© 2009 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
Jesus’ last supper with his apostles is one of those events that has been so widely debated that it has ended up being given an importance and interest that does not correspond to what actually happened there.
Jesus’ simple message, that “we are children of God, free beings, endowed with creativity to express our religious feelings,” was entangled and complicated by dialectical battles over ceremonies, rites, and miraculous events, detracting from the content of the central message.
But why so much debate? What is so vitally important about Jesus’ words at this Last Supper?
¶ A Passover dinner
All four Gospels state that Jesus’ Last Supper took place in the context of the Jewish Passover, the annual festival or celebration that took place and continues to take place among Jews today.
This Passover could be celebrated in one’s usual place of residence, but it was common, and was done whenever possible, to celebrate it in Jerusalem. People would arrive in the city a week before the celebrations to purify themselves, which meant performing a series of rituals in the temple.
The Passover meal was usually prepared at least a day in advance. A series of preparations were required that could not be left to the last minute. These preparations included finding a place to hold the Passover feast, purchasing the lamb or goat, performing purification rituals, and celebrating the meal.
In Jesus’ time, Jerusalem was a walled city much smaller than we might imagine today. As crowds invaded the city, it was almost impossible to find accommodation in the city, which was so crowded with people from all over the world.
The Gospels tell us that the apostles asked Jesus about the preparations for this Passover meal, and he showed them a place where they prepared everything as he had asked.
¶ The date problem
Since the Last Supper was a Passover meal, it’s logical to think that it was celebrated on the same day as the feast. However, this wasn’t the case.
The Jewish Passover festival actually included 8 days from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan (Nisan being the first month of the Jewish calendar, which corresponded to our March to April, since there is no exact correspondence between the two calendars):
- On the 14th of Nisan the Passover meal was celebrated, at sunset (for the Jews the new day began at sunset, when the sun set, so the day of preparation for Passover was the 13th of Nisan, and the Passover meal therefore marked the beginning of the following day, the 14th of Nisan),
- From the 15th to the 21st of Nisan the Feast of Unleavened Bread (called the massot) was celebrated.
The Gospels also tell us that the year of Jesus’ death was doubly festive, because the 15th of Nisan fell on a Saturday, which was also a solemn day for the Jews, so it was a year in which the two festivals took place one after another, that of the 14th of Nisan (Passover itself), and that of the 15th of Nisan (the first day of the massot, which that year fell on a Saturday).
However, the Gospels do not agree when it comes to determining the date of the Last Supper:
- The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke speak of Jesus celebrating the Passover meal, that is, the meal that took place at the end of Nisan 13, at dusk, and which marked the beginning of Nisan 14.
- The Gospel of John, on the other hand, says that the supper was not the Passover supper, but a supper celebrated the day before Passover, that is, at sunset on the 12th of Nisan, when the 13th of Nisan began.
Who is right?
At first glance, we must say that John is correct. Otherwise, it remains unclear how Jesus’ enemies could have arrested and executed him the day after the supper. If Matthew, Mark, and Luke were correct, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper and was executed on the 14th of Nisan, which is impossible. From sunset on the 13th, which marked the beginning of the 14th, according to Jewish law, all activity was prohibited. The Jewish magistrates would not have been able to hold their trial against Jesus, nor would they have been able to demand Jesus’ death before Pilate, nor attend the crucifixions. The Jewish festivals were a holy day on which all work was prohibited.
So obviously the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were wrong.
But if we take John’s chronology as correct, a problem arises: Did Jesus and his apostles celebrate the Passover meal a day before it was required? John says they celebrated the meal on Preparation Day (see Jn 13:1). How can this be explained?
Some scholars have proposed various hypotheses to try to explain John’s apparent contradiction. Martin Descalzo, in his book “Vida y misterio de Jesús de Nazaret,” (“Life and mystery of Jesus of Nazareth”) summarized some of these explanations:
- Essene theory: According to this hypothesis (defended by Jaubert and Ruckstuhl), Jesus celebrated the Passover meal like the Essenes. We know that the members of this Jewish sect in Jesus’ time, separated from the rest of the people, had their own separate celebrations and did not observe the same worship as the rest of the people. They always celebrated the Passover meal at dusk on a Tuesday, regardless of the date on which it fell.
However, neither was Jesus an Essene, as some convoluted writers would have him appear, nor is there any disagreement that the dinner was on a Thursday. - The theory of the discrepancy in the date among the Jews: according to this theory, the Jews did not have a clear date for the celebration of the Passover meal. It could have been on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Those who develop this theory (Chwolson, Klausner, Zolli, Lagrange, Strack, Billerbeck, Lichtenstein) assume that the Galileans could have celebrated or had the custom of celebrating the Passover meal a day earlier.
However, the Gospel text merely assumes that in Jerusalem there was only one date for the Passover meal and the ritual celebrations of the Passover. It is possible, and even admissible, that in the district of Galilee a change in dates could have occurred, since Galilee was a somewhat more liberal region in the observance of religious rituals. But this clearly did not occur in Jerusalem. Such liberalism in celebrations could not have existed there, and it is impossible for a discrepancy regarding dates to exist. - Theory of liberality in the choice of date: this theory, closely related to the previous one (defended by J. Pickl), claims to suppose that Jesus would have joined the custom of his time of choosing the most convenient date for the Passover meal, given the high number of pilgrims in Jerusalem for the feast and the shortage of houses.
However, there was no liberality regarding the day of the celebrations. Furthermore, in Jesus’ time, when people were near Jerusalem, the Passover meal was required to be celebrated within the city and could not be celebrated outside the walls. For this reason, the rabbis had established that a large area surrounding the walls, where a large crowd of pilgrims camped in the open air in tents and nearby camps, was to be considered included within the city. This is precisely what Jesus did on the Mount of Olives.
Another fact that refutes this theory is that at least ten diners were required to gather in each house. This was due to the imposition of the law that nothing of the Passover lamb should be left over for the next day. It had to be eaten entirely. Therefore, a sufficient number of diners gathered to ensure that no leftovers were left, and this is confirmed by the fact that Jesus meets with the Twelve. Therefore, we can say that it is true that there was a shortage of space in Jerusalem, but that the necessary adjustments had already been made at that time to overcome this obstacle. Consequently, a change of date to overcome this problem of lack of space is not justifiable.
No one who studies the problem has ever considered a more obvious solution. They all center their explanations around something unrelated to Jesus: the Essenes, the Jews of his time, the lack of space in Jerusalem… But why does no one want to see a possible explanation in Jesus himself?
Jesus celebrates an atypical and unauthorized Passover meal, which of course should have surprised his apostles (unless they were already accustomed to such extraordinary situations on the part of Jesus). Furthermore:
- Jesus knew they were going to arrest him and had announced it. The evangelists seem to imply that he even knew who was going to betray him (Judas) and when. He seemed to have a premonition of when the arrest would take place, evidently before the feast. If Jesus wanted to celebrate a last supper with his friends, he couldn’t wait for the usual date, because by then the Jews would have already captured him.
- Jesus’ supper was private. The evangelists tell us so: Jesus ate this supper only with the Twelve. (Some pious people have sought to see, in light of the events that took place at this supper, the presence of other people, such as Mary, the mother of Jesus, but this is all an attempt to adapt an event to the taste of popular piety.) The supper was private. In fact, the Gospel accounts seem to suggest that there were not even any servants, because it was Jesus who decided to do the menial work of washing feet (performing ablutions and washing before a ritual feast like the Passover was obligatory and well-received).
- Thanks to the Gospel of John, we know that during the meal, Jesus gives a long speech, with a clear farewell tone. He wants to have a last supper with his closest friends to bid them farewell and give them his final advice.
Therefore, we must conclude that it is Jesus himself who expressly violates the custom and tradition of the Passover meal. He celebrates a Passover meal outside the obligatory time, something unusual in those days, and he does so because the circumstances of his life forced him to do so and because Jesus defended liberality in rituals in contrast to the priestly rigidity of his time.
Jesus could have celebrated any old supper with his friends, if his sole purpose had been to bid them farewell. But he purposefully chose to celebrate a Passover meal. He wanted to develop, within the context of this meal, a series of important things for the apostles. He didn’t want it to be just any old supper. And that’s why he didn’t mind altering the traditional date of the Passover meal to celebrate it on a day when he knew he would still have time to do so.
Here’s the thing: Jesus was liberal and flexible with the rituals and religious practices of his time. This liberality of Jesus is a fact that is constantly shown in the gospels: Jesus is rebuked by the most ritualistic sector of his time, the Pharisees, because he did not perform the usual and customary washing of the cups and plates, nor did he ritually wash his hands before eating (Luke 11:38); they also reproach him for not teaching his disciples to fast, as John the Baptist did (Mk 2:18); he puts love and mercy for his neighbor before the celebration of sacrifices to ask for God’s forgiveness (Mt 9:13); His own disciples often do not understand his words that “it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the heart” (Mt 15:11).
Therefore, it should not surprise us that Jesus was so generous as to celebrate such a solemn Jewish ritual as Passover on a day more suited to his intentions. A careful reading of the Gospel shows us a Jesus who respected religious practices as long as they did not reach the height of rigidity and meaninglessness. And here we have further proof of this fact, by choosing a different date than usual for the celebration of this unique meal.
¶ The meaning of Easter
For the Jews, the Passover meal evoked the memory of their exodus from Egypt and how God had helped them escape. It recalled the days when Moses had been their guide on that adventure of fleeing Egypt. It commemorated the liberation of the Jewish people from the chains of slavery to which they had been subjected. For these Jews, the Passover meal meant liberation from the oppression of neighboring peoples. The Jews were a very proud people. Many times they had fallen under foreign domination, and in Jesus’ time, this domination came from Rome. But many other times, their small victories had rekindled their hope that they were a people chosen by God, placed at the head of the nations, and this liberation from Egypt magnified the feats their ancestors had accomplished in such distant times. It was like a festival of freedom.
The Seder dinner ceremony followed this custom:
- Seated at table, at dusk, the preparation of the “first cup” took place. The father or head of the table would pronounce a blessing, the qiddus, and then the cup would be drunk. First, he would pronounce this praise: “Praise be to you, Yahweh, our God, King of the world, who created the fruit of the vine.” Then he would recite the qiddus, which said: “Praise be to you, Yahweh, our God, King of the world, who gave your people Israel feast days for joy and remembrance. Praise be to you, Yahweh, who sanctifies Israel and the seasons.”
- Family members performed the “first ablution of hands” of the night without a blessing (Urchatz). A jug of water was brought to the table so that the host of the Seder could perform the ablution without moving from his place.
- An appetizer based on celery (carp) dipped in salt was taken.
- Then came the yachatz, the dividing into two pieces of one of the three unleavened breads (matzah). The larger piece was set aside, while the smaller piece was left with the other unleavened breads.
- Then the “second cup” or “Haggadah cup” or Mishpat was poured, and the Pesá or Passover rite took place. It was introduced by a child or other diner’s question about the meaning of the banquet: “Ma nishtana halaila hazé micol haleilot?” (“Why is this night different from all the other nights?”). The father responded with the story of the Exodus from Egypt; the liturgical foundation was provided by Dt 26:5-11, provided with the necessary interpretations.
- The “second ablution” was followed by the prayer “Al Netilat Yadaim” (“You who commanded us to wash our hands!”), and then the matzah was eaten immediately.
- The first part of the Hallel was recited and then the “second cup” was drunk, called the “Haggadah cup” or Mishpat.
- Then the unleavened bread was distributed, a small portion to each diner, and before eating it a blessing (motzi) was recited: “Praise be to you, Lord, our God, King of the world, who brings forth the bread of the earth.” The diners answered “Amen,” and then the bread was distributed to them. The father of the house took the last piece and began to eat, which was the signal to all that the feast had begun.
- The banquet began with the first course, the appetizer, which consisted of various bitter vegetables (maror), made more digestible by dipping them in a sauce called jarôset. They also offered each other pieces of bread spread with sauce and vegetables.
- Normally, the Passover lamb or goat (one year old) came next. However, as The Urantia Book rightly states, Jesus had changed this custom, and no lamb was roasted at Passover meals where he presided over the table. For Jesus, the lamb represented an idea of sacrifice with which he disagreed. Something that Christians have curiously distorted, as we shall see later.
- The piece of unleavened bread that had been reserved was left for last. The banquet ends with the prayer of thanksgiving through “the third cup,” called “the cup of blessing.” This prayer of thanksgiving may have been as follows: “Praise be to you, Lord our God, who feeds the whole world with your goodness, your grace, your loving-kindness. We give you thanks, Lord our God, because you have allowed us to possess a good and large land. Have mercy, Lord our God, on Israel, your people, and on Jerusalem, your city, and on Zion, the seat of your majesty, and on your altar and your temple. Praise be to you, Lord, who builds Jerusalem.”
- Finally, the Hallel (Ps 115-118) was sung, and a fourth cup, or the Hallel cup, was drunk after the blessing. After that, the meal was over. The diners would often continue until late at night, conversing and enjoying themselves.
The entire dinner was loaded with symbolism and meaning:
- The wine cups: they expressed the joy of the Jewish people for having been taken out of Egypt.
- Unleavened bread (unleavened bread, matzah): expressed the haste of the Jewish people leaving Egypt, since the bread they took on their journey was bread that had not had time to ferment.
- Bitter herbs (a crushed horseradish, maror): produced tears and expressed bitterness over the slavery of their ancestors.
- The sauce (jarôset): represented the mortar with which the Jewish slaves had to build the Pharaoh’s constructions.
- Celery or parsley dipped in salt (carp): commemorated the taste of the exodus.
- Lettuce or salad, along with radish (jazeret): represented the plants that the Jews had to eat in the desert.
- The Passover lamb: It expressed the compassionate behavior of God, who killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians and saved those of the Jews, because they smeared their doorposts with the blood of the lambs. The name “Passover,” which is the Latin word, comes from pesach, which in Hebrew means “passage” or “overthrow,” because God passed through and overthrew the Egyptians. In conclusion, the lamb had a meaning of death for the enemies of Israel, and that is why the animal was killed. Animal sacrifice was a constant ritual practice in those days, not only among Jews but among all civilized people. The idea was that divine favor was earned through the blood of the innocent animal victim, and that there was no divine hearing if these bloody acts were not performed. However, Christians no longer eat the Passover lamb in any Christian rite. It is evident that Jesus influenced this decision because He had that custom. We know that Jesus even eliminated the lamb from the ritual because he did not agree with these sacrificial visions (UB 179:0.3), something that Paul did not understand (UB 188:4.1-3, UB 196:2.1, UB 149:2.3).
The meaning of the Passover meal, therefore, was to remember a special day on which God had manifested himself: the exodus from Egypt and their liberation, which had been indelibly engraved in the memory of the Jews.
¶ What Jesus did
Did Jesus intend to establish a new type of ceremony, the “Eucharist,” at this Last Supper? Did he establish a new ritual to replace the traditional Jewish Passover meal, eliminating the lamb and allowing for the possibility of repeating it whenever desired? Or was it all a later invention of the early Christians?
Jesus celebrated a completely normal Passover meal. At this meal, the lamb was not eaten, but the sauce with vegetables was, and there was plenty of unleavened bread. However, when the third cup, the cup of blessing, was about to be drunk, Jesus spoke different words that have never been fully understood.
Jesus took the cup, blessed it, and spoke a few words of explanation about the cup’s meaning. Then Jesus did the same with a loaf of unleavened bread, breaking it into pieces, explaining its meaning, and then everyone ate the bread.
However, the understanding that many Christians currently have of the words Jesus spoke and what they meant is erroneous.
The Gospel texts and a letter from Paul tell us of a kind of ritual formula, as if Jesus wanted to establish a new Passover rite. However, they don’t tell us that Jesus fixed the frequency, or that he sanctioned certain methods and ways (such as that it be celebrated in a sacred place, or that there be a person conducting the operations). Honestly, it’s hard to believe that with those simple words of Jesus, all the apostles understood that their Master was asking them to perform a new type of ritual in the future, and that everyone was clear about the methods and ways of celebrating it.
¶ The texts of the “institution of the Eucharist”
It seems much more logical to think that those words of Jesus, long after the Last Supper, were remembered and misinterpreted, becoming a new ritual that distinguished that new religious formation that arose from Jesus’ message: Christianity. And to create their ritual, they even had the nerve to borrow an existing ritual, that of the Mithraic celebration of “fellowshipping.”
Much of the origin and explanation of all this must be sought in the apostle Paul, who infused Mithraic ideas into Jesus’ message. Paul lived in Tarsus, a city in present-day Turkey, and in Paul’s youth, the city of Tarsus had a main religion: Mithraism. The study and analysis of this religion explains, in astonishing detail, why Christians give the Eucharist the meaning it has today, influenced by Mithraic ideas.
| Mark 14:22-24 | Matthew 26:26-28 | Luke 22:19-20 | Paul 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| While they were eating, he took bread and blessed it, broke it, gave it to them and said, Take, this is my body. Taking the cup after giving thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, This is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many. |
While they were eating, Jesus took bread blessed it broke it, and giving it to the disciples said, Take and eat, this is my body. And taking the cup and giving thanks gave it to them saying, Drink from it all; this is my blood of the new covenant which will be shed for many for the remission of sins. |
Taking bread and giving thanks and breaking it, and giving it to them saying, This is my body which is given for you; do this in memory of me. Likewise the cup after they had supped saying, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you. |
The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread, and after giving thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in memory of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” |
In a graffito preserved in a Mithraeum on the Aventine Hill (ca. 200 AD), one can read the words spoken by a Mithraic priest during a ceremony in honor of the god Mithras: “You saved men with the shedding of eternal blood.” Legends about Mithras, moreover, are full of sacrificial acts where Mithras kills a bull whose blood allows for the creation of hundreds of new lives. In fact, even the most important ceremony of Mithraism was a banquet where believers (mists) partook of bread and wine. Considering that Mithraism was a religion of Persian origin that was widespread when Jesus began to preach, it is obvious that Jesus’ original message was greatly influenced by these Persian ideas after his death. (See also UB 98:6.4-5, UB 98:7.7, UB 121:5.8, UB 195:0.9)
These ideas were not present in Jesus’ preaching. They were non-Jewish ideas. Let’s remember that Paul was Jewish by descent, but lived in Greek territory throughout his youth, and was a Roman citizen by birth. His ideology was undoubtedly much more influenced by non-Jewish concepts (UB 98:7.9). And it was from these concepts that he derived the erroneous theory, still perpetuated by Christians today, of the atonement for sin and the symbolism of the Eucharist: that Jesus died to settle an ancient debt to God by which eternal life was denied to humanity, and that through this atonement for human sins suffered by Jesus himself, a new era for humanity was opened, through which we could aspire to a life beyond death.
Paul, in his good intention to win many Gentile converts, sought to incorporate elements of the pagan rituals of the time into his preaching, blending them with the elements he inherited from the teachings of Jesus. And this is what gave rise to the current concept of the Eucharist.
The idea that Jesus was establishing a new kind of covenant, a new Passover, to achieve the full and final remission of sins through the atonement he would achieve with his death, was associated with wine and unleavened bread.
These foods came to signify the blood and flesh of Jesus, who was to be handed over and executed with suffering. This suffering was understood as necessary to atone for humanity’s racial guilt due to the sin of the first parents, Adam and Eve.
However, if we only had four Gospel texts on the Eucharist, there would be no room for doubt. But the truth is, we’ve forgotten that there is another text. What does the Gospel of John say? In it, we find the key to Jesus’ authentic words.
¶ The Gospel of John
The Gospel of John is the only one that says nothing about Jesus’ words at the Last Supper regarding the Eucharist. And nothing could be stranger. How is it possible that an event of such magnitude and significance as the Eucharist could have gone completely unnoticed by John? We even know that this Gospel is the last one written. Therefore, the author of the Gospel must have already been familiar with the other texts and accounts of the Eucharist. Why didn’t he add his own version? Did he disagree with the official version of the other texts?
Despite his apparent silence, John is the evangelist who tells the most about the Last Supper. So much so that the content of John’s account of the Last Supper is about ten times longer than that of the other Gospels.
Thanks to John, we know that Jesus, at the Last Supper, gave a very long speech, which we could call the Farewell Speech, going into great lengths and providing all sorts of details. The narrator even took the liberty of analyzing some of the words and content of what Jesus said, offering additional explanations.
But if Jesus gives such a long speech at the Last Supper, why does he say nothing about Jesus’ words when he instituted the Eucharist? Does he disagree with the other three evangelists? Does he not believe Jesus instituted anything? Is he implying by his silence that none of those words from the other gospels were actually spoken?
¶ The meaning of the farewell speech
Jesus celebrates a last supper to bid farewell to his friends, and his speech to them has a clear farewell tone. Jesus announces that he is going to leave, but that a strange substitute will take his place. John refers to him by different names: the “New Teacher,” the “Spirit of Truth,” but the apostles don’t understand what he is telling them. Jesus warns them that when he leaves, they will feel distressed, but then, after a few days, they will be filled with joy at the events to come.
And these events are what Jesus truly wanted his apostles to remember. The true meaning of Jesus’ words was to solemnize the moment of the arrival of this Spirit, and to establish a new memory, but one based on his person and his life.
And the proof that this was the true meaning of his words is offered by the Gospel of John in other passages.
¶ Other passages on the Eucharist in John
In many passages of John’s Gospel, we find words with a striking similarity in content to those of the Eucharist at the Last Supper recorded by the other evangelists. Curiously, these passages recorded by John do not appear in the other evangelists.
¶ The Samaritan Woman of Sychar at Jacob’s Well (Jn 4 1-42)
According to the story, Jesus, after spending Passover in Jerusalem, traveled with his disciples to Galilee and took the road to Samaria. Passing near a town called Sychar, where there was a very famous well, Jacob’s Well, Jesus stopped to rest while the apostles went into the town to buy provisions. At this point, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, and Jesus, thirsty from the journey and having nothing to draw with, asked her to help him. This is an excerpt from the conversation between Jesus and the woman:
The Samaritan woman said to Jesus:
—How is it that you, a Jew, dare to ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water? (It should be noted that Jews and Samaritans did not communicate.)
Jesus answered him:
—If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would surely have asked me and I would have given you living water.
The woman answered:
—Lord, you don’t even have the means to draw water, and the well is deep, how can you give me living water? Our father Jacob left us this well and drank from it himself, with his sons and his livestock. Do you consider yourself greater than he?
Jesus replied:
—Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. For the water I give them will become a spring of water in them, welling up to eternal life.
Then the woman exclaimed:
—Sir, give me that water; then I won’t be thirsty anymore and I won’t have to come all the way here to draw it.
Jn 4:9-15
In this passage, Jesus speaks of an enigmatic “living water.” Enigmatic because the Samaritan woman misunderstands Jesus and believes he is speaking of water from the well. This is not the case. And Jesus explains his words again, telling her that it is not water for drinking, but water of another nature, a water from which whoever drinks it will live forever.
Evidently, Jesus, as he often does, uses comparisons to try to convey a higher teaching. He equates the concept of drink, which is the sustenance of man, because of the need we all have for water, with the concept of the higher sustenance of man, which is “like a living drink,” which gives a life beyond this. But what drink is he talking about? To what does he equate the concept of this drink? What does he seek to symbolize in “living water”?
¶ Discourse on the bread of life and the water of life in Capernaum (Jn 6:22-71)
After arriving in Galilee from Samaria, Jesus makes another trip to Jerusalem for another feast, and then returns to Galilee. On the lake, he performs one of his most spectacular miracles: he feeds five thousand people. They try to proclaim him king for this miracle, but Jesus, seeing their intentions, withdraws and avoids them. He crosses the lake, and the next day, the people find him in Capernaum. Jesus reproaches them for not being sincere in their intentions to seek him. This is the excerpt:
Jesus answered them:
—I tell you the truth, you are not looking for me because of the signs you saw, but because you ate the bread and were satisfied. Do not strive for temporary food, but for permanent food that gives eternal life. This food the Son of Man will give you, for God the Father has certified it with his seal.
Then they asked him:
—What should we do to act as God wants?
Jesus answered:
—What God expects from you is that you believe in the one he has sent.
They replied:
—What sign can you give us, that we may see it and believe you? What is your work? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Jesus answered them:
—I assure you that it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God comes from heaven and gives life to the world.
Then they said to him:
—Lord, always give us that bread.
Jesus answered them:
—I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you, as I told you, do not believe, even though you have seen. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and I will never reject anyone who comes to me. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And his will is that I should not lose any of those he has given me, but should raise them up at the last day. My Father’s desire is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
The Jews began to murmur against him, because he had said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They said,
—This is Jesus, the son of Joseph. We know his father and mother. How dare you say he came down from heaven?
Jesus replied:
—Stop grumbling. No one can accept me unless the Father who sent me grants it to them. And I will raise them up on the last day. It is written in the prophets: And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and receives his teaching accepts me. This does not mean that anyone has seen the Father. Only the one who has come from God has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died. This is the bread from heaven, which came down so that whoever eats it will not die.
Jesus added:
—I am the living bread come down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh. I give it for the life of the world.
This sparked a heated discussion among the Jews, who asked themselves:
—How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Jesus said to them:
—I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in them. The Father who sent me possesses life, and I live because of them. So too, whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread your ancestors ate. They died, but whoever eats this bread will live forever.
Jesus explained all this while teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
Many of his disciples, when they heard Jesus, said:
—This doctrine is unacceptable. Who can accept it?
Jesus, knowing that his disciples were criticizing his teaching, asked them:
—Is this hard for you to accept? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is useless. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But some of you do not believe.
Jn 6:26-64
Jesus preaches a new teaching. So new that it provokes the indignation of his listeners, who were Jews. Jesus proclaims himself, through his mortal life, to be the authentic heavenly bread and drink for the sustenance of those who desire to attain eternal life. Unlike the “bread from heaven” in which the Jews of his time believed, manna, and which, according to them, enabled their ancestors to believe, Jesus sets himself up as the authentic bread from heaven. Perhaps the most clarifying phrase in this entire text is in John 6:35. We read:
«I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry; whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.»
That is to say, the bread of heaven consists in the attitude of those who seek Jesus and journey toward him, and the water of life is faith in Jesus and his message.
John makes it clear: “Whoever comes to me” and “Whoever believes in me.” The food and drink Jesus speaks of are not material. He gives them a material symbolism, likening them to bread and water (or wine as at the Last Supper), because he wishes to inspire his listeners to understand the profound meaning of his words. But what Jesus is really saying is that the attitude of seeking the right path (the one that leads to Jesus) and the sincere faith of those who put his teachings into practice are the authentic spiritual nourishment that leads humanity to salvation and eternal life. Jesus speaks of something moving, not static; he speaks of seeking him and believing in him.
When Jesus speaks of “eating his life in the flesh” and “drinking his life in his blood,” he is obviously not referring to taking material food and drink. He is referring to following Jesus and believing in his teachings. His flesh is the life he lives as an example and inspiration to those who want to follow him, and his blood is also that same life of preaching, created so that those who believe in his teachings may feel full and overflowing with life. Hence Jesus says:
«He who eats my life in the flesh and drinks my life in the blood lives in me and I in him.»
Jesus speaks of sharing in his human life, in flesh and blood. His life was the living divine example so that those who desire to know the path to heaven may have Jesus as their guide. His life is the inspiration for men and women who yearn for God. The human life of Jesus is that living path that transports us toward eternal life. And this is the meaning of “living his life,” as if we were eating and drinking it, just as we need food and drink to live.
¶ The Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (Jn 7:1 — 8:59)
Jesus has returned to Galilee, and he is careful not to return to Jerusalem because they are seeking to kill him. However, with great courage, he ignores the danger and presents himself in Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. There, Jesus gives several discourses in the Temple. The following is an excerpt from one of them:
On the last day, the most important of the feast, Jesus, standing before the crowd, solemnly declared:
—If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. As the Scripture says: From the depths of everyone who believes in me will flow rivers of living water.
He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him would receive. Now there was no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Jn 7:37-39
The phrase, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink,” leaves no room for doubt. It speaks of the water of life, the wine of the Eucharist. And John clarifies that Jesus is referring to the Spirit that believers who believed in him would receive.
Therefore, as we have already said, the water of life is faith in Jesus and his message. Those who believe in him and put his teachings into practice receive heavenly nourishment, which is the nourishment of the spirit. The rivers of living water that will flow forth are those produced by this spiritual nourishment. And this spiritual nourishment is the “Spirit of Truth,” which nourishes the interior of those who believe in Jesus and live his teachings.
The true meaning of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is the remembrance of the day when the new teacher was to dwell in their hearts, the day when Jesus, as a living spirit, was to dwell within the heart of man to teach him the path of goodness and righteousness.
The “bread of life” and the “water of life” are for Jesus a joyful and positive symbol of the spiritual nourishment that should flood the hearts of believers: “following Jesus” and “believing in him.” These nourishments will cause springs of vitality to gush forth from within, thanks to Jesus’ promise to send spiritual help to the human heart, which is the “Spirit of Truth.” In this way, the authentic believer in Jesus finds himself united to Him because He takes up residence in his heart and because the believer follows that teacher within him.
¶ The liberality of Jesus
Few people stop to think carefully about what Jesus did that night: He changed the ancient rituals! But Jesus wasn’t inaugurating a new way of celebrating the ancient Passover. His intention wasn’t to restrict human freedom and force a new kind of celebration. Jesus was simply giving a lesson in freedom and using an ancient ritual as a means for greater teaching and establishing a new kind of commemoration.
Jesus was a free man, able to celebrate the rituals of his time as he pleased and desired. He was free! And he wanted to transmit that liberality to his disciples. He wanted to free them from the shackles of a ceremonialism based on outdated memories and useless ideas of atonement.
Throughout his life, he ignored the Passover lambs and animal sacrifice. He forever destroyed the obligation of ablutions and washings. He eliminated the entrenched rigidity of meaningless Sabbath regulations and openly challenged the idea that ceremonial duties were as important as, or more important than, good works.
It is deeply sad and shameful what the supposed followers of Jesus throughout the ages have done, and what their liberal act of that supper has become. Jesus wanted to free his disciples from the slavery of meaningless ceremonies and from the formalism and rigidity in the way they celebrate religious events. And today, almost two thousand years after that distant supper, Christians today perpetuate the same error that Jesus sought to correct: the lack of liberality in ritual forms. Why so much rigidity in the forms if what matters is the content? Why has the Christian church insisted so much on setting and establishing the modes and ways of celebrating the Eucharist? Isn’t the ecclesiastical ceremony a fixed and established act? Aren’t there books for priests that record all the guidelines to be followed in these celebrations?
We’ve gone backwards! Such rigidity in religious forms did not exist even in Jesus’ time, despite all we’ve read about the rigidity of the Pharisees of those days. The true Pharisees of today hide behind those sacred vestments that officiate every holy day in the temples. That’s where the worst Pharisees history has ever known hide. Because even the fact that Jesus came into the world wasn’t enough for them. Because they preach the same things they later fail to carry out. They preach that Jesus liberally changed the rituals of his time, and they don’t allow even a gesture or symbol of their ceremonies to be altered.
It is truly painful to observe that we have not yet been able, after all the effort He made, to free ourselves from the shackles of rigid ceremonies, practiced without reflection, mechanically, out of habit, tradition and convenience.
We haven’t come that far since his visit, and if he were to return to earth today, he would also change the current Eucharistic ceremony and give it a different form. Because for Jesus, there is nothing like the freedom for each person to express their religious experience in their own way and in their own mode.
¶ Were the evangelists wrong?
Clearly, the Synoptic Gospel writers were mistaken in their account of the Eucharist. They disagree with the meaning John conveys in his Gospel and seem to ignore key passages in Jesus’ life where he addressed similar issues.
Why were they wrong? Didn’t they record Jesus’s preachings spoken word? Did they misinterpret his words?
All the evangelists who mention Jesus’ words in the Eucharist base their work on Paul’s preaching, not Jesus’s. Mark follows Peter’s preaching, but Peter, in turn, is influenced by Paul; Matthew merely follows Mark faithfully, and makes the same mistake as Mark. Luke, a direct disciple of Paul, gives the exact same version, verbatim, as a sermon by Paul written in the Letter to the Corinthians. Therefore, the person responsible for this whole theory about the atonement for sins through Jesus’ death, and the meaning of the bread and wine, lies exclusively with the apostle Paul.
It was Paul who attempted to establish standards within an organization that was growing steadily without the direct control of the apostles. To gain authority, he called himself the “apostle to the Gentiles” and set about organizing and providing guidelines for all the communities of believers that were beginning to be established in Turkey, Greece, and Rome.
Humanity has always fallen into the same situation and has never been able to solve it. The problem is called “the desire for uniformity,” although in reality, it is we who created the problem. We humans love to establish norms and establish customs. The first Christian communities faced this problem. Each community began to celebrate a different commemorative meal. And as always, someone appeared who assumed the supposed authority to say “what would be the best way to celebrate.” At first, minor rules were defined on trivial matters, but then the reciting of certain words, the reading of certain texts, began to become customary, and finally, the meal ceased to be a meal and became merely a ritual, a set of established forms and manners. To complete the betrayal of Jesus’ liberal act, when Christianity was beginning to become a “fashion,” someone recorded the ritual and called it “Mass.” In the end, the result was something that bears no resemblance to what happened that Thursday night.
¶ Is a more authentic Eucharist possible?
Jesus always spoke in spiritual terms. His teaching was not for one time or one generation. It was for all ages. His words still retain an intact and perennial flavor today. At the Last Supper, Jesus wanted his apostles to understand one very important thing: that he never abandons us. He is installed in the heart of every human being, “every human being,” of any belief, race, or nation, to illuminate Truth and Righteousness. And this reality of the Spirit of Jesus in the human heart is like nourishment that makes those who are guided by it grow toward eternal life. The Last Supper was not celebrated in a majestic building. It was not in any temple, nor in any sacred place. There were no holy garments, nor was it officiated by anyone. Jesus was like one among them. He calls them “his friends” and invites them not to seek to be served, but to serve. There is no gold or precious stones at the Last Supper. It is a meal among friends, celebrated in an ordinary home, in the context of a dinner party. There are symbolic elements that express a greater reality, which is the divine presence of Jesus and the Father in the heart of every believer. There is a liberality in the way things are done. It is a meeting to talk about the spirit. Everyone intervenes when they wish, asking, speaking, listening. There is no ceremonialism in Jesus’ act. He does not say that bread and wine must be used, but that bread and wine, like any other food, or anything else, were a symbol of true spiritual nourishment.
How long will we continue like this?
What did Jesus want us to learn? He wanted us to forget the forms, the manners, the rites, the ceremonies, the traditions, the customs, the festivities…
He wanted us to do things the way we liked best. He didn’t want to pigeonhole or box ideas. They were just symbols! He wanted everyone, freely, in a celebration among friends, to take some food, or anything else, and signify spiritual nourishment, to have a meal to remember Him. Very few people do this today. Insistent on fixing things, as soon as some religious groups take the initiative to deviate from orthodox rigidity, they too fall into the same rigidity and commit the same error of ceremonialism.
Jesus wanted freedom, freedom to express in an individual and personal way the experience of man’s encounter with his heavenly Father. Individual because, for Jesus, religious experience is a matter for each man and woman. And because for him, each person must find their own expression through tireless searching. No meaning exists greater than another. The greatest thing we can do with rituals is to know how to be open to all of them. Because there is not one that cannot be benefited by the others.
The Christian Church today will hardly accept these conclusions. But one day, determined men and women will embark on the adventure of being able to perform unestablished rituals, with meanings drawn from intimate and personal experience. One day, faithful friends will gather in homes, or in venues, or in the very temples, and freely, without imposing an established model, will celebrate a dinner to remember, in conversation among themselves, the greatest man who ever lived on the face of the earth.
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¶ References
- José Luis Martín Descalzo, Vida y misterio de Jesús de Nazaret (Life and Mystery of Jesus of Nazareth), three volumes, Ediciones Sígueme, 1993.
- Joachim Jeremiah, Jerusalén en tiempos de Jesús (Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus), Ediciones Cristiandad, 1977.
- Joachim Jeremiah, La Última Cena (The Last Supper), Ediciones Cristiandad, 1980.
- Johannes Leipoldt and Walter Grundmann, El Mundo del Nuevo Testamento (The World of the New Testament), two volumes, Ediciones Cristiandad, 1973.
- Javier Alonso, La última semana de Jesús (The Last Week of Jesus), Oberón Publishing, Anaya Group, 2004.
- The Urantia Book: The book distinguishes between the «Eucharistic bread» of Christianity (in the English original the “Lord’s Supper”, UB 103:4.1), which it considers a huge Christian error, and the “supper of remembrance,” the truly new ceremony instituted by Jesus during the Last Supper (UB 179:5.1-10), which has never been continued as Jesus desired by any religious group.
- Wikipedia — Pesach