Lords Supper

African-American Worship in the Post-Reformation Period

by

Churches in the African-American community share a distinct worship culture that is the result of the integration of Christian worship forms with a worldview shaped by a traditional African ontology (understanding of being). In addition to the African heritage and religious perspective, the experience of blacks in American slavery has also helped to shape African-American worship patterns.

Introduction

Any discussion of Christian liturgy, regardless of particularities, begins from one basic premise: God, in the beginning of time, initiated and set the momentum for worship. God’s initiative is a priori to the individual or corporate response of a people. In Jesus the Christ, God entered fully into the conditions of humanity and the world. In Jesus Christ God’s initiative shaped ritual action, setting the direction for praise, adoration, thanksgiving, confession, acts of prayer, proclamation, remembrance, and offering. In the Holy Spirit, God takes the initiative and remains actively present, transforming, empowering, and sustaining human lives.

It is in response to God’s divine initiative that the people of God, enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit, acknowledge and respond to the mysterious presence of the divine in the world and in their lives.

The priority of God’s initiative is the theological foundation for our discussion. Upon this foundation, we will explore ways that a particular people have heard and responded to God’s call to worship. The people around whom this discussion will focus have taken upon themselves the designation “African-American,” affirming a uniqueness that incorporates a plethora of converging roots and traditions. (1) One root is deeply embedded in rich African soil, with all that this implies. (2) Another root is American, a heritage which we vociferously claim. (3) Christian African-Americans also acknowledge a faith root in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition which binds the body of Christ. (4) The fourth root is a common liturgical history that has been shaped by the Graeco-Roman cultures of the West.

Out of these four major converging roots, African-Americans have been able to transform existential experiences in America into particularities: ways of praying, liturgical patterns, and ways of theologizing. Ritual action that may indeed appear to be the same as Euro-American liturgical action may be informed by a totally different worldview or theological base. On the other hand, certain liturgical assumptions common to both Euro-Americans and African-Americans will evoke totally different worship responses and patterns. Herein is one of the innumerable examples of the mysterious power of God to communicate with people and to allow them to respond out of their particular cultural context. It also speaks to the helpful scholarship of cultural anthropologists, who remind us of the numerous similarities in the way that myths and rituals are shaped by humans to reflect responses to life situations.

As we provide some clarity about African-American liturgy in context, let us bear in mind that there are indeed differences in worship practices among African-American worshipers, both within and across denominational lines. Nevertheless, in spite of our differences, there is much that we share.

Traditionally, active participation in worship, rather than active discussion, has been foremost for African-Americans. Recently, however, we are attempting to hear God clearly in this age as we “discover” and “recover” liturgical options available to us from our African and slave heritages. We do not seek merely to “hear” exactly as our forebears did, for we are not at the same place and time. We can observe how they heard with such intensity that they were able to make sense out of the realities of their circumstances in worship and life. We are also able to determine what remained essentially the same in the transition from African traditional religions to African-American Christianity. In this data, we are discovering avenues for liturgical and spiritual renewal not only for ourselves but for Christian liturgy in general. We begin first with a discovery of African worship practices.

African Liturgical Practices and World View

Over the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans were taken from many parts of the continent. Therefore, those who would ultimately shape African-American liturgical traditions came from a variety of diverse cultures. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries a majority of Africans brought to the Americas were taken from a 3,000 mile stretch along the west coast of Africa, from Senegal south to the southern part of Angola. They did not bring with them beliefs and practices which would accurately be called a unified or monolithic “African culture.” Peoples of Africa south of the Sahara, like those of North Africa, created a myriad of languages, religions, customs, political systems, and institutions, all of which differentiated their societies. It is more appropriate, then, to refer to traditional African religions rather than to a universal African religion.

Societal religions did not include carefully honed creeds and theological formulas which were to be recited. Nor were beliefs spread by missionary or evangelistic efforts. No doubt, some of the religious ideas may have been disseminated through migrations and inter-familial linkages. Large portions of societies or tribal groups are known to have migrated basically intact to different locations, taking their beliefs and practices with them. The new environment would create a need for alterations in ritual and possible adjustments in belief.

African peoples did share a fundamental primal worldview, a basic system for perceiving realities and making sense out of existential situations in order to survive. This fundamental view helped to provide a common means for cultural expression and a basic sense of common identity. In order to understand religious rituals and ceremonies of Africans in diaspora, one must understand the context in which worldviews were shaped and disseminated. A search for elements of continuity through an investigation of primal worldviews will not limit us to what some researchers would refer to as “survivals” from African cultures. To do so would misinterpret the nature of culture as a fixed condition, rather than as a process. The strength and resiliency of culture is determined by its ability to react creatively and responsibly to the realities of a new situation. The evidence of the African continuum in Christian worship among the rapidly growing churches in Africa and in the diaspora attests to the resiliency and adaptability of African cultural roots.

We begin then, with common African primal worldviews as the basic context of continuity which helped Africans to adapt to new environments, and to shape unique liturgical practices.

Interaction with the Spirit Realm

First and foremost, for Africans, the whole of existence is a religious phenomenon. The African scholar John S. Mbiti states quite succinctly, “Africans are notoriously religious.… Religion permeates all departments of life so fully that it is not easy or possible to isolate it”(African Religions and Philosophy [Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor/Doubleday, 1970], xvii). The prevailing African ontology, or understanding of being, essentially views spiritual realities as bound up with the lives of people. This anthropocentric ontology is centered in an awareness of a sovereign God who is the originator and sustainer of all there is. God the Creator is all-wise, ubiquitous, all-powerful, beyond our grasp, as well as the present. To use the classical metaphysical terms, which are meaningless in African thinking, one could say that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, transcendent and yet immanent. God is also Spirit, and yet spirits (with a small “s”) permeate the cosmos. Some spirits begotten of God serve as intermediaries or divine emissaries for God.

Included in the spirit world are spirits of humans who have died and are categorized as “living dead.” For Africans, the concept of the “living dead” (according to Mbiti) means the deceased are still living within the active memory of the community and interact with it. Those who have lived a full and fruitful life become ancestral spirits, and libations are poured on the ground as a sign of this interaction. Contrary to the opinion of many Euro-Americans, who say that this is merely evidence of ancestral worship or a form of spiritual necromancy, the function of the “living dead” is in some ways similar to that of saints in Christian traditions. Some scholars have proposed that the importance of the spirit of the ancestors in African traditional religions could provide a link to the Christian concept of the “communion of saints” (communio sanctorum). Rather than assuming that the ancestral saints are objects of worship, one must understand the interplay between the “living dead” and the temporal community.

Since all parents are respected, especially the elders of the community, the spirit of the deceased ancestral parent continually helps maintain coherence in family life for the living. Age is a symbol of impending transition into the divine state of ancestral spirit. The spirit of the deceased, who now lives closer to God, serves as a guardian of ethics, family traditions, and community custom. Ancestors are remembered and celebrated in a form of representing or reliving the life of a person who served the community well while alive. This is also a reminder that neither life nor community ends with the physical death of persons.

Wholeness of Life

The second concept in an African ontology is the perception of the wholeness of life, where there is no separation into sacred and secular realms. To be fully human is to “belong,” to belong to God. Thus, to be in solidarity with the whole community is to be bound up with all that comprises the cosmos: humanity and the natural environment, past, present, and future. Ritual action allows the community to reconnect with, and maintain, the reality of the “rhythm of life.” Wholeness of life, epitomized in ritual action, necessarily involves the whole person, body, and soul. While some verbal communication takes place, a larger proportion of communication takes place in bodily movement and in song. Dance evolves from full corporate participation in worship and is considered communal. Even when there are special performers, the community participates in some manner. Word, song, and action are often simultaneous, and the community understands what is being communicated. Just as life is viewed from a holistic perspective requiring the participation of the entire person, so involvement in life requires that the whole person participates in the process.

A consistent understanding of rites of passage in African traditional religions recognizes that in the “rhythm of life” one is born, then dies, and is reborn continually from one state of existence to another. The rhythm of life begins long before a child is born since the perpetuation of life calls for the anticipation of a continual process of birth. John S. Mbiti eloquently explains this process: “Children are the ‘buds’ of society, and every birth is the arrival of spring” (Mbiti, 143).

The first rite of passage for individuals and societies is the moment of one’s physical birth. At this time the community claims the child as its own. It is the task of the entire community to nurture and help prepare the child to become a corporate person, one who belongs to the whole. Through appropriate rituals, the community helps to mark each stage of a person’s life as an experience memorable for all. Rites of adolescence or puberty, marriage, parenthood, and death abound with ample amounts of music, dancing, pouring of libations, and the reciting of appropriate words.

Since all of life is regarded as sacred, elements of nature can be used symbolically in ritual action. Water, so basic in the creation process, was and remains an important symbol in rituals. Prior to an understanding of water baptism in the Christian tradition, Africans understood water as a gift from God and used it in most rites of passage. The word for water or rain in some African societies is the same as, or synonymous with, the name and attributes of God or “divine outpouring.” For without water—without God—there is no life. For example, the name given to me in a Kikuyu naming ceremony is nyambura, which combines two terms, nya, meaning a female person, and mbura, meaning the pouring out of rain. nyambura is a female who pours out special blessings from God. Mbura is also the name of a clan of rainmakers in the traditional Kikuyu society who pray for rain around the sacrificial tree called mugumo. Following their special prayers, rain would invariably fall in a matter of a few hours or minutes. Rain, therefore, is a gift of life and a blessing from God, who often comes with the drops of rain. For this reason, water, palm wine, beer, or some other liquid is used for the pouring of libations to symbolize the continuing existence of life and the presence of God. Water is also used for rites of purification and regeneration, symbolizing cleansing and re-creation.

Sounds of nature are incorporated into the performance of ritual. The percussive rhythms of drums, rattles, bells or any improvisatory device which makes a sound of its own, as well as sounds produced by any other instrument, are for the most part imitations of the sounds of nature. In addition to melodic and percussive singing, a number of strident vocal sounds, such as squalling, twirping, and ululation (loud wailing) are imitative of sounds that are heard in the environment. All such sounds are likely to be included in traditional African as well as Christian worship. Thus the wholeness of life is incorporated in the worship of God.

Kinship and Community

The concept of wholeness of life leads naturally to the third aspect of African ontology, which has to do with kinship, family, and extended family relationships. In African thought, each person is an individual with unique qualities and personality, but his or her existence is intricately interrelated with others and with the natural environment. In a variety of ways, most societies would affirm the African adage: “I am because you are; and since we are, therefore, I am.” One comes to traditional worship aware that he or she is part of the whole. Communication takes place not because a person has something to say or do, but because the familial community exists. A “call and response” form of communication is evident in singing, as well as in verbal communication. One does not merely deliver information nor tell a story to the community. The listeners participate with the informant, the griot, or storyteller, interacting with interest in what is being said as though they were part of the story. Verbal dialogue also provides a means of evoking the best efforts of the presenter. Call and response dialogue is also reflected in music and dance as the community responds and participates spontaneously and informally. One cannot help but feel and be drawn into the communal kinship which prevails in these moments.

The African concept of family—and extended family—includes those living, those yet to be born who are still in the loins of the living, and the “living dead,” those up to five generations past who have died. The sense of kinship binds together the entire life of the society and is extended to cover animals, plants, and nonliving objects. I am told that the use of musical instruments made from animal skins and from resources in the natural environment is one way of incorporating the cosmos into the human community. The improvisatory gifts of the community reflect the whole of creation working together with human beings. Kinship largely governs the behavior, patterns of thinking, myths, and rituals of each society.

Relativity of Time

The fourth concept of African ontology involves the relativity of time. In traditional African societies, time is not calculated linearly but is conceptualized in the light of natural phenomena: the passing of day and night, lunar cycles, and the regular cycles of seasons. Time is viewed as meaningful in virtue of the content of the event, not because something will happen at a mathematically preconceived moment. Where rites and rituals are regularized, the community is notified to gather by a variety of means, particularly the talking drums. The time to start an activity arrives whenever enough people are gathered. The length of the activity, including worship, depends upon the involvement of the community. In worship one is likely to hear that “God is not to be hurried, and this is God’s time!”

Sacred Space

The fifth and final concept has to do with sacred space. In traditional religions, space and time are closely linked; the same word is often used for both. Just as with time, space is defined by the content or intent of action. What matters most to the people is what is geographically near. For that reason, Africans are particularly tied to the land; it is a concrete expression of both the past and the present (zamani and sasa). The land, like all of creation, is sacred because it provides Africans with the roots of existence, and binds them mystically to the departed who lived there before them. Certain space within the designated worship area is often set apart as special and considered “off-limits” for certain people. Rites performed to sacralize space are incorporated in Christian worship ceremonies. While attending the dedication of a church building in Kenya recently, I observed that the sacralizing ritual combined traditional Kikuyu and Christian practices. The church had been carefully locked after the builders, both members and non-members of the church, had completed their task. A very lengthy worship service, which included the ordination of the pastor who had been called to the church, took place under a tent on the church lawn. Officials of the denomination then led the procession to the church door, which was blessed by the presiding minister. Only church officials were allowed in the church, and the door was securely locked behind them. A ritual of blessing required that the officiant touch every space that the congregation would use, including the center aisle, the pews and floor space between them, the chancel area, pulpit, lectern, and the area for the choir. The initial words in Kikuyu were repeated in Swahili, loud enough for the waiting congregation to hear. While I did not understand any of the words, it was exciting to read the expressions of approval on the faces of the people and to note how eagerly they listened. The time seemed endless, but thirty minutes later the pastor (who was not allowed to enter before the blessing ceremony was over) responded to a knock on the door from the inside and announced in the languages of the people that the church had been blessed! As the community burst into song, a translation was provided in English, indicating that the ritual was a combination of African traditions and Christianity. Worshipers were rejoicing that the spirits of those who slept in the land had freed the church to worship in that space. I was also reminded that there was no electricity and that if it were ever added, another ceremony would be required.

Once inside the building, the entire congregation took part in additional ceremonies blessing every piece of furniture that had not been blessed before. This included kneeling pads for baptism and marriage, the communion table and baptismal font, and the battery-operated clock on the wall in the room. The strangers from America were also cleansed, blessed, and welcomed to walk on the soil of the spirits of their—and perhaps our—ancestors. Needless to say, the five-hour celebration, which included a meal of barbecued goat, was emotional and heart-warming.

The African Heritage in Christian Worship

In summary, Africans did not arrive in America with a tabula rasa, but with a network of understandings, potentials, and liturgical practices based on African primal worldviews. These are the foundation for liturgical elements which we have discovered, recovered, and in which we freely engage as a form of renewal. All three aspects of this network converge as we equip ourselves for and open ourselves to God’s enabling empowerment. Ours is a deeply religious heritage built upon a cluster of understandings and potentials which our forebears understood:

Awareness of God. As they were already aware of one sovereign God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, transcendent, and immanent, they were able to relate this awareness to the God of Jesus Christ. Some of the slaves had been introduced to Christianity in Africa. Thus, as they were evangelized in America, they were able to deepen their faith in a God who is “always on time.” Their African memory of God as Spirit helped them to understand the enabling power of God in Jesus Christ.

Wholeness of Life. The concept of the wholeness of life which is not compartmentalized into “sacred” and “secular” results in a perspective which does not confine spiritual concerns to a once-a-week event (on Sunday). “Notoriously religious” Africans continued to build upon their traditions, and in some instances substituted African concepts and terms for those of the Christian faith. For Africans who became Catholics, especially during the slave trade via the Middle Passage to the West Indies, Louisiana, and other southern states, the concept of the saints could serve as a reminder of highly respected ancestors. Wholeness of life undergirds worship, a time when the individual personhood of all gathered is affirmed and celebrated. Empowerment to participate fully in the liturgy is more accurately described as “having church.” Amidst what some have described as liturgical confusion in African-American worship is the African continuum of seeking and finding God at the deepest spiritual level available to an uninhibited, whole people!

Needless to say, the various styles of preaching and praying as well as the forms and style of music and singing in the liturgy reflect this concept of wholeness. Herein is the foundation for improvisation and the use of the whole body in response to the Word of God. It is not difficult to fathom the similarities between forms and styles of music in everyday life and music “in church.” The beat and improvisatory techniques of blues, ragtime, and jazz are employed in some black gospel music, and there is a “rightness” about it.

Family Ties. The importance of family, extended family, and familial relationships in African ontology reinforce the awareness of the beloved community, the body of Christ at worship. Worship provides an opportunity for the community to interact at a level at which knowing and praising God in Jesus Christ and believing that God cares binds individuals to one another. The family and extended family at worship may place limits on or determine parameters for what things are done and how, because people care about each other. This is one reason that early African-Americans sought private spaces for worship: common needs and bondings are necessary for viable worship, hence the emergence of separate congregations and denominations among African-American Christians.

Rites of Passage. The importance attached to rites of passage, rituals, and ceremonies has persisted among Africans in diaspora. Under the slave system, many rites of passage, which helped maintain the wholeness of the community, were restricted. However, remnants of African funeral and burial rites persisted. Later, Christian baptism was filled with reminders of African initiation rites which used water in the symbolism of new life and re-creation, dying of the old, purification, regeneration, and cleansing. The symbolic act of going to or being carried to the water continues to be meaningful. It is not unusual in Africa for baptisms to occur where there is running water, a reminder of the living waters related to renewal and regeneration.

The Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper in African-American churches is related to eating traditions among African peoples. In Christian understanding, the gods and spirits are not to be fed, but humans are fed by the Son of God. The action at the Lord’s table carries with it an African understanding of the significance of the offering of food. The concept of anamnēsis—remembering as if the community actually transcends time and space—partially coincides with the tradition of the African griot, storyteller or oral historian, and thus relates the Lord’s Supper to the function of the preaching of the Word.

Worship Time. The broad parameters governing time in African culture continue in the diaspora and are especially prominent in worship practices. African-Americans have accepted the linear notion of time and have established beginning times for worship. Often operating underneath “established” time, however, is the worldview that regards time as strictly relative. Where this worldview is most evident, worship services may start close to the established hour, but will end when the Holy Spirit determines that worship is over; then and only then is the benediction pronounced.

Sacred Areas. The sacredness of space in God’s creation is observed especially in the way African-Americans view the space for worship. While the nave or sanctuary is sacred, it is available to all worshipers; the area around the pulpit, the communion table, and the baptistry, however, are special, sacred spaces. This sacredness is extended to include those divinely “called” such as the preacher or deliverer of the Word and those appointed to preside at sacred rituals.

Leadership. African community leaders whose roles continue in some form in African-American worship include both males and females. Those in leadership functions are usually viewed with awe and surrounded with mystique, as a result of a perceived divine call to serve in such a capacity. Leadership roles in worship are the mysterious incarnations of the ancient African custodians of worship. The aura of African diviners, priests, prophets, and medicine men and women is absorbed into the roles of preachers, celebrants, and charismatic leaders. The category of mediums, those gifted with insight to discern the degree or quality of spirituality in the ritual and who serve as conduits through which the spiritual is manifested, is absorbed in the matriarchal “Aunt Jane” types and often in the preacher. The African griot is the community historian and storyteller who often “sings” the story; this role is now absorbed in that of the preacher and song leader.

Puritan Worship in the Post-Reformation Period

by

A number of Protestant churches trace their descent from the Puritan heritage. In their worship, these groups share a commitment to a common principle: worship must be ordered according to the Word of God alone. Puritan worship is also characterized by covenant theology and an emphasis on prayer.

The American Puritans provide a seemingly inexhaustible mine from which historians continue to quarry their writings. Any attempt, therefore, to provide an overview of Puritan thought and practice in so short a space will be found wanting. Our emphasis, then, will be to highlight a few themes which characterize the Puritan outlook, and which are played out in their corporate worship activities.

The reasons for the establishment of the Church of England under Henry VIII were more political and personal than theological. The Thirty-Nine Articles, which form the stated doctrinal confession of the Church of England, were drawn up by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1532–1553. Puritans affirmed the Reformed content of the Articles, but they did not tolerate the way in which the English faith was practiced in the churches.

To the Puritans, the English Reformers had not gone far enough. The Puritans sought to reform the Reformation, or, more specifically, to carry the Reformation further, to fully purify the church of what they regarded as the malignant influence of Roman Catholic tradition. The English Puritans were a varied group, rather than a well-defined religious bloc. An entire spectrum of Puritan attitudes has been noted, ranging from those with moderate reforming intentions, who desired to remain within the Church of England, to those of more radical bent who separated themselves from what they perceived to be dead orthodoxy (at best) or, in some cases, apostasy. The label “Puritan” was originally applied derisively, mocking the scrupulous attitude of these reformers. The Puritans, as the epithet implies, sought a pure church, free from either secular or “popish” influence, beholden only to the Scriptures.

Some American Puritans, known to us as the Pilgrims, are of the latter variety—the separatists. Others retained official ties to the English church but were no less zealous in their desire for change. Sincere and pious, the American Puritans came to the colonies to worship God apart from the forced constraints of the established hierarchy. Their hard-line Calvinism would not allow them to accept and work within the more broadly conceived English system. Areas of concern that directly affected liturgical practice include:

Sola Scriptura. Understanding this Reformation tenet in its most literal fashion, the Puritans sought to use the Bible as their only source and guide in both worship and daily life. For them, the thorough study and application of the Scriptures was the cornerstone of life. In Puritan worship we can see this belief exhibited in the extended portions of the Bible read aloud at each service, interspersed with illuminating commentary from a deacon, and in lengthy sermons which were the focus of the Puritan liturgy.

Further, the influence of Scripture on the liturgical practices of the Puritans is evident in their rejection of the “popish” and human traditions remaining in Anglican practice. The drab garb of everyday life befits the minister rather than ornate vestments; metrical psalms sung by the congregation replaced chanting. Puritan worship stressed both head and heart knowledge of the Word: truth imparted in worship was lived out in daily life. Congregants took copious notes on the sermon, and the head of the household frequently quizzed his children and servants to ascertain their attentiveness to the sermon—their spiritual well-being was his responsibility.

Covenant Theology. The doctrine of election, as developed by Calvin, states that God elects persons through no merit, work, or choice on their part, and covenants with them to be their God. While the Thirty-Nine Articles affirmed this understanding the English church of the seventeenth century did not uphold it in practice. Similar to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, with whom many parallels were made, the Puritans viewed themselves as a holy people, set apart by and for God: a people for his name. This covenant is evidenced in two directions: between God and man, both individually and corporately, in God’s redemptive and providential action; and among the individual members of the covenant community, in their mutual commitment to one another.

Ecclesiology. The church is comprised of those persons who have been elected by God to the covenant community. The question then arises: How can one determine who has, and who has not, been elected? First, an individual must have had a definite conversion experience—a work of saving grace—which imparts a confirming knowledge of one’s salvation. Second, the veracity of this new life in an individual is confirmed through the witness of the community through observation of an individual’s life. One cannot be saved by good works or pious acts, but such evidence will surely follow in the life of one who is truly of the elect.

In worship, this aspect of covenant theology became most apparent in the administration of the sacraments, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. The word “sacrament” itself, although employed by the Puritans, is problematic. No divine grace is mediated in the sacraments, but rather they are “seals” of the Lord’s covenant. They are the marks whereby God identifies his covenant with his people through visible, tangible means.

Baptism. The Puritans practiced infant baptism. Although not believing that any grace was mediated through this activity, they recognized that baptism denotes the parents’ membership in the community and their commitment to nurturing the child in the ways of God. Important as well is the trust that God has also predestined these infants to eternal election. Baptism, then, is both a sign of commitment and a step of faith on the part of the parents regarding the future of the child. In order for the child to become a fully participating member of the community in adulthood, evidence of election would have to be demonstrated as he or she matured.

The Lord’s Supper. Limited only to members of the covenant community, the Lord’s Supper provides the means of continuing identification with that community. Before the Sunday on which the sacrament was observed, members had to examine themselves, make amends for any wrongs, make apologies for offenses, and ask forgiveness for any sins. Both the bread and the cup were given to eligible communicants, served first by the minister to the deacons, then by the deacons to the members.

Prayer. One last aspect of worship which must be noted is that of prayer. Prayers often continued for lengthy periods of time, even hours, with the congregation standing. While spoken by the minister, the prayers should be considered an aspect of worship in which the congregation actively participated. Although we have no record of any audible response given by the congregation to the prayers, their participation came through the substance of the prayers: in them, the needs and burdens of the people were lifted to God. Prior to the service prayer requests were given to the minister who, presumably, elaborated according to his knowledge of the persons or situations involved.

We must not harbor the impression of Puritan worship as a dry, staid affair. Sober attitudes, lengthy, content-oriented sermons, and extended prayers, while incongruous in our fast-paced twentieth-century world, provided a means of touching and reaching the religious needs of the people of the early seventeenth century. Indeed, the Puritan vision did sustain serious blows in the last half of the century; these developments are beyond our discussion here. Yet, for a few brief, shining decades, the Puritans began to realize their dream of establishing a truly Christian community on earth. Their legacy has left an indelible mark on American worship and religious life in the centuries since.

Passover and the Lord’s Supper

by

There is an integral correspondence between the Christian Lord’s Supper and the Israelite Passover. Like the Passover, the Lord’s Supper is a joyful reaffirmation of the covenant. And like Passover, it recalls the Lord’s great act in the deliverance of a people. But the Lord’s Supper also points ahead to the ultimate destiny of Christians: freedom in the presence of God.

The Last Supper

The tradition that Paul received and put down in writing belongs to the earliest accounts of what took place the night Jesus was betrayed (1 Cor. 11:23–25). This account states that it was at night, that there was a meal, that he took bread and broke it and said, “This is my body which is [broken] for you; do this in remembrance of me.” The same with the cup: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” There is no mention of Passover in Paul’s account, except in a circumstantial way: the breaking of bread in a solemn manner, the drinking of the cup of wine, the reference to the covenant, and above all the paschal overtones. The synoptic account does not differ in essence from the Pauline tradition, except that it represents the Last Supper as a Passover meal (cf. Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7).

The Memorial Meal

Remembrance is the keynote of Passover: Israel is to call to memory what God has done for his people. The whole festival is a remembrance (Exod. 12:14). Jesus followed custom but reinterpreted the Passover in terms of the messianic event: the Messiah took the role of the paschal lamb. It is therefore correct to say that the Last Supper provides Passover with a new content. Henceforth the bread and the wine of the seder become the signs of the Messiah’s sacrifice on the cross. The paschal meal becomes a messianic meal.

The Last Supper and Passover

In the time of the temple, the paschal meal consisted not only of the lamb but also of the special festive sacrifice of which everyone partook (cf. 2 Chron. 35:13). Such eating of the sacrifice was a joyous occasion that gave cohesion to community life. This is to be distinguished from the sin offering that was totally burned and never consumed. For the Israelite, eating the sacrifice never meant eating his God. Participation in the body and blood of the Messiah creates a problem if the Last Supper is conceived in purely sacrificial terms. For this reason, the emphasis in the Lord’s Supper must be placed as much on the covenant as on the sin offering, if not more so. The blood that sealed the covenant is not the blood poured on the altar but the blood sprinkled on the people. There is a correspondence between the Last Supper and Exodus 24:11, which records that the elders of Israel on Mount Sinai beheld God and ate and drank.

The covenant is at the core of the Passover account. On the eve of the Exodus, God revealed himself as the God of the fathers who remembered his covenant (Exod. 2:24; 3:15). On the eve of the Crucifixion, this covenant was reaffirmed by the Messiah’s willingness to shed his blood. The paschal lamb is therefore not sufficient to explain the full meaning of the Last Supper; the covenant intrudes as the overarching theme.

This raises the problem of the meaning of the new covenant: in what sense is it a new covenant? The writer of Hebrews, and sometimes Paul, gives the impression of a radical break: the former commandment is set aside “because it was weak and useless” (Heb. 7:18); had the first covenant been faultless there would have been no need for a second (Heb. 8:7); “by calling this covenant, ‘new’ he has made the first one obsolete” (Heb. 8:13). Those who are in Christ are new creations; “the old has gone; the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Since Marcion, a second-century theologian held to be heretical, there has persisted a tendency to separate the two Testaments and to understand the “new” in the radical sense. From Paul’s exposition of Israel’s destiny (Rom. 9–11), such a break becomes impossible. The Logos doctrine allows no such break; the preexistent Christ spoke already in the Old Testament (cf. 1 Pet. 1:11). The writer of Hebrews bases his argument on the premise that the preincarnate Christ was present in Israel’s history. The new therefore must be understood in connection with the messianic event. The new covenant brings the old covenant to the brink of eschatological fulfillment, but the people of God are one continuum from Abel to this day. Christ as the telos (fulfillment) of the Law (Rom. 10:4) brings in the new era but does not change God’s promises. The new covenant is called “better” than the old (Heb. 8:6) because God in Christ fulfills his promise to write his law on the believer’s heart (Heb. 8:8–13).

The Lord’s Supper therefore continues the Passover theme in the new messianic context: (1) It is a memorial feast of the person and work of the Messiah. The remembrance goes beyond the historical events and becomes a proclamation and confession of faith (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26). (2) It is an avowal of loyalty between master and disciples, expressing the cohesion and the mutual interdependence of the Christian brotherhood. (3) It reaffirms the covenant of old and seals it in the blood of the Messiah. (4) It expresses the joy of salvation and the eschatological hope of the Messiah’s ultimate triumph.

The Christian Exodus

The keynote of the New Testament message is messianic fulfillment; Jesus was the One of whom Moses and the prophets had written (John 1:45). The Messiah, by his life, work, death, and resurrection, accomplished “eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9). This the law had been unable to do, for the Law had made nothing perfect (Heb. 7:19); it only served as a schoolmaster until Christ came (Gal. 3:24). The salvation of Yahweh as demonstrated in the story of the Exodus (cf. Exod. 14:13) was thus only a foreshadowing of what was to come. All God’s acts in the Old Testament point to an ultimate future. A day will come when the Lord will reveal himself as the “warrior who gives victory” (Zeph. 3:17 rsv). The difference between the redemption from Egypt and messianic salvation is not that the one is in time and the other beyond it. Biblical salvation is always rooted in time and in history; this is its most peculiar feature. Also, the distinction is not that the one is physical (or political) and the other spiritual. The distinction rather lies in the area of eschatology; messianic salvation is ultimate. The rabbis regarded redemption from Egypt as foreshadowing final redemption; the New Testament claims it an accomplished fact. Passover is the beginning of the journey the Messiah completes by reaching the goal.

“Eternal salvation” means there can be no other salvation after the messianic event, which is the ultimate salvation. The eternal covenant that God promised to the fathers (Jer. 32:40; 50:5; cf. Isa. 55:3; Ezek. 16:60) has now been established and sealed in the blood of the Messiah (Heb. 13:20). In Hebrews the dissolution of the cult, the change of the priesthood, and the removal of the Law are the consequences of the messianic event. Christ has become the living way (Heb. 10:20) to the inner sanctuary (Heb. 6:19), the new High Priest who by his sacrifice has made possible for humans to draw near into the presence of God himself (Heb. 10:20ff.).

Jesus completes what Moses began but could never accomplish ultimately. True freedom is freedom from sin. No one is truly free who is a slave to sin. Only the one whom the Son makes free is free indeed (John 8:34–36). Paul arrives at a similar conclusion; the fathers were all under the cloud, passed through the sea, were baptized into Moses, ate spiritual food, and drank spiritual drink, yet they perished in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1–5). The Exodus had a limited goal that was not reached until a new generation grew up. It is therefore only a parable of humankind’s journey to its ultimate destiny—the promised land. This journey the human cannot make on his or her own strength. The slave has to become the freedman of the Lord (1 Cor. 7:22), and the emancipation takes place at the cross of Jesus Christ. In him, people become sons of God (Gal. 4:4–6) and enjoy the freedom of the children of God (Rom. 8:2–4). The Exodus from Egypt to the land of Canaan leads beyond history to the “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). Whereas the historic Exodus was limited to the experience of one people, the Christian exodus is open to the nations of the world. Humankind’s ultimate destiny is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the freed (Gal. 4:26).

The Lord’s Supper As Covenant Meal

by

The Lord’s Supper, as instituted by Jesus Christ and elaborated in the Epistles, has its roots in the ancient rite of covenant, a practice that predates Abraham. Indeed, the covenant forms the basic structure of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel and is, for this reason, the underlying motif for the establishment of Christ’s relationship with the new people of God.

The cutting of covenants (karat bƒrit) appears to have been a universal practice in the ancient world. Complete covenant documents pertaining to the Hittite peoples, neighbors of the patriarch Abraham, have been excavated in the Near East, and traces of covenant rituals are to be found in ceremonies of the Native Americans of the Western hemisphere. Treaty covenants are known to have regulated relationships among the various city-states and empires of Mesopotamia. The king of a defeated army entered into such an agreement with his conqueror, who specified the terms of the pact. Usually these stipulations included a vow of total loyalty to the great king, or “lord,” as the covenant initiator was called, and a payment of annual tribute.

In some cases, less powerful rulers requested a treaty with a stronger king to secure his protection from invading armies. The weaker king, the vassal or “servant,” agreed to assist the great king in battle, to make no friendships with nor provide safe harbor for his lord’s enemies, and to appear in the courts of the lord at specified times to pay the required tribute.

Terms of the treaty covenant were written in two copies—one for the vassal king to read periodically to his people and the other to be placed in the shrine of the major god of the territory, who acted as a witness to the agreement and also enforced it.

A treaty between two nations was not in force until it was ceremonially ratified, usually with the blood of a slain animal. After cutting the sacrifice into pieces, the parties to the agreement walked between them as an identification with the animal, making the symbolic vow “The gods do so to me and more also if I break the terms of this covenant.” Then they shared a meal of the animal’s flesh and drank its blood in a sealing ritual.

The covenant meal is a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament. Isaac hosted Abimelech and his commanders at a meal that verified an agreement about the use of some wells that had been dug by Abraham (Gen. 26:26–31). Likewise, Laban and Jacob ratified their nonaggression pact with a sacrificial meal (Gen. 31:43–54).

Israel’s covenant with Yahweh followed the prescribed pattern of covenants between tribal leaders. The covenant meal was first eaten in Egypt, when the Hebrews accepted Yahweh as their God and prepared to follow him out of Pharaoh’s clutches and into the Promised Land. At the Passover meal, all Israel ate and drank their commitment to this new relationship: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod. 6:7), and they were commanded to repeat the ceremony in a recommitment to the covenant every year thereafter (Exod. 12:21–24).

At Mount Sinai the terms were written on tablets of stone, which were later deposited in the ark of the covenant under Moses’ direction. As leader of Israel and covenant mediator, Moses read the covenant text to his people (Exod. 24:7) and sacrificed burnt offerings to Yahweh, sprinkling their blood on the people (Exod. 24:8) as a means of identification with the animals. Following this part of the ritual, Moses and the elders of Israel ate and drank in the Lord’s presence (Exod. 24:9–11). Since the drinking of blood was prohibited for the Hebrews, wine was used as a substitute.

This practice of confirming a covenant with a sacrificial meal is the background for the words of our Lord as he sat at the Passover table with his disciples. In his death he would become the sacrifice that ratifies the covenant between God and the new covenant people. Paul identifies Christ as the Passover Lamb who makes possible the feast, or covenant meal (1 Cor. 5:8), an assertion based on the words of Jesus himself. Breaking the bread and offering it to the Twelve, he said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Lifting a cup of wine he continued, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24). Luke records that Jesus said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20, emphasis added). Paul testifies to having received the same from the Lord (1 Cor. 11:23), as he writes to the Corinthian church, “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood’ ” (1 Cor. 11:25).

The concept of Jesus as the covenant sacrifice underlies his “hard saying” recorded in John’s Gospel. The day following Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish, he initiates a discussion with his disciples on the subject of manna. Moses was not the source of that bread, he tells them, but the Lord God was. He then moves the focus of the conversation to his own role as the bread given by God which brings life to the world. “I am the bread of life,” he explains. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). The Jews, overhearing this extraordinary statement, begin to complain, and Jesus becomes even more explicit:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.… Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.… For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. (John 6:51, 54–56)

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus instructs his disciples at the Passover table. But he does not intend the act as a sentimental or maudlin ceremony in which the disciples mourn the loss of their leader. Jesus has just informed them that the bread and wine, his body and blood, comprise the meal that ratifies the new covenant. They are to recall this truth each time they participate in the ritual. In eating the flesh of the sacrifice and drinking the blood these disciples commit themselves afresh to the covenant formula, “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer. 31:33). And in so doing they become the body of the Lord, his covenant people. Paul stresses this truth in his discourse to the Corinthians concerning abuses at the Lord’s Table. In committing themselves to the covenant, Christians must recognize the Lord’s body if they do not wish to incur judgment (1 Cor. 11:29).

The purpose of the Lord’s Supper, then, is to remember his death—not the agony in the garden or the beatings or the crown of thorns or even the nails in his hands and feet. Rather, the recalling is to be of Jesus’ sacrifice, which ratifies the covenant between himself as representative man and God the Great King of the covenant.

For the amazing truth is that Jesus fulfills the symbolism of all parts of the covenant ceremony. As the Son of man, he assumes the role of the servant king who represents the people of God; he is also the covenant lord, or Great King; as the Word of God, he is the covenant text, deposited in God’s temple, the church; he is the sacrifice, which is eaten and drunk, completing the covenant agreement. To be “in Christ,” as Paul says (2 Cor. 5:17), is to be in the covenant he represents. It is this relationship that God’s people affirm when the church eats and drinks with the Lord at his table.

The Eucharist in Scripture

by

Although the New Testament offers several versions of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, common themes emerge. In observing the Lord’s Supper, the church puts the worshiper in contact with the redemptive death of Jesus—the act that has brought the church into being as one body, the eschatological new covenant community.

Eucharist, from the Greek eucharistia, from the verb “to give thanks,” is properly a New Testament term. For though it finds a material equivalent in “songs of thanksgiving” (Jer. 30:19) and “sacrifice of thanksgiving” (Ps. 116:17 rsv) in the Old Testament, eucharistia has no formal equivalent in Hebrew. Its intelligibility, nevertheless, remains contingent on an understanding of such Old Testament and contemporary Jewish institutions as the Passover, the prayer of thanksgiving (todah), and sacrifice. Its ultimate intelligibility, however, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, depends on grasping the essential fact that all gratitude is the child of memory, that eucharistia is inseparable from anamnēsis (remembrance), whether of the saving events of the Exodus or of the redemptive death of Christ on the cross “for us and for our sins.”

The Lord’s Supper in the Pauline Literature

From the middle of the first century we have from Paul not only the earliest record of the institution of the Lord’s Supper but also its first interpretation. To commence the examination of the New Testament evidence with Paul is, therefore, to witness the interpretation of a tradition in the very act of its transmission. For, though less influential in shaping subsequent doctrinal developments than either John or the Synoptics, Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians does set the pattern for all future interpretations of the tradition. Indeed, his approach to this tradition, to what he “received” and “passed on” (1 Cor. 11:23) should spare both exegetes and theologians the cul-de-sac of interpreting beyond the sufferance of the text both the Johannine and the synoptic accounts.

Thus, the first statement in 1 Corinthians 11:23, “I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you,” not only puts the risen Lord at the source of the tradition as its author and the abiding guarantor of its authenticity, but also obviates the debates on the “historicity” of the institution accounts themselves. To create a dichotomy between the Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Lord would be to introduce an element alien to Paul’s thought and inimical to Christian faith (cf. 1 Cor. 7:10 with Mark 10:11 and parallels). Therefore, to the question “Who instituted the Eucharist?” the response has to be unequivocally “the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 11:23), and no “quest of the historical Jesus,” old or new, can alter this fundamental datum.

Similarly, the “on the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11:23) is not a reference to the Passover but a linking of the institution to the Passion. Paul regards the Passover as one key to understanding the Passion (“Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” 1 Cor. 5:7), but nowhere does he link the feast itself to the Lord’s Supper. This fact ought to alert us not to assume the existence of such a link elsewhere in the New Testament unless explicitly stated.

It is in Paul’s account that Jesus’ taking of the bread is followed by “when he had given thanks (eucharistēsas).” Of course, this is the verb whence, as early as the Didachē (9.1; 10.7) and Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphians 4), the substantive eucharistia came to designate what had hitherto been referred to as “the Lord’s Supper” (1 Cor. 11:20).

“This is my body, which is for you” refers to the redemptive death of Christ for us, as is evident from the “for you.” This fact is made explicit in 1 Corinthians 11:26: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Furthermore, the reference to the eating and drinking applies the formulae themselves, not to the bread and wine, but to their consumption, that is, not to the elements as such but to the action of eating and drinking (see 1 Cor. 11:27).

The injunction “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24–25) is—as has often been remarked (P. Benoit, “Le récit de la cène dans Lc. xxii, 15–20. Étude de critique textuelle et littéraire,” Revue biblique, 48 [1939]: 357–393; reprinted in Exégèse et Théologie, vol. 1 [1961])—a rubric rather than a report. But what has not sufficiently been remarked is that the reference to the whole person of Christ, the “me,” is in parallel to “my body.” In the common biblical acceptance of the term, body (sōma) here refers to the whole person seen as the subject of relationships (see, for example, “absent in body,” 1 Cor. 5:3 rsv). Thus “body” underlines further the “for us” aspect of the passion, even as the words over the “cup” stress the covenantal aspect of the new relationship that is now in force.

Paul, unlike Mark and Matthew, identifies the cup as “the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25). The fact that, here at least, the reference is not directly to “my blood of the covenant” (as it is in Mark 14:24 and Matt. 26:28) should alert us to the multiplicity of possible interpretations of the Lord’s Supper even within the New Testament.

The transmission of any truly living tradition is, of course, an act of interpretation, as for instance the words over the cup or the injunction to “do this … in remembrance [anamnēsis] of me (1 Cor. 11:24–25), which is more than an exhortation to perpetuate the pious memory of a departing hero. It is rather the essential element in the believer’s response to the proclamation of the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus, whether in baptism (see “baptized into his death” in Rom. 6:3) or in the Eucharist.

The anamnēsis is what places the believer in contact with the abiding redemptive effect of the death of Christ. Thus, when Paul interprets the whole action, he describes, as it were, a full circle: the anamnēsis puts the believer in contact with the efficacy of the gospel proclaimed, even as the eating and drinking proclaim the saving event announced by the gospel. Paul, therefore, provides an interpretation, not just of the Lord’s Supper, but also of the celebration of the rite within the community of believers down the ages.

In his interpretation of the Lord’s Supper, Paul also provides the fundamental clue to this and every other sacrament: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). Every sacrament is essentially the proclamation of the redemptive work of Christ, and the Eucharist in particular is this proclamation par excellence. All sacraments derive their meaning and significance from the word they proclaim, even as each in its own way proclaims that same word. The sacraments are thus another mode of this proclamation, in their words no less than in their gestures and actions.

Elsewhere in the same letter to the Corinthians we find not so much another version of the institution as another interpretation of its content. In this instance, it is the interpretation that dictates the sequence in 1 Corinthians 10 of “the cup of blessing which we bless” preceding the “bread which we break” (1 Cor. 10:16 rsv). Here “participation/communion” (koinōnia has both senses) is the key to the significance of the action. That the “cup of blessing which we bless” is a “koinōnia in the blood of Christ” makes explicit the function of the “remembrance” in “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24–25). It makes explicit, that is, the function of the celebration in putting the believer in contact with the redemptive death. But it stresses an aspect of this contact precisely as “koinōnia in the blood of Christ,” that is, in the death of Christ on the cross.

Moreover, in the following statement on the bread, it elaborates the notion further (“Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf,” 1 Cor. 10:17). It was this logical order of argument, and not some echo of a different tradition such as, for instance, in the Didachē, that dictated the cup-bread order in 1 Corinthians 10:16–17.

By introducing the reference to the “body of Christ” in the sense of the community of the redeemed (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:27), the interpretation of the “bread we break” as a koinōnia in “the body of Christ” underscores two aspects of the Eucharist: it, like baptism (1 Cor. 12:12–13; Rom. 6:3–11), makes the believers beneficiaries of the redemptive act of Christ, at the same time that it incorporates them into this one body. The Eucharist is the sacrament of the church in that it brings the church into being as the body of Christ, but it can take place only as an act of the church as the body of Christ. These two aspects are so inextricably linked that their converse is equally true. The absence of one makes the other impossible: “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat” (1 Cor. 11:20). Precisely as, and only insofar as, the community of believers assembles “as a church” (1 Cor. 11:18) can it celebrate the Eucharist and, celebrating it, become the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). “The Lord’s Supper sets us in the Body of Christ, in the presence of the Exalted One who, having passed through death, now reigns: it therefore places us under the lordship of the Kyrios” (E. Käsemann, “The Pauline Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper,” Essays on New Testament Themes [Naperville, Ill: Allenson 1964], 132).

The Didachē echoes this mode of understanding the eucharistic celebrations: “As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, but was brought together and became one, so let thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom” (Didachē 9.4).

The Lord’s Supper in Mark and Matthew

Both in their similarity to one another and in their concordant divergence from the accounts in Luke and in Paul, these two narratives of the institution can be treated simultaneously. The setting of the event in them is unmistakably the eating of the Passover (to pascha) (Mark 14:12–16; Matt. 26:17–20). Therefore, whether or not the Last Supper itself was a Passover meal (see J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus [New York: Scribner, 1966], 15–88; V. Taylor, The Gospel According to Mark, 2nd ed. [London: Macmillan, 1966], 664–667), there is no reason for trying to interpret that action and the blessing pronounced (eulogēsas) in Passover categories. But this is not true of the altogether remarkable “this is my body … ; this is my blood … ” For “important though the Passover motif may otherwise be in the Christological ideas of early Christianity, for the words of institution it contributes nothing” (G. Bornkamm, “Lord’s Supper and Church in Paul,” in Early Christian Experience [London: SCM Press, 1969], 134; and see X. Léon-Dufour, Sharing the Eucharistic Bread [Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1987], 189–194).

Jesus “took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them” in Mark 14:22 (rsv); his action is made explicit in Matthew 26:26 as “to the disciples” (rsv). Mark’s “take; this is my body” becomes “take, eat” in Matthew. This latter modification would have been a negligible redactional retouch did it not affect the meaning of the formula. In general, commentators are content to regard the addition as merely stylistic, setting the bread formula in parallel with that of the cup. Nevertheless, a case can be made for taking the neuter touto (this) in “this is my body” as referring, in what is called an ad sensum construction, to the taking and eating rather than to body (soma), which is masculine. Thus, while in Mark the reference is clearly the bread, in Matthew a case can be made for taking it to be the “take, eat.” If this be so, then we have even here, not one but two interpretations of the formula, where Mark’s would lend itself more readily to later disputations on the “substance” than would Matthew’s. While the formula over the bread itself, either in Mark or in Matthew, does not in any way link the “body” to the death of Jesus, the meaning of body in Mark is, and remains, more of a crux for interpreters than in Matthew.

The cup formula, however, evinces a marked difference between the two evangelists. In Mark it is pronounced by Jesus after “they all drank from it” (Mark 14:23). Thus here the question of the referent can and does arise: “this is my blood of the covenant” refers to the cup, since there is no mention of “wine” as there is of “bread” in Mark 14:22. But it refers especially to the drinking, “And he took the cup … offered it to them … and they all drank from it” (Mark 14:23; see 1 Cor. 11:26, where the reference to the eating and the drinking is unequivocal). In Matthew, however, the situation is slightly adjusted by the addition of the imperative “drink from it, all of you. This is my blood” (Matt. 26:27–28).

Any understanding of the Eucharist inevitably hinges on determining what precisely the “this” (touto) refers to. In Mark and Matthew it is the cup formula that really interprets the action as a reference to the redemptive death: “which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24) and, in Matthew, by “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Thus in these two gospels, as in the other accounts of the institution in the New Testament, the narrative and its content are already theologically interpreted, and no amount of exegetical ingenuity can wholly separate the “fact” from that interpretation. Therefore, each account of the Last Supper in the New Testament is a distinct eucharistic theology. [While we may accept the basic fidelity of all the Gospel accounts to the tradition of the Last Supper, Jesus’ original words to his disciples on that occasion would have been in Aramaic. The various nuances of the Greek Gospels may attest to distinct views of the Eucharist in the circles in which they appeared but may not necessarily clarify Jesus’ original intention.]

Luke’s Account of the Lord’s Supper

Of all the accounts of institution, the one in the Gospel of Luke is the most textually vexing. But whether one adopts the shorter version (Luke 22:15–19) or the longer (Luke 22:15–20), the order of cup-bread in the former and cup-bread-cup in the latter requires explanation. Descriptions of the Passover seder, of Jewish celebratory practices, and of their background in the Old Testament, are all called on to provide an explanation. Nevertheless, the mere fact of the cup preceding the bread, if surprising, need not be inexplicable. As indicated in 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, the order of cup first is dictated by Paul’s interpretation of the Lord’s Supper in terms of the bread rather than of the cup. Though both “the cup of blessings which we bless” and “the bread which we break” are interpreted as koinōnia in the blood and the body of Christ respectively, it is the bread/body that provides Paul with the image he needs in order to proceed: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17 rsv). Moreover, since the reference to blood is clearly to the redemptive death, as it is elsewhere in Paul (Rom. 3:25; 5:9), the cup-bread order in 1 Corinthians 10 is dictated by the logic of expository exigence as it is not in, for example, an almost equally ancient, extracanonical work, the Didachē: “And concerning the Eucharist [this is one of the earliest instances of the usage of this term], we hold Eucharist thus: First, concerning the cup, ‘We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David thy child; to thee be glory forever.’ And concerning the broken bread: ‘We give thee thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy child. To thee be glory forever’ ” (Didachē 9.1–3).

Luke’s text is usually regarded as being closer to that of 1 Corinthians 11 than to Mark and Matthew. For, in addition to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; cf. 1 Cor. 11:24–25), it is prefaced by an explicit reference to the coming of the kingdom of God (Luke 22:16; cf. 1 Cor. 11:26). Whether it be taken as integral to the account of the institution or regarded as prefatory to it, the reference indelibly marks the account and its understanding as eschatological, that is, as belonging to the “last times” inaugurated by the coming of the Lord. The Eucharist is an act that proclaims the presence of the last times in our midst. No understanding of “the new covenant in my blood,” in Luke or elsewhere, is possible without the realization that the covenant is both final and definitive (see Heb. 7:27). Thus it is that the church, in celebrating the Eucharist, has with unfailing insight coupled the Lord’s Prayer and the words of the institution; “Your kingdom come … give us our bread” find their true meaning in the “for you” of the bread formula and in the “of the covenant” of the cup formula.

Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel

It is not an unremarked fact that the fourth Gospel has no narrative of the eucharistic institution. If at first baffling, such omission is not the least logical of the Gospel’s qualities. What the prologue climax affirms, “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), is elaborated throughout both the “book of signs” (John 1–12) and the “book of glory” (John 13–21). To have inserted an institution account in the closing chapters would have been redundant. What the fourth Gospel does, however, is more illuminating. It explains, in the discourse on the bread of life in chapter 6, the meaning of the Eucharist in terms of the prologue. This is why the “sacramental realism” of John 6:53–58 can best be understood in terms of the Word, which “became flesh” for the “life of the world.” Here alone do we have the properly biblical coupling of “flesh and blood” and not, as elsewhere in the institution accounts, “body and blood.”

It is at this point that one can best understand how the Eucharist is, above all else, the “mystery of faith,” faith in the flesh that the Word became. If a proper understanding of John 6:52–59 is to be sought, then it is to be sought not in the abstract theological terminology of later eucharistic debates but in its collocation in the same chapter with two major themes: the banquet of wisdom and the meaning of discipleship. The proper significance of the mystery is given final expression in the Petrine confession, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68–69).