Word to the Wise
Friday, May 1, 2020 - 3rd Week of Easter - Fri
[Acts 9:1-20 and John 6:52-59]"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him." [John]
Imagine hearing this teaching the very first time it was uttered! I don't think it would matter if it is first century Palestine or twenty-first century USA. Our reaction might be, "Did you hear what I heard? Is he serious? We're not cannibals! This guy is crazy!" The answer to that might be, "Well, who do you think he is? If he is the one whom God has sent, don't you think he can make this work?"
In the first scripture for today, we read of the conversion of Saul, a bounty-hunting persecutor of those Jews who believed in Jesus as the one whom God has sent. This conversion took place less than 20 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. Paul (once known as Saul) writes in his First Letter to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" [1 Cor. 10:16] The gospel accounts of the Last Supper were only just beginning to be composed about that time, so it is clear that the earliest disciples believed that Jesus had found a way to make his teaching "work." The tradition preserved by the gospels is recounted later in the same letter from Paul: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'"
Whether it is in St. Peter's in Rome or the parking lot of St. Elizabeth University Parish in Lubbock during the coronavirus pandemic, the Eucharist is the same Jesus Christ. He is the one whom God has sent, and he makes this work! AMEN
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