Passover & Transubstantiation

A reader writes:

During the last supper Jesus offered bread and wine to the apostles and said this is my body and blood, do this in rememberance of  Me . At the jewish seder meal, food and elements are presented for rememberance, to bring forth the struggles of the Hebrew peoples. My question is at the supper Jesus could of created a new seder memory for future Passovers. Mr. Akins this is a troubleing topic for me, I’m catholic and believe in the real presents.

The seder passover meal is a recreation of the jewish struggle by presenting elements at the table to eat and remember the past. Could Jesus have introduced a new element to the seder on his last night with the Jewish apostles for them to add his memory to the Jewish table.  Not actual real presents which would have been difficult for a jew, but for the seder meal this would have been very  easy to accept.

If I understand correctly, there are two questions here. The first is whether by instituting the Eucharist Jesus simply meant to add an additional new rite to the Passover meal. The second is whether the Eucharist is to be understood symbolically or realistically.

Let’s deal with the first question first.

Jesus certainly could have simply added a new rite to the Passover meal if that is what he had wanted to do. He’s God, so he can do anything he wants. But the question for us is: What evidence do we have that he simply wanted to add a new rite to the Passover meal? Not much.

Since none of us has a time travelling De Lorean, we can’t go back to the Last Supper and see everything that Jesus said. (NOTE: If anyone does have a time-travelling De Lorean, or other workable time travel device, please contact me via e-mail. There are several events in world history that I need to go back and change.) As a result, we have to rely on what the apostles said and understood Jesus to say.

It seems clear that they did not understand Jesus to simply be instituting a new element in the ritual of the Passover meal. We know this because the evidence that we have points to the early Church celebrating the Lord’s Supper on a frequent basis–not just once a year, like Passover.

The evidence strongly suggests that the early Christians celebrated the Eucharist at least weekly, in which case it could not simply have been an addition to the Passover rite. It was something based on Passover (with Jesus taking the place of the lamb as the true Lamb of God), but it was independent from Passover and could be celebrated much more frequently.

So the evidence we have indicates that Jesus wasn’t just making an addition to the Passover rite. He was making a much more radical change. The question is: How radical? How much was he changing?

That leads to question #2: Could he have meant the Eucharist to simply be symbolic of his body and blood rather than really being his body and blood?

Again, he could have. He’s God, and he can do what he wants. But once more the question is: How did the people who heard him–who heard all of what he said (not just the parts recorded in Scripture)–understand him?

They understood him in terms that went way beyond symbolism. If you read John 6, for example, you’ll see that some people did resist Jesus’ declaration that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. What was Jesus’ response? Did he say, "Hey, guys, it’s only a metaphor. Don’t sweat it?" No. Instead, he repeated his assertion, causing some people who had been following him up to that point to quit following him.

Did he explain the metaphor privately to his core disciples, as he had various metaphors that he used on other occasions? No. Instead, he asked them if they too wanted to quit following him. This means that Jesus was willing to lose his core disciples rather than water down the assertion he made about eating his flesh and blood.

This would be inexplicable if he was just using a metaphor. On occasions when he used metaphors that the apostles didn’t understand, he explained them to the apostles privately. He didn’t draw a line in the sand and ask them if they wanted to leave if they didn’t accept it.

It may well have been his forcefulness on this point that prepared the disciples for what he would do at the Last Supper. He had already prepped them for the idea of literally eating his flesh and blood, so they understood the intent of his action when he actually called upon them to do it at the Last Supper.

Also remember that the apostles weren’t ordinary Jews. They had already come to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and had seen him work many miracles. They themselves had handed out the bread that he had miraculously multiplied, so they knew that he was capable of transubstantiating bread and wine if he wanted to.

And, remember, they weren’t people growing up in the anti-supernatural 21st century. They were firm believers in the miraculous and were much more prepared than people today to interpret things as miraculous rather than symbolic.

We also have the witness of the other early Christians–to whom the apostles passed on the faith and who also understood the Eucharist in realistic terms.

For more on all this.

SEE THIS LINK.

AND THIS ONE AS WELL.

I’d also like to call attention to the fact that Jesus made some pretty specific promises to the apostles and to the Church as a whole, telling them that he would send the Holy Spirit to reinforce their understanding of what he had taught them and telling us that he would be with the Church until the end of time.

This means that Jesus guided the apostles, and has guided the Church, into a correct understanding of matters that are fundmental to the Christian faith–like the nature of the Eucharist. His providential care guarantees that the Church has not misunderstood the Eucharist, either in regard to whether it is just an addition to the Passover meal or in regard to whether it is realistic or symbolic.

We have Jesus’ word on it.

(One other note: I’ve written the above on the assumption that first century Jews understood the Passover meal in a symbolic sense. That’s not altogether clear. There are strands in Jewish thought that understand the Passover meal as a real participation in the events of the Exodus in a manner not unlike a form of transubstantiation.)