Christa
Sena
wrote:
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Good Afternoon!
I wondered if you might be able to answer
a question I have.
I have been having faith discussions with
my boyfriend who is Messianic. He and his
family believe that Jesus requires us to celebrate
Passover in remembrance of Him; i.e. the Passover
has taken on new meaning. They use the following
Scripture verses to support this claim:
Get rid of the old yeast that you may be
a new batch without yeast — as you
really are. For Messiah, our Passover lamb,
has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep
the Festival, not with the old yeast, the
yeast of malice and wickedness, but with
bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity
and truth.
(1 Corinthians 5:7-8)
His dad has a web site in which he states
the following:
Paul very carefully explains that "whenever
you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the Lord's death until he
comes." The Greek text literally reads,
"for hosakis you eat this bread
and drink the cup . . ."
The demonstrative
pronoun this, pointing to a
particular bread, coupled with the definite
article the, pointing to a
specific cup, indicate that Paul has a
very specific bread and cup in mind. Any
other bread and cup may be eaten
at any time. But this specific bread, i.e.,
the Unleavened Bread of the Passover, combined
with the cup, i.e., the cup of wine drunk
with the Unleavened Bread at Passover,
could only be partaken of at one precise
time of the year — at Passover itself.
Therefore, hosakis is properly understood
in these verses as pointing to a definite
time. In other words, it means at such
time, or, at that time when you do it,
rather than whenever. In the context of
the Passover season, Yahusha was encouraging
his disciples to observe the annual Passover
with their focus on Him from now
on or at that time. Perhaps
the best translation might be, For,
at that particular time, when you eat this
bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the
Lord's death until he comes. |
- How do we (as Catholics) know that the
Eucharist is meant to be celebrated more
often than just at Passover?
If you could provide Scriptural evidence
in your answer it would be better since
they seem to follow Scripture alone.
The answer to this question would be much appreciated!
Thank you in advance!
Take care and God bless you always,
Christa Sena :)
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| {
How do we know the
Eucharist is meant to be celebrated more
often than just at Passover? }
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Eric
replied:
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Hi, Christa —
Let's look at 1 Corinthians 10-11.
First, he speaks of the Israelites,
how they all ate the same spiritual
food and drank the same spiritual
drink (verse 10:3-4). Now your Messianic
boyfriend may be familiar with the
Jewish prophecy that the Messiah
would bring a new manna to the People
of God. This is the context of John
6:30-31. Then in verse 10:7 he says,
"Do
not be idolaters, as some of them
were; as it is written, "the
people sat down to eat and drink,
and stood up to play."
So he
is moving into the Eucharistic celebration
here. He gets more explicit in verse
16:
"Is not the cup of blessing
which we bless a sharing in the blood
of Christ? Is not the bread which
we break a sharing in the body of
Christ? Since there is one bread,
we who are many are one body; for
we all partake of the one bread."
And, verse 21:
"You cannot drink the
cup of the Lord and the cup of demons;
you cannot partake of the table of
the Lord and the table of demons."
Then
he starts talking about worship in 11:4-17, and then says,
"For,
in the first place, when you come
together as a church, I hear that
divisions exist among you; and in
part I believe it. . . .Therefore
when you meet together, it is not
to eat the Lord's Supper, for in
your eating each one takes his own
supper first; and one is hungry and
another is drunk."
In other words, when you come together
as a church . . . it is not to eat
the Lord's Supper, meaning, it should
be to eat the Lord's supper, but
their priorities are wrong. Then
he goes on and recounts the Institution
narrative in verses 23-30, proving that
he is referring to the Lord's Supper.
Thus, the Lord's Supper should be
eaten every time they come together
as a church.
In Chapter 12, he goes
on to discuss more about regular
worship, implying that the Lord's
Supper is celebrated in the context
of that ordinary (weekly) worship.
He continues for several chapters
to give instructions on regular worship.
In 1 Corinthians 16:2 he speaks of
taking a collection on Sunday. Presumably
this is during regular worship during
which the Lord's Supper would be
celebrated.
None of the verses your boyfriend
adduces prove anything about when
the Eucharist was celebrated. He's
right that it's referring a very
specific kind of bread, and we agree
— the transformed Eucharistic
elements. The question is, when is
it celebrated?
Evidence from the early Christians
is clear. The Didache, a first century
manual for early catechumens (unbaptized,
studying for baptism) says in chapter
14:
"But every Lord's day gather
yourselves together, and break
bread, and give thanksgiving [eucharistia]
after having confessed your transgressions,
that your sacrifice may be pure.
But let no one that is at variance
with his fellow come together
with you, until they be reconciled,
that your sacrifice may not be
profaned. For this is that which
was spoken by the Lord: In every
place and time offer to me a pure
sacrifice; for I am a great King,
says the Lord, and my name is
wonderful among the nations (Malachi
1:11)."
The Lord's Day is Sunday, and the
reference to the sacrifice clearly
refers to the Eucharist.
The second century martyr St. Justin
Martyr describes early Christian
worship in more detail than any other
early Christian. (Justin Martyr,
Apology, I.66-67):
"And this food is called
among us Εχαριστíα [the
Eucharist], of which no one is
allowed to partake but the man
who believes that the things which
we teach are true, and who has
been washed with the washing that
is for the remission of sins,
and unto regeneration, and who
is so living as Christ has enjoined.
For not as common bread and common
drink do we receive these; but
in like manner as Jesus Christ
our Saviour, having been made
flesh by the Word of God, had
both flesh and blood for our salvation,
so likewise have we been taught
that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and
from which our blood and flesh
by transmutation are nourished,
is the flesh and blood of that
Jesus who was made flesh. For
the apostles, in the memoirs composed
by them, which are called Gospels,
have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus
took bread, and when He had given
thanks, said,
"This do in
remembrance of Me, Luke 22:19 this is My body;"
and that,
after the same manner, having
taken the cup and given thanks,
He said, "This is My blood;" and
gave it to them alone . . . And
on the day called Sunday, all
who live in cities or in the country
gather together to one place,
and the memoirs of the apostles
or the writings of the prophets
are read, as long as time permits;
then, when the reader has ceased,
the president verbally instructs,
and exhorts to the imitation of
these good things. Then we all
rise together and pray, and, as
we before said, when our prayer
is ended, bread and wine and water
are brought, and the president
in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to
his ability, and the people assent,
saying Amen; and there is a distribution
to each, and a participation of
that over which thanks have been
given, and to those who are absent
a portion is sent by the deacons.
. . . But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly,
because it is the first day on
which God, having wrought a change
in the darkness and matter, made
the world; and Jesus Christ our
Saviour on the same day rose from
the dead. |
Eric
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Eric
followed-up:
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Hi, Christa —
A few more points.
I mentioned Paul alluding to the
Eucharist as the new manna promised
by the Messiah, and comparing it
to food and drink. This is different
from the Passover, which was first
a sacrifice and only secondarily
food. (In fact, one might argue that
the only reason you ate the lamb
was to prefigure the Eucharist.)
The Eucharist is something we subsist
on spiritually;
- it is how we remain in the vine
- how our sins are taken away (by
applying the sacrifice of Christ
to them, in Evangelicalese, being
washed in the blood of the Lamb — for
us, this is literal)
- how we are made partakers of
the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)
- how we eat from the tree of life
(cf. 1 Peter 2:24, Revelation 22:14;
see below)
- how we drink from the cup of
salvation (Psalm 116:13)
(Your
boyfriend should recognize this
as a Hallel psalm from the Passover)
- how we taste and see that the
Lord is good (Psalm 34:8, cf. Hebrews 6:4, 1 Peter 2:3)
- how we offer our sacrifice of
thanksgiving to God (Psalm 116:17,
another verse in the Hallel Psalm
116; eucharist means thanksgiving).
All of these things point to something
you don't consume once a year but
as often as you can.
The Eucharist is spiritually beneficial,
food for the soul, not merely a ritual
reenactment.
St. Ignatius of Antioch in the year
107 A.D. called it the medicine
of immortality.
Let's look at the topic of the tree
of life since it's not immediately
apparent how this is so.
In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter refers to
Jesus dying on the tree.
Paul alludes to this in Galatians
3:14 as well, but Jesus died on a
cross, not on a tree. Moreover, Peter
says not a tree, but the tree, a
specific tree. There are two key
trees in Scripture:
- The tree of knowledge
of good and evil, and
- the cryptic
tree of life in Genesis, of which
nothing is spoken except its existence
and that Adam and Eve were barred
from it.
The tree of life is also
mentioned in Revelation 22:14.
Jesus said in John 6:51:
"I am the living bread that
came down from heaven. If anyone
eats of this bread, he will live
forever. This bread is my flesh,
which I will give for the life
of the world."
(John 6:51)
Thus, his body and blood given on
the cross brings eternal life. In
a sense, the cross is the tree of
life, and Jesus is the fruit of the
tree of life which you eat to obtain
eternal life. God has granted man
access to the tree of life through
the death of his Son on the cross.
With respect to his comment about
celebrating the Passover once a year,
Catholic Christians do celebrate
the Passover in a special way every
year on Easter. This is not obvious
due to the Germanic origins of English,
but in nearly every other language,
save German and English,
the word for Easter is
the same as the word for Passover.
Eric
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