What We Hand On

“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you…” Every time I hear those words, a shiver runs down my spine. These four short verses that we just heard from Paul were what my childhood church used as a sort of eucharistic prayer on Communion Sundays. Paul’s account of the Last Supper—the first Eucharist—always evoked a sense of groundedness for me. I was fascinated as a kid with history and heritage and the idea of passing stories down through generations. And at some level, I knew intuitively that the Eucharist was part of a big story—bigger than any family history we rehearsed at home or national myth we learned in school. I wanted to share in this story more intimately; so as an 8 year old I looked forward with eager anticipation to my Easter baptism, when I would get to take Communion for the first time.

Now… obviously, we aren’t gathered for Eucharist this year on this Maundy Thursday as we normally would be. And that pains me. My spirituality today revolves tightly around this Holy Mystery that drew me to the waters of Baptism in the first place. So at the threshold of the Triduum, as we begin our journey into the very heart of our faith—the death and resurrection of the incarnate Son of God—it feels strange not to celebrate that paschal drama sacramentally. But as I sit today with that discomfort—that sense of something missing—I think the readings are inviting me—inviting us—to pause, and to look a little deeper at the Body and Blood and the story they tell.

The Old Testament reading guides us even farther back along the thread of salvation history to another institution narrative—this time in Egypt, as God gives Moses and Aaron instructions for the Passover celebration that has stood for millennia. There’s something odd about the timing of this story, though. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you,” God says… before the event they’re supposed to be remembering. 

Celebrating the mystery of deliverance before it occurs might seem hasty or premature, but it speaks to the passover meal’s radical character. It’s not “just” a memorial, like a party marking an anniversary or a birthday. It is a meal eaten in faith of what is to come—a holy moment that pierces through time—holding fast to the liberation that God has provided and promises to provide again, and pulling it into the here and now. It makes the reality of liberation present—present then, on that night before it actually occurred, and present today, long after the Red Sea closed over the armies of Pharaoh. It tells the story anew, incorporating each generation into the drama of salvation.

And this incorporation doesn’t leave its participants as they were! It makes demands of them! The delightful catastrophe of liberation only leaves you unchanged if it stays far off and abstract. But the Israelites’ first Passover shapes their very bodies. They are instructed to eat that first Passover with girded loins, sandals on their feet, and staffs in their hands. They’re still enslaved, but the Passover comes as a sign of salvation, and they’d better be ready. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says, “Those who share in this festal meal must be ready to go, ready to travel, ready to depart from the empire.” The timeless proclamation of God’s salvation in the Passover is an embodied, transformative act.

And we see all this paralleled in the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. Like that first Passover, this is a memorial that is instituted before the main event. It pulled—and continues to pull—the reality of Christ’s self-sacrifice into the present. John paints this reality for us in beautifully intimate colors as Jesus (the literal embodiment of God) gets down on the floor and washes the dirty feet of his disciples—his “little children” as he affectionately calls them. The reality made present in Christ’s Body and Blood on the altar is a tender self-offering, which comes to a point on the Cross tomorrow, when “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” This perfect, self-sacrificial love is at the heart of the story we Christians participate in. It is the Gospel we proclaim. 

This proclamation is realized most perfectly in the Eucharist—that “source and summit” of our life in Christ. We just heard it: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Christ’s true Body and precious Blood are central to who we are.

But we must remember the transformation that comes when the eternal moment of salvation breaks into our present like that. Like the Passover, the actual meal of the Eucharist is only part of the story. Eating Christ, the Passover lamb, should not leave us as we are. The deeper mystery of the Sacrament is our participation in Christ. It is what Julian of Norwich calls being “one-ed” to Christ—joined to him in the most intimate way imaginable. It is our sharing in Christ’s perfect self-offering—embodying himand fulfilling his command to love one another as he has loved us: to the end. That’s the reality of the Cross that they remembered on that night before the Crucifixion—that’s the reality of the Cross that we are called to proclaim. If we go to Mass every day of our lives but don’t grasp the radical effects of this salvation breaking into the here and now, then we have gained nothing. 

AND—and this is VITALLY important especially as we are separated physically from the Sacrament—this participation does not—CANnot—expire when the deacon gives the dismissal and we all out the door. “[We] who share in this festal meal must be ready to go, ready to travel, ready to depart from the empire.” Our ongoing proclamation of our salvation flows from and to the Altar, but it is a story we weave with our lives—a narrative that is made present in smaller ways whenever we live eucharistically, embodying the love that Christ perfects tomorrow. It is a proclamation that we can and should embody, as we gird our loins, take up our staffs, and go out into the world to love Christ’s own and love them to the end. Eucharistic living—our love for one another, eagerly serving each other with the tenderness Christ shows in this holy Triduum—this is how the world will know that we are his disciples. This is how the world will hear that God’s love has won through self-sacrifice and not through conquest. This is the proclamation—a proclamation that no pandemic can separate us from.

So yes,... as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup we proclaim the Lord’s death. But today—even though we long to taste the Body and Blood on this journey towards resurrection—never forget, beloved, that Christ’s saving love is breaking into the here and now and pulling us out to love as he loves. Gird your loins and take up your staff and walk in the way of love. As often as we do this, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.