On our knees (Holy Thursday)

‘… This is my body’. (Mark 14:22)

Mark 14:22-25 (Thursday of Holy Week/Holy Thursday/Maundy Thursday)

This is my body, or in Greek, ‘Touto estin to soma mou’ make up five words in Greek and are found in all four New Testament references to the eucharist (in addition to Mark it is found in Matthew 26:26, Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24).

At various times over the centuries and, especially, in the last millennium Christians quarrelled over the meaning and interpretation of these words.  

We should remember that the Last supper was a Jewish ritual meal with huge significance and impact as the head of the family led the prayers and the younger family members asked questions about why this meal was being celebrated in this way. We should also remember that, in all likelihood, Jesus spoke to his disciples in Hebrew or Aramaic. In that case, writers such as Karl Barth have suggested that the word ‘is’ would not have appeared in ‘This is my body’ as it does to us in English today (for example).

The author of ‘In the Imitation of Christ’ writing 600 year ago warns in the following terms: ‘Beware of curious and vain examination of this most profound Sacrament, if you do not wish to be plunged into the depths of doubt’ (Book 4).  

Psalm 130 reads:

O Lord, my heart is not proud nor haughty my eyes. I have not gone after things too great nor marvels beyond me. Truly I have set my soul in silence and peace. A weaned child on its mother's breast, even so is my soul. O Israel, hope in the Lord both now and forever.

When it comes to receiving I am a bit old fashioned. I like what the writer As Oscar Wilde wrote beautifully in ‘De Profundis’:

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy) should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.

Moreover, I have been deeply struck by the experience of kneeling in a row along with others very different from me in so many ways but all of us kneeling together – like beggars – to receive the King of the Universe. Such a view might not exactly sit easily with variants of modern-day positive psychology but some of us are old fashioned in these matters. And let it be said that there is nothing at all wrong with standing. As the history of Passover meals go – they started in standing position as the meal was eaten in haste (probably) see Exodus 12:11 and evolved into a reclining position by the time of the ‘Last Supper’ and then moved on to standing position (generally the practice in Eastern Christian churches today) to kneeling, standing or sitting depending on what denominational badge or local custom applies in your ‘parish’.

And the poet, John Donne (1572–1631), (or perhaps Queen Elizabeth I) is reputed to have said:

He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it; I do believe and take it.

And that’s enough.