CORPUS CHRISTI

Take it; this is my body. This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.

Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

v. 12 - On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”

Or, to bring out the force of the Greek idiom, 'when it was customary to slaughter the Passover lamb'. The Greek verb (thuo) can mean either' slaughter' or 'sacrifice', and it is difficult to say how far sacrificial ideas were associated with the Passover in the time of Christ. The offering of the lamb counted as a sacrifice and the meal was a sacrificial meal, but the later tendency was very largely to subordinate the sacrificial aspect of the meal to its aspect as a commemoration of the Exodus.

v. 13- He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him.

Jars, as opposed to water-bottles, were not normally carried by men in the East, so the man in question could readily have been identified; however, it is doubtful if St Mark, who viewed the incident in terms of the supernatural, envisaged the need for such mundane means of identification. Likewise he will have seen the householder's willing response as supernaturally motivated.

v. 14 - Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’

My guest room: the 'my' is rather strange; if it means any more than 'destined for me' there is perhaps a hint of messianic sovereignty in the word.

v. 15 - Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.

Furnished: The Greek word (stronnuo) normally means to 'spread' or 'strew' but its meaning here is not certain. English translators usually take it to mean' provided with the necessary furniture' - particularly, divans and carpets, but it may be little more than a synonym for, 'ready', or it could mean 'paved', 'floored'.

v. 22 - While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”

Bread: Better perhaps 'a loaf'. The Greek word (artos) would most naturally suggest leavened bread, but Dr Jeremias has produced abundant evidence to show that it could also mean unleavened bread. 

Blessed: Or 'said grace over it'. The Greek word (eulogein), when used by Jews in this sort of context, implied not so much the hallowing, or consecrating, of the bread (though doubtless that was thought to be effected indirectly), as a solemn blessing or thanking of God over the bread. The form used would be something like: 'Praised be thou, O Lord our God, king of the world, who causest bread to come forth from the earth', though Jesus may have used a slightly variant form. This grace was said by the head of the table, and when the company had replied with an Amen, he broke a piece of the loaf for each person (at Passover it had to be at least the size of an olive) and gave or passed it to them. It will thus be seen that the action here ascribed to Jesus (both with the bread and the wine) is fully in accord with the Jewish custom of his day. It is of course possible that in the Gentile circles in which St Mark moved, the blessing had come to be understood as a direct consecration of the bread.

v. 23 - Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

Gave thanks: The Greek word (eucharistein) seems to be used simply as an alternative translation of the same Aramaic word translated ‘bless' in v. 22. At the end of the meal it was customary to say a long grace over a cup of wine. If this was a Passover meal, the cup will have been the third cup, the so-called ‘cup of blessing’ but in any case, according to Jewish custom, the meal will have intervened between vv. 22 and 23 (cf. 1 Cor. 11:25 'after supper' and Luke 22:20); the fact that no one would get that impression from a simple reading of Mark shows how little concerned St Mark was with the original setting of the incident, Passover meal or not. Indeed it is difficult to think St Mark intended to give the impression of any gap here; and in that he was surely influenced by contemporary Christian Eucharistic practice, according to which the wine immediately followed the bread as it does today. 

One of the arguments for thinking the Last Supper was a Passover meal is that ordinary Jews could not often afford wine apart from Passover; on the other hand it is not certain whether in Jesus' time a common cup was used at the Passover or whether each person used an individual cup. Perhaps the emphatic words 'they drank of it every one' (so the Greek) are directed to some in the early Church who objected to drinking from a common cup at the Eucharist, or who, on conscientious grounds, were in the habit of taking communion in one kind only.

v. 24 - He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.

This is my blood of the covenant: For the background see Exod. 24:8, Zech. 9:11, and cf Heb. 9:15ff . The words imply reflection on the blood of the covenant at Mount Sinai, which, according to ancient Jewish interpretations, had atoning power. As the blood established the covenant of Moses, so the blood of Jesus established the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34) which had as its content perfect fellowship with God (Jer. 31:33) founded upon God's forgiveness (Jer. 31:34b) in his kingdom. As Moses' sprinkling of the blood on the people ensured their participation in the blessings of the old covenant, so the disciples' drinking of the wine ensures their participation in the blessings of the new. 

However, the phrase which translates literally 'the blood of me of the covenant' is very harsh in Greek and virtually impossible to retranslate into Aramaic, and if the original saying contained any reference to the covenant idea, it will have been in some such form as that given in 1 Cor. 11:25 ('this cup means a new covenant which is to be instituted by my blood, i.e. by my death'). But there are some grounds for thinking that the covenant reference is an addition even in St Paul's version of the saying, and probably in its original form the saying contained no reference to the idea of covenant, though that of course leaves open the question whether Jesus thought of his life's work in terms of the establishing of a new covenant between God and man - an idea very prominent in St Paul's thought. 

For many: Commentators often refer to Is. 53:12, but the similarity is not really very close, and the occurrence of the words for many in both passages is not as significant as it might seem, for the words are a translation of a common Semitic idiom. Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic has a word for 'all' in the plural, and this use of 'many' does duty instead; the meaning is not exclusive (' some, but not all') but inclusive (' all in contrast with one').

v. 25 - Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

The ideas and vocabulary are Semitic. For the final state of blessedness pictured as a banquet cf. e.g. Is. 25:6, 2 Baruch 29:5ff., Matt. 8:11, Luke 14:15, Rev. 19:9. Amen (truly)’ and 'fruit of the vine' are both Semitisms, and according to the version in some MSS. the verse contains further Semitisms. 

The fact that St Luke's version of this saying occurs at a different point in his account (Luke 22:16-18 - before the institution) suggests that it may have circulated at some time more or less independently; but that this or some similar eschatological saying was associated with the institution from the earliest times is suggested by the evidence of 1Cor. 11, where a similar eschatological interest appears in connection with the institution (v. 26 after vv. 23-25), and by the consistent association of eschatological expectations with the Eucharist in the early Church. Otto is no doubt right in seeing the significance of the original event as closely bound up with Jesus' expectation of the imminent kingdom of God: Jesus qualifies the disciples ‘to receive his testament, not by feeding their souls, but by lifting them out of the secular sphere by the atoning power of his death, and consecrating them for the kingdom of God’ (The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, p. 297). Cf. Dibelius: ‘when the fellowship of the parousia commences this memorial table-fellowship ends.’

See also << Corpus Christi >>

ADVISORY: I will be away for 60 days. I don't know if I will be able to do an exegesis every Sunday. You may go to the blogs of 2009 as an alternative.