One thing that we all have in common is the enjoyment of food. Although we all have our favorite cuisines, recipes, and restaurants, we all enjoy food. There’s a reason why we enjoy food that goes beyond eating as a basic necessity of life.
Food is fellowship. Food is gathering around a table together. Food is sharing and receiving hospitality in our homes. Food is pleasure at our favorite restaurants. Food is sharing our favorite dishes and desserts at potlucks. Food is also conversation with our families and friends as we enjoy burgers and hot dogs on the 4th of July or some turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
To say it another way, food is a blessing from God. Or as Rachel Marie Stone says, “Food is a sign of God’s love—and there is no room for fear in love, for love casts out fear.”1
Such favorable and enthusiastic descriptions would also be true of the Passover Meal that Jesus shares with his disciples. Except with this “Last Supper,” there is an ominous cloud that is bringing about darkness upon Jerusalem. In reading the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has repeatedly told his disciples that when they eventually arrive in Jerusalem, he will be handed over to the authorities and killed—crucified.2 The disciples have not come to terms with the idea of Jesus, whom they believe to be the Messiah, getting crucified, must less grasping the meaning of such a shameful death. However, by the beginning of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples are aware of the growing conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities. Something must give and something will or, better yet, someone will give.
The great paradox of the Christian faith is that as horrible as suffering is, hope is born out of suffering. Death is not the end of hope but the beginning of a new hope because Jesus has entered into life with us, giving his body and blood.
Even with the darkness that has emerged, a nice supper has a way of letting everyone forget, if only for a little while, about such darkness. Food and all that food is can have that kind of cathartic effect. But whatever laughter and light-hearted conversations were going on, everything turned for the worse when Jesus told his disciples that one of them would betray him.
The mention of betrayal is a reminder that everything is not okay. And Jesus is trying to tell his disciples that things are going to get even worse in the coming hours. What happens next is something most Christians are very familiar with: According to Mark 14:22-25…
While they were earting, Jesus tood bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”3
We are familiar with this text because it is one that we often read when gathering at the Lord’s Table to share in the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper together. We’ve heard this text read many times, so much that we might just miss not what Jesus is saying but what Jesus is doing.
Jesus is the one giving. He is giving the disciples bread and wine to eat and drink, saying that this bread and wine signifies his body and blood. Jesus is giving a preview of the gift he will give with his body and blood—his life upon the cross. The life of Jesus given upon the cross will be the promise of hope because it is the offering that ratifies God's covenant with Israel, establishing a new covenant.4 Rather than defeat, the crucifixion of Jesus will lead to the resurrection of Jesus because the death of Jesus will not be the end but the resurrection of new life for all, beginning with his resurrection from the dead.
The great paradox of the Christian faith is that as horrible as suffering is, hope is born out of suffering. Death is not the end of hope but the beginning of a new hope because Jesus has entered into life with us, giving his body and blood. Sins are forgiven and death gives way to life because the crucifixion of Jesus is followed by the resurrection of Jesus. This is why Jesus assures the disciples that he will drink the fruit of the vine anew in the kingdom of God.
As I mentioned earlier, something has to give and something did give because someone gave. With Holy Week beginning in four days, we must let ourselves enter into the paradox of the Christian faith. Many of us already carry great sorrows and grief, struggles and challenges, that seem to darken our lives. But God has given new life in and through the life of his Son, Jesus the Messiah. Holy Week, leading to Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and then Easter Sunday is a reminder that we no longer need to worry about what the future might hold. The kingdom of God is at hand in Jesus Christ and is cemented into the very course of history through his crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation as Lord.
This is the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. And part of the good news is that we get to live as a witness to the good news. May we have the faith to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
Rachel Marie Stone, Eat With Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food, Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2013, 39.
Mk 8:31-32; 9:31; 10:33-34.
Taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
James R. Edwards, The Gospel of Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, 427, has only made this point about the blood of Jesus saying “‘My blood of the covenant’ implies that the blood of Jesus is the only true and efficacious blood of the covenant, of which the blood of animals was merely proleptic.” However, the point seems equally true with the body of Jesus, since the body and blood cannot be separated—there isn’t any blood without the body.