my Body, This is my Blood” – came true in the Eucharist. And at the Consecration, when we offer Our Lord to God, the forms of Bread and Wine on the altar and Our Lord’s Ascended Body and Blood in Heaven become one (John 6:48-58).
2. At the Eucharist, therefore, we actually offer to God Christ himself in his Heavenly Body, hidden in the Blessed Sacrament under the forms of Bread and Wine.
3. In Holy Communion Jesus renews us in his own likeness by giving himself to us and thus becoming part of us.
4. See also the diagram: Jesus Christ, the living Lord of the present.
Note
Justin Martyr, who died in 163 AD, wrote as follows: “…we do not receive…(the Eucharist) as ordinary food, or ordinary drink; but as by the Word of God Jesus our Saviour was made flesh, and had both flesh and blood for our salvation; so also the food which was blessed…is, we are taught, both the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. (3)
References
1. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD) The Epistle to the Smyrnaeans VI. Available from: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/srawley/smyrnaeans.html (Accessed 24 August 2010) (Internet).
2. Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer. A Catechism. Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html (Accessed 24 August 2010) (Internet).
3. Justin (c. 150-155 A.D.) Apology I, 66 cited in Kidd, B. J. (editor) (1920) Documents illustrative of the History of the Church, Vol I, document 42, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.