| THE LORD'S HOLY COMMUNION
-- A MESSIANIC SUPPER
Thursday night of Holy Week darkened. Around nine, a silent group gathered about their Master in the upper room. Outside shone a full moon, as always at Passover, its pale glow following the events of that long night -- the Messiah's valedictory meal had begun. Each one of the group took his place in a circle around the cloth spread on the floor, leaning on their left arms with their legs outward from the circle. To begin, Jesus read a short prayer:
According to the traditional seder regulations, haggada, after this first cup the Head of the Company was in the custom of washing his hands. John describes these moments, telling us how Jesus took the towel offered him and, to the surprise of the disciples, began to wash their feet. The Orthodox Jews of Eastern Europe have to this day a custom whereby the youngest serving-girl in the family performs a similar act of love. Jesus took upon himself the part of a servant. Peter did not wish the humiliation of being served by his Master, and Jesus uttered to him the memorable words: "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." Thus he taught that "he is greatest who serves".27 Next would come the bitter herbs and the bitter leaves, which would be dipped in brine in memory of the children of Israel in Egypt. After the blessing, Jesus, in keeping with the custom, would take the middle of three loaves placed one on top of the other and break it in two. Today the bread is known as aphikoman, a word of Greek origin, derived from aphikneomai, to 'come' or 'arrive'. Jewish Christians point out that these three loaves recall the tripartite nature of God. Half of the aphikoman loaf is then, by custom, hidden, just as the Messiah will be hidden in the bosom of the earth until he shall rise . . . and one day he will "come" in his glory. Even if the custom was not in those days as we have described it here, Jesus would certainly bless in the traditional way the bread he broke:
The Passover meal has from ancient times been strongly associated with Messianic expectation. Even today the Haggada mentions the words of Elazar Ben Azaryan, who lived at the beggining of the second Christian century:
The partakers of the meal would now receive the second cup. The Talmud insists that even the poorest were to receive all four cups in the Paschal meal. If they could not afford all this, they were to sell or pawn their clothes. The wine was decreed to be red, of one part wine and two water. We know that the early church observed this traditional custom in Communion. The same injunction was binding upon, for example, the "cup of salvation" of Ps 116, which was taken with the making of holy resolutions to the Lord. At this point the youngest member of the family would ask the question, "Mah nishtanah?". . . "Why is this night different from all other nights?" This would lead to a spirited discussion among the members of the family and then to the reading of the Psalms. At the same time the actual meal began. The haroseth sauce and other herbs were put between the pieces of bread. Such a piece may have been the "sop" which Jesus dipped and gave to Judas who, it would appear, removed himself just before the next cup, the "cup of blessing". It is to this third cup that Paul makes reference in 1 Cor. 10:16 when he asks, "Is not the cup of blessing for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" Again a spark of the Messianic idea flashes when at this point, after the cup of blessing, the door is opened so that the forerunner of the Messiah, Elijah, may come into the room. Perhaps the words used by the Lord when he instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion are to be placed here. Matthew tells it as follows:
The Christian would do well to ask himself when he takes Communion, "Mah nishtanah?" -- "In what way is Communion different from other meals?" Paul indeed says that we ought to "examine ourselves" before partaking of the elements, for he who eats and drinks "without recognising the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgement on himself".29 What is meant by "body" and "blood" and by the perspective of eternity which is opened out before us? Paul, speaking of the old yeast which must be got rid off, says, "for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed".30 The ancient Sages use the phrase "the Passover body", guphoh shel pesah of the Passover lamb.31 Jesus really was the "lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world". At the same time we ought to remember that the Hebrew word gûph, 'body', signifies the essence or 'being' of a thing, its substance, and that this word is also used of the "ingredients" or "elements" of the Passover. The word "blood" likewise has its own background concepts. The meal of the New Covenant is grounded in the Old Covenant. Exodus 24:8-11 says of the sprinkling of the blood by which the people were made clean, "This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." In the Covenant supper which followed, "they saw God, and they ate and drank". Zechariah chapter 9 describes first the gentle King of Zion who will come riding on a donkey, and then says: "As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit." Peter says that we are not redeemed with gold and silver, "but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect".32 There is a proverb in Aramaic which goes, dammim tartei mashma, 'blood has two meanings', ie. "blood" and "payment". Thus blood is sufficient as a redemption for our sins of blood. There are aspects of the ancient Midrash literature which could give a new perspective to our understanding of Holy Communion. By the same token, there are clues hidden in the Rabbinic OT exposition and in the Jewish prayer literature which could be of great value in explaining the background to the Lord's Supper. One of my greatest Eureka experiences was when I was led to study the Midrash on the book of Ruth, which belongs to the more ancient Midrash strata. I had noticed in my Finnish Bible that Ruth 2:14 contains the "elements" of Communion: we read of King David's grandmother Ruth receiving an invitation from Boaz to, "Come over here; have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar"! So I procured a copy of the Midrash and read it through until I came to a conversation in which this verse is linked in six different ways with the sufferings of the Messiah. It points out repeatedly that the Gentile-born Ruth is "near to the kingdom". Four times it says of the "bread" that it is the "bread of royalty". Four times it says that he who eats "the Messianic meal in this world eats it for the world to come". Three times the point is reiterated that 'wine vinegar' speaks of sufferings. Some Rabbis, "speaking in the Spirit", said that "wine vinegar is one of the sufferings of which it is written,'He was wounded for our transgressions"'. The rest of the description is equally remarkable. We find here comparison drawn between the former Redeemer, Moses, and the future Redeemer, the Messiah, and the statement that this "future Redeemer will be revealed, will return and will be hidden from them once more". Likewise, he will "rain down manna upon them".33 Further on there are two discussions of the Messiah-King as "that seed which comes from another place". In the same discussion we catch a glimpse of the esoteric "closed mem" question: of Isaiah 9:7 (9:6 in Heb. OT):
Jewish tradition could hardly yield a more extensive and at the same time uniform illustration of the Messianic hope. Here we read of the Messianic supper in its eternal perspective, of the "elements" -- the bread and the wine vinegar. Thus the future Redeemer, the Messiah, will give manna to his people, and the wine refers to the fact that he will be "wounded for our transgressions". He is "that seed which comes from another place". After his advent, "he will be hidden again" until the time when the Messianic supper is eaten in the "world to come". All this is part of the older Rabbinic tradition. In reading this discussion, we are reminded of the strong emphasis the Lord put on the partaking of the covenant meal "again" when it "finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God". Still more, the reference to the Messiah being "hidden" brings to mind the words recorded in John's gospel:
A third reference, which is worthy of note, is in a discussion in Midrash Shemoth Rabbah in which bread and wine are again found in an eternal perspective. The Midrash alights upon Ps 23, the Shepherd Psalm, and says:
A fourth factor relating to the Messianic meal of which mention might be made is the Sabbath afternoon fourth meal, popularly called the "Messiah's meal". This meal is also referred to as melave malkah, the 'queen's escort', meaning that by dining in this way, the "queen" of the Sabbath is escorted once again into a new working week. The well-known 6th century poet Elazar Ha-Kalir composed a prayer which begins with the words "I rejoice and make merry in my heart", and in which there are five clear references to the Messiah. One of these reads:
Rabbi Gamaliel, known to us from the Acts of the Apostles, said that three things should always be uttered at the Paschal meal: "Passover, unleavened bread and bitter herbs". According to the Haggada he also insisted that "every generation should consider themselves as those who have come out of Egypt.". Between the hymns and recitations the following words are read:
A possible reconstruction of Jesus' trial After the birth of the state of Israel in 1948, many requests came to the land to reconstruct the trial following ancient legal procedures. In 1968 Israel's supreme high court judge Hayyim Cohen wrote a study of "The Trial and Death of Jesus of Nazareth".39 In the foreword he mentions that from the beginning of our century alone, approximately 60 000 books have been written about Jesus' life, and that Josephus too was interested in the man called Jesus, "if it be lawful to call him a man". Cohen admits that Joseph Klausner was of the opinion that Josephus's quotation is genuine, apart from the reference to his divinity. Josephus writes that "Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross".40 The objectivity of Cohen's book is marred here and there by overt expressions of his dislike of Christianity. Discussing, for example, Josephus's well-known words about Jesus as "the Christ" he says:
Jesus' trial is both the world's shortest and the world's longest legal proceeding: it is still taking place in our hearts. We nevertheless do wrong if we take it as a charge against a particular nation. An ancient Latin confession of sin proclaims "nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa", "Our guilt, our great guilt!" We must each one of us take the message of the cross personally, at the foot of the cross. There the accusing of others falls to the ground. Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem points out in his book Jesus that this trial was the result of a conflict between Jesus and the aristocratic Sadducean priestly party. He observes that the Pharisees are not mentioned at all in connection with it. The Sadducees were notorious for their intrigues. Bloody deeds and secret assassinations were common during the great feasts.43 We cannot claim today that some affair ought to have happened in this or that way so that it would observe the legal decrees of the time. The Talmud actually gives the true picture when it points out twice in its handling of the sentence of stoning that the decisions were made "not because the accused merited it, but because the times required it".44 Such expediency is also found in the words of Caiaphas when he says, "You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish" (John 11:50). The New Testament gives a picture of the trial of Jesus which reflects with remarkable accuracy the juridical procedures of the second Temple period. The arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane The Thursday evening celebration lasted until after midnight. The disciples had eaten well, and Jesus too, most probably. As the Head of the Company he would be obliged to give answers to many questions, and he gave a long farewell speech, which extends from the end of John 13 to 17. He spoke of the work of the Holy Spirit in the disciples, of the coming persecutions and of the believers' inner security, concluding with prayer for himself and for his followers. All must certainly have been very tired as they walked in the pale moonlight from Mount Zion to the Essene Gate and from there through the Kidron valley to Gethsemane. Jesus had concluded his speech with the troubling words, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered!"' When Peter answered that he at any rate would not be offended at his Master, Jesus informed him that he, Peter, that same night would deny him three times. And so they came to Gethsemane. The name gat shmanim means 'oil-press'. The physician Luke gives a more detailed account of the events of that night. Exodus 12:42 calls the night following the Passover meal a "night of vigil". "On this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honour the LORD." Traditionally, the holy night of vigil implies a vigorous Messianic hope. The Jerusalem Targum speaks of the the "four nights of the book of remembrances": the first was the 'creation night', the second was Abraham's 'night of visions' (Gen. 15:12), the third refers to the slaughter of Egypt's firstborn sons, and on the fourth the "Messiah-King will come from Rome". The Rabbis refer in many of their writings to the coming of the Messiah taking place actually on Passover night. "Sit here while I go over there to pray", Jesus said to Peter, James and John. He "began to be sorrowful and troubled" and said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me". Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed" (Matt. 26:36-39). Luke tells us that Jesus was about a stone's throw away from his disciples and that an angel appeared from heaven and strengthened him. "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." The medical world knows of cases where, in great physical and mental distress, people may actually secrete blood through their skin. The letter to the Hebrews describes this anguish of Jesus as that he "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears" (5:7). Thus was Jesus' heart crushed in the garden of the oil-press. Jesus prayed three times, and three times he returned to find his disciples asleep. The prayer struggle in Gethsemane was Jesus' actual "high priestly prayer". The atonement, in the Jewish understanding, had three essential aspects to it: an offering without blemish, priestly intercession and the sacrifice itself. On the Great Day of Atonement, the High Priest went into the Holiest of Holies and prayed for the people. It was customary for him to remove his shoes so that he would not fall asleep and thereby render the actual atoning sacrifice invalid. Jesus' "night of vigil" was part of his Messianic office. The night in Gethsemane is the only close up we have of his prayer life. John gives us the most detailed account of the arrest of Jesus but does not describe his prayer at all. Being the youngest of the disciples he apparently slept the most soundly, waking up only when the Roman cohort and the servants of the priesthood arrived with their lanterns, torches and weapons. Jesus steps out to meet them and asks, "Who is it you want?" "Jesus of Nazareth", they answer. "I am he!" Jesus replied to them. John mentions that Judas was also with them, but says nothing of the kiss he gave. It was common practice for disciples normally to greet their Rabbis by kissing them on the hand. John says that when Jesus said "I am he", they drew back and fell to the ground. The Temple guards knew well the Rabbis' prohibition of the use of the phrase ANI HU, 'I am he'. This may partly explain why, on a steep slope, they fell to the ground in the dark. Now Jesus asks again who they have come for, and requests that they leave his disciples in peace. Simon Peter, however, is enraged and strikes the servant of the High Priest with a sword, "cutting off his right ear". Again, only John knows this servant's name, Malchus, as he often rendered his services to the Sadducean priests. Thus Jesus is taken captive and bound. Altogether, John's gospel tells us of only twenty of Jesus' days here on earth. A clear third of his account deals with the last day of that life. Likewise, the other evangelists concentrate on the Redeemer's Passion. We cannot describe all its details -- after all, they are written in our hearts. The most important thing is to study the chronological framework of the events. The various stages of Jesus' trial Scholars have discussed the question as to whether Jesus was sentenced on the grounds of religious or state principles, and whether the Sanhedrin, the Great Council, had at all at that time the right to pronounce the sentence of death. John 18:31 tells us that the Jews said to Pilate, "We have no right to execute anyone". It could be that this right was rescinded when Herod's son Archelaus, the last "king" of Judaea, was deposed because of his arbitrary wielding of power, and the actual Roman procuracy began. On hearing of this, Rabbi Rahmon is reputed to have declared "Woe is us! The sceptre of Judah has been taken away and the Messiah has not yet come."45 It would appear that the Great Council no longer had the right to function independently, as before, but in religious matters it still had great freedom to move. Judge Cohen reckons that the Jews and Romans had some kind of gentleman's agreement: the Sanhedrin meted out punishment for religious offences while transgressions against the Roman law were dealt with by the procurators. The Sanhedrin did on occasions act in cases of capital offence, although it was not officially authorised to do so. Josephus tells us how James the Lord's brother was delivered by the Sanhedrin to be stoned, taking advantage of a situation in which Festus had died and Rome had not yet sent its local representative.46 When crime increased the Sanhedrin was also forced to convene unofficially outside of its meeting room proper, the lishkat ha-Gazît or 'marble office', where the actual decisions were to be made. Sometimes the procurator even handed over Roman citizens to be sentenced by the Sanhedrin, if they had committed some offence against the Temple. The Great Council may also have been divided into two parts. Because the Pharisees shrank from all forms of political activity, a separate political Sanhedrin came into being, led by the Sadducean priesthood with the High Priest presiding. Parallel to this there was the great beth din, governed by two religious leaders recognised by the people, which handled special questions of a religious nature as well as family affairs. This "house of law" was composed of Pharisees and scribes. If such a division was already current in Jesus' time it would explain why the Pharisees are not specifically mentioned when the trial of Jesus is discussed.47 Without an awareness of these background factors it is difficult to understand the various stages and details of Jesus' interrogation. The Talmud describes the Great Council as comprising 71 members. A quorum of only 23 members was required to validate its decisions. Professor David Flusser points out that behind Jesus' trial was a Sadducean faction which was called out in the early hours of the morning to a private meeting. In the case of a sentence of death, two initial hearings were to be given. All four gospels testify to these nocturnal sittings. The actual trial had to take place in the light of day, and again all the gospels imply that "very early in the morning" or "at daybreak" the whole Sanhedrin was alerted to the council room.48 The Sanhedrin had developed a remarkably efficient means of questioning the witnesses, a means which led to the most exact proceedings. In front of the semi-circle of members sat three clerks: one recording the prosecution, another the defence and a third the statements both for and against the defendant; the minutes of the third clerk had to tally perfectly with those of the first and second. Thus erroneous verdicts were avoided.49 In the case of a death sentence, the witnesses were threatened and made to take vows that the blood of the accused would be upon their heads and on the heads of their children if they were bearing false witness. This, it would appear, is the basis for the shouts in Matthew 27:25: "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" There were in the crowd some of those who had testified in the nocturnal hearing. But what was Jesus actually accused of, and was the night cross- examination juridically legal? The gospels imply that during the night following the Paschal meal there were two formal questionings. John mentions that Jesus was first taken to Annas, who was the father-in-law of the official high priest Caiaphas (John 18:13-23). Meanwhile, Peter was warming himself at an open fire in the high priest's courtyard. Jewish tradition tells us that the houses of Caiaphas and his father-in-law faced each other and were connected by a large garden. Annas questioned Jesus about "his disciples and his teaching". Following this, Jesus was transferred through the garden to Caiaphas's house, and on the way he went past Peter who had just cursed and denied that he knew him: "And the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter . . . and he went outside and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61-2). This accords well with the picture given by tradition of the high priest's courtyard. A second cross-examination took place in Caiaphas's house.50 John does not go into this discussion any further, as the other evangelists had already described it before him. Mark mentions that "many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree". After this still others "stood up and gave this false testimony against him," adapting his words about the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple in three days; "But even then their testimony did not agree" . . .the clerks carried out their work carefully. These words of Jesus regarding the destruction and reconstruction in three days of the Temple appear only at the end of John ch 2, and after that in the trial and in the taunts at the foot of the cross51. Here we have verification of the authenticity of Jesus' words about the "third day". Likewise, Stephen and Paul were later to be accused of speaking against the Temple's splendour (Acts 6 and 24). Blasphemy of the Temple at that time was on occasions dealt with on the basis of the Jewish law alone, and it could be punished with a sentence of death. When the statements of the witnesses proved to be contradictory, the high priest chose another approach, that of swearing an oath. In this way every member of the audience became a first-hand witness. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God". . , or as Mark 14:61 tells it, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus answered, "I am -- ANI HU . . . and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." This was the second time on the same evening when Jesus used the forbidden ANI HU phrase. Judge Cohen says in his book that the Sanhedrin dealt in that nocturnal conference "only with Jesus' religious Messianism" and did not discuss his political significance at all:
The Talmud says of blasphemy against God that it was only considered an offence if the "unpronouncable name" of God were uttered at the same time.53 If someone was guilty of blasphemy, gidduph, in this way "by the living God", those who witnessed it were to rend their clothes.54 The high priest drew the correct conclusion: he "tore his clothes and said, 'He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need further witnesses?" (Matt. 26:65). Everyone present was also obliged to tear his outer garment from the neck opening. Jesus was condemned by adjuration of blaspheming God. Now Jesus is forced to taste the wrath of religious authority. One of the most trying experiences of the spiritual life is in fact to be ground by the "stones of Zion". In the cellar of the Church of the Crowing Cock in Jerusalem there are on display ancient prison cells in which weights for measuring the tithes of the priesthood have been found there. The walls show traces of the chains in which prisoners in custody were held. On the floor, next to the flogging post, are two depressions which contained water and vinegar. When Jesus' guilt had been brought out by the oath, all discussion of what was lawful and acceptable was put to the side: prisoners remanded in custody could not be beaten, but blasphemy against God demanded immediate action. And so Jesus was spat upon and roughly handled. He was blindfolded and struck blows and demanded to "Prophesy! Who hit you?" This kolafix game imported from Greece had become a children's favourite: one player had his head covered with a hood and the others made him guess who had touched him. It has been suggested that Jesus was also scourged during the night in the subterranean cellar, following which his wounds would be washed with water and vinegar, and he would be lowered by the armpits into a deep pit, which was used as a dungeon. It is ironical that it was the Sadducees, those rejecters of belief in the resurrection or in the spiritual world, who condemned Jesus on the religious charge of blasphemy. As the culture radicals of their own time they were masters in the vilification of anything spiritual. Judge Cohen says that, according to Jewish tradition, it was customary to give 40 days in which to allow for possible pleas on the defendant's behalf before he could be sentenced. He conjectures that the description in John 11:47-54 "may perhaps be connected" with that practice, even though in his opinion it is a later addition which "was attempting to align" the events more correctly with the Jewish prescriptions.55 John does indeed say in that chapter that "from that day on they plotted to take his life". However, John had close connections with the priesthood and he makes two other mentions of plots to arrest Jesus (5:18 and 7:32). The information John provides supports in this way its historical trustworthiness. When Judas arrived in the "marble council-room" to bring back the money he had received for betraying Jesus it would appear that he wished to avail himself of the right to make an appeal for the accused. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" the officials replied. "That's your responsibility" (Matt. 27:3-4). It was too late to do anything, as Jesus had been sentenced by adjuration. Of the final decision, taken at the break of day, the gospels only tell
us in one verse. Nevertheless, this meeting, in terms of the numbers present,
was more representative -- Matthew speaks of "all" the elders of the people
and Mark of the "whole Sanhedrin". The Talmud says that "capital cases
are adjudicated by twenty three". In the nocturnal session the case
had been founded. Now it could be handled as a routine affair, as those
skilled in the running of meetings do with difficult issues. There were
present, of course, also those who did not approve of the judgement which
had been made. Luke 23:50 mentions Joseph of Arimathea, a "member of the
council" and a "good and upright man who had not consented to their decision
and action". He had the body of Jesus put into his own new tomb. It may
be that Nicodemus and his friend Johanan Ben Zakkai were also present in
the official Sanhedrin morning meeting.
|