Seeing the Eucharist through Jewish eyes

 

Picture: Ahawah Children's Home, Berlin; Passover Seder Table

Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist #2

Spiritually, we Christians are rooted in Jewish faith and spirituality. This can feel slightly disconcerting because it is difficult to disentangle the historical, tribal, and political threads that run through Jewish and Christian history. Yet one thing is clear: Jesus was Jewish—completely and faithfully so. The Gospels testify that He and His family observed the Law of Moses. In His teaching and His life, Jesus never allowed any legal precept to override the Great Commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (see Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37). In this, He fulfilled the Law.

It is also true that the Gospel of John, some of the writings of St Paul, and the experience of the early Church reflect a growing conflict between official Judaism and the followers of “the Way,” a tension that intensified after the death and resurrection of Jesus. For a time, this was an intra‑Jewish quarrel—often within families.

Today we are painfully aware of the complexities of Jewish history, the Shoah, and the political realities surrounding the modern State of Israel since 1948. Christians have, at different times, veered between outright antisemitism and uncritical support for Zionism and contemporary political actions. It is important to distinguish these strands carefully.

One of the clearest places where the Jewish imprint on Christianity remains visible is in the Holy Mass, the Eucharist. Catholics believe that this sacrament was instituted at the Last Supper and marks the new covenant—the new Passover—in the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for all peoples outside the gates of Jerusalem. According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the Last Supper was a ritual Jewish meal, structured as a Passover celebration like those observed by thousands of Jewish families at the time.

Scripture names only Jesus and the apostles at the meal, but it is not impossible that others were present, perhaps even Mary, the mother of Jesus. Within hours the apostles scattered, while a small group of women remained with Jesus all the way to Golgotha and stood by Him until His final moments. (To be fair to John, the beloved disciple did remain at His side; see John 19:26.)

How would a Passover meal have been celebrated in the time of Jesus? We cannot be certain, because customs varied and the 'seder' developed further in later centuries. Still, several elements are well attested, and they offer hints of what would echo through Christian worship in the decades and centuries to come.

The meal typically began with a ritual handwashing (a sign of cleansing) and a prayer of blessing. A first cup of wine was blessed—giving thanks for God’s gifts, including bread and wine. Bitter herbs (‘maror’) and unleavened bread (‘matzah’) were eaten, symbolising slavery and haste. The story of the Exodus was retold, and children asked, “Why is this night different?”—a liturgy of remembering and proclaiming.

The main meal included the roasted lamb, prepared and offered at the Temple earlier that day. (Here Christians see a foreshadowing of the new Lamb who would be sacrificed the following afternoon.) After the meal came a third cup of blessing—many scholars link this to St Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?” Then the ‘Hallel’ Psalms (113–118) were sung, reflected in Mark 14:26: “When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

But the Passover was not yet complete. A fourth cup traditionally closed the meal. Some scholars suggest that Jesus deliberately did not drink this final cup at the Supper, and that His words—“I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18)—refer to this. They propose that Jesus completes the Passover on the Cross when He is offered wine on a stalk of hyssop (John 19:29–30), after which He declares, “It is finished.” In this reading, the fourth cup is consumed not in the Upper Room but on Calvary.

In any case, the identification between the traditional Jewish Passover and the Passover of Christ is unmistakable. The first Eucharist begins on the night before He died and reaches its fulfilment on the Cross the following day.

This week we walk with Jesus on the way to Calvary and beyond. The Eucharist tells the story—and we are living it now. To understand its depth and its implications for our lives, a grasp of the Jewish context is immensely helpful. This is why Pitre’s work is so illuminating and, at times, provocatively constructive. The shock that Jewish listeners would have felt at hearing talk of eating flesh and drinking blood becomes all the more vivid. John 6 has prepared us. More on that soon.