Eucharist

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Unit II. L

Is God Unconditional Love? – The Eucharist

© Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D./Magis Institute July 2011

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Saint Paul believed that the clearest demonstration of Jesus’ love was in His passion and death: “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8). Jesus instituted the Eucharist to give the “total gift of Himself in the passion” to all future generations. He deliberately walked into His passion by traveling to Jerusalem before the feast of the Passover when the authorities were evidently seeking to put an end to His ministry and even His life. He did this because He had a plan in mind; a plan to give the blessing and power of His person and passion to all future generations through a ritual arising out of His interpretation of the Suffering Servant song in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. The Beloved One of the Father intended to make us all beloveds in His own image by giving Himself (and the eschatological kingdom of love) to us in a definitive, unconditional act. This consummation of His mission (His raison d’être) reveals His core identity. The question naturally follows, “Would it be typical of an unconditionally loving God who enters into complete empathy with us to have such a self-sacrificial mission and plan?” If so, then this is one of our most profound signs that Jesus is Emmanuel.

Did Jesus Institute the Eucharist at a Passover Meal?

Joachim Jeremias’ classic work, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus is still acknowledged to be one of the most comprehensive treatments of this subject with the most extensive analysis of rabbinical traditions. Some exegetes feel uneasy about his application of rabbinical traditions and extratestamental material to New Testament texts, and many scholars do not agree with his assignment of the Last Supper to the Passover meal, because it requires that too much activity take place on Passover day (the 15th of Nisan):

Despite Jeremias’ deft command of the material, he cannot really establish the likelihood that, at the time of Jesus, the supreme Jewish authorities in Jerusalem would arrest a person suspected of a capital crime, immediately convene a meeting of the Sanhedrin to hear the case (a case involving the death penalty), hold a formal trial with witnesses, reach a decision that the criminal deserved to die, and hand over the criminal to the Gentile authorities with a request for execution on the same day – all within the night and early day hours of Passover Day, the fifteenth of Nisan!

For this reason, Meier believes that it is more probable that the Last Supper took place on the day before the Passover meal (on the eve of the 14th of Nisan), which corresponds with John’s dating of it rather than the Synoptics’.

Yet, the placement of the Last Supper on the eve of the 14th of Nisan does not rule out the possibility that Jesus, aware of what was to befall Him, celebrated a Passover supper with His disciples (without a lamb) on the eve of the 14th of Nisan. Since the lambs were slaughtered prior to the meal on the 15th of Nisan, it would not have been possible for Jesus to celebrate the Passover meal with a lamb. This is consistent with New Testament accounts which make multiple references to the Passover meal, but no references to a lamb.

There are six reasons why a Passover meal should not be ruled out even if it occurred on the eve of the 14th of Nisan. First, as noted above, the Passover is linked to Jesus’ Last Supper multiple times in all three synoptic Gospels. Secondly, there are differences in the chronology of the Synoptic Gospels which indicate that a Passover meal could have been celebrated at different times within the weeklong celebration leading up to Passover. The reference to the “first day” in Mark and Luke, as Harrington suggests, betrays a mixed chronology, for:

the paschal lamb was normally eaten on the first day of the feast. Yet Mark describes the “first day” as the day of preparation when the lambs were slaughtered, corresponding to Wednesday, while the meal would be celebrated that evening.

Thirdly, the Passover is mentioned in a unique, ancient formula recounted in Luke’s Gospel, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” Fourthly, Jeremias detects several Semitisms behind the wording in the Gospel passages which are traceable to the Passover ceremony itself (such as the “fruit of the vine” in Luke 22:18). Fifthly, Jeremias notes that:

[T]he pre-Pauline Passover haggadah preserved in I Cor. 5.7f. calls Jesus “our passover (lamb)” and that Paul presupposes as self-evident the familiarity of the Corinthian community with this comparison, a comparison widespread in the early Christian literature.

Sixthly, there are references to the Passover meal within the passages (e.g., the multiple cups, which seems to have come from Luke’s special source [22:17-18], and the Passover haggadah between the word over the bread and the word over the cup). In sum, these distinct ancient sources of the institution of the Eucharist at Passover indicate a common Palestinian source which very probably goes back to Jesus Himself.

Could Jesus have celebrated an adapted Passover meal with His disciples on the eve of the 14th of Nisan to anticipate His impending death which would have occurred near the time of the slaughtering of the lambs? Since Jesus was not unaccustomed to adapting Jewish doctrine and ritual to conform to His own doctrinal and ritual requirements, this possibility cannot be ruled out. Even if Jesus did not celebrate a Passover meal (without a lamb) at the Last Supper, He could have borrowed particular rituals from it or alluded to it during the Last Supper. For this reason, I will include Jeremias’ references to the Passover meal in the forthcoming analysis. The reader may want to bear in mind that these Passover rituals may not have occurred, but may only have been implied in Jesus’ actions during the Last Supper.

The analysis will be carried out in two steps:

1) a brief synopsis of Jeremias’ and others’ exegetical work on the original tradition (Section II.A); and

2) the meaning of Jesus’ eucharistic words and actions (Section II.B).

Jeremias’ Interpretation of the Original Tradition

There are four traditions of Jesus’ Eucharistic words:

1) I Corinthians 11:23-26:

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

2) Mark 14:22-25:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take; this is my body.” Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” He said to them. “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”

3) Matthew 26:26-29:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

4) Luke 22:17-20:

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

A brief glance at the above four traditions reveals two branches of an original tradition – (1) a Paul-Luke branch (which makes specific reference to remembrance; a new covenant; and, in the case of Luke alone, “poured out for you”), and (2) a Mark-Matthew branch (which makes no reference to remembrance; refers to covenant, but not a new covenant; and makes the objective of Jesus’ outpouring for many). Jeremias has split this project into two parts: (1) the four common areas of these traditions (which, given the different theologies in the two branches, would probably have to have their origin in a common source), and (2) in areas where the branches differ, locating the more primitive tradition through grammatical constructions and the presence of Semitisms. The two analyses will bring us close to an original tradition which may closely resemble Jesus’ own words.

There are four common areas within the four traditions:

(1) Jesus’ action with respect to the bread: “took bread, gave thanks [in the case of Paul, “after he had given thanks”], and broke it,”

(2) Jesus’ words over the bread: “this is my body [soma],”

(3) Jesus’ action with respect to the cup. In Mark-Matthew: “Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them.” In Paul-Luke: “In the same way” (referring to the way in which He gave the bread, i.e., “took bread and gave thanks… and gave it to them”), and

(4) Jesus’ word over the cup: “This is my blood of the covenant.” Evidently, Paul and Luke refer to the new covenant whereas Mark and Matthew refer only to the covenant.

Jeremias holds that the Marcan version of the word over the bread is the more original tradition while the Pauline version of the word over the cup is the more original:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take; this is my body.” (Mark 14:22)

In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1Cor. 11:25a).

Jeremias believes there is good reason for holding the Pauline version to be the more original formula for the word over the cup on linguistic grounds, because the Mark-Matthew version is far more symmetrical, indicating the need to take a more complex narrative form (in Paul-Luke) and convert it to a more symmetrical liturgical form in Mark-Matthew. Though it may be thought that the Paul-Luke form is more apologetically appealing (because it is less evocative of drinking blood in a pagan ritual which would have been repulsive to Jewish people), and therefore later than the Mark-Matthew version (which may have given rise to these apologetically unappealing misimpressions), Paul’s version is probably the earlier because it reveals a separation in time between the word over the bread and the word over the wine (to account for the consumption of the meal between the two events) which the Mark-Matthew version does not represent. Thus, the Mark-Matthew version seems to be a later formula taken from the liturgy, which did not need to account for the separation of the meal (as a more narrative account would have) and needed to be more symmetrical for the sake of liturgical repetition.

It now remains to establish which of the other three divergent areas is the more original. As implied above, there are three areas of divergence:

a) “the new covenant” (Paul-Luke) versus “the covenant” (Mark-Matthew),

b) poured out for you (Luke) versus “poured out for many” (Mark-Matthew), and

c) word of remembrance – anamnēsis (in Paul-Luke, but not mentioned in Mark-Matthew).

I will briefly summarize Jeremias’ judgment on these three matters so that an original tradition (close to the words and actions of Jesus) may be adduced.

With respect to the new covenant, Jeremias holds that the Mark-Matthew version would probably be the earlier because the placement of the adjective “new” prior to “covenant” is Hellenistic (but not Semitic) indicating that it originated “on Hellenistic soil.”

With respect to the “poured out for you” (Luke) versus “poured out for many” (Mark-Matthew), Jeremias holds that “for many” is the more original on the basis of linguistic grounds, namely, “for many” is a Semitism while “you” is not. Jeremias attributes the replacement of “many” by “you” as having a liturgical purpose where each worshiper feels him or herself to be individually addressed (by “you”), which would not happen with the indefinite “many.” In view of this, he holds that the replacement of “many” by “you” is not an attempt to limit the atoning work of Jesus arising out of later theological reflection.

Finally, with respect to the word of remembrance (which Jeremias terms the command for repetition), Paul mentions it twice (after the word over the bread and the word over the wine), Luke mentions it once (after the word over the bread), but Mark and Matthew omit it altogether. Jeremias holds that this tradition is pre-Pauline but probably not a part of the oldest traditions. Yet it could well have originated with Jesus. There are three reasons for suspecting this. First, the bread and wine rituals took on a high degree of significance apart from the meal (suggesting a command of repetition from Jesus with respect to them, but not with respect to the meal separating them). Secondly, the words over the bread and wine are so often repeated that they quickly become a central Christian ritual (which gives them far more significance than mere parts of a farewell meal or a commemoration of Jesus’ death) suggesting once again a command of repetition from Jesus. Thirdly, it would be unusual for early liturgical formulations to contain this command since, as Jeremias notes, “the celebration itself was its fulfillment.” In view of the fact that Jesus said much more during the meal than was recorded, it may be surmised that He gave a command of repetition.

So what can we now conclude about Jesus’ actions and words? If the earliest narratives reflect Jesus’ actions, and if Jeremias’ conjectures about Jesus’ words are correct, we can conclude that Jesus gathered with His disciples before the feast of the Passover and indicated to them that He longed to celebrate this Passover with them, but instead of doing so, fasted while the other disciples celebrated. After drinking one of the four Passover cups while they were eating the Passover meal (or an adapted Passover ritual), Jesus initiated the ritual of the bread, identifying it with His body: “Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take; this is my body.’” Then, after the completion of the Passover meal (or adapted Passover ritual), Jesus initiated the ritual of the wine which He identifies with the covenant in His blood. He took a cup of red wine, gave thanks, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “This cup is the covenant in my blood.” Sometime either prior to or after this (perhaps both), Jesus gives a command of repetition similar to “Do this in remembrance of me.”

If this reconstruction is accurate, we may now proceed to a brief summary of Jeremias’ and others’ conclusions about the meaning of these words and the ritual they constitute.

The Meaning of Jesus’ Eucharistic Words and Actions

Six elements of Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist merit interpretation:

(1) His view of Himself as “suffering servant” (Is 52:13-53:12 – see Section II.B.1);

(2) Jesus as the new sacrificial paschal lamb (II.B.2);

(3) “This is my body” (soma – II.B.3);

(4) “This cup is the covenant in my blood” (II.B.4);

(5) “Do this in remembrance of me” (II.B5); and

(6) “poured out for many” (II.B.6).

As will become evident, the synthesis of these six elements (in their proper interpretation) points strongly to Jesus’ action as one of unconditional Love, which reveals a heart of unconditional Love.

Jesus as Suffering Servant

It may be helpful to here set out the whole Suffering Servant song in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, because reference will be made to it throughout this Unit on the Eucharist as well as the forthcoming Unit on the passion of Jesus:

See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness – so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand (52:13-15).

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him (53:1-2).

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (53:3).

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted (53:4).

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (53:5).

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (53:6).

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth (53:7).

By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken (53:8).

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth (53:9).

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities (53:10-11).

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (53:12 – italics mine).

The obvious tie-in between the suffering servant song and Jesus’ eucharistic words occurs at 53:12. The phrase “poured out for many,” which is a part of the oldest tradition of the eucharistic words, has a remarkable parallel with Isaiah 53:12 which states:

…because he poured out (he’erah) his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many (rabbim)….”

The Hebrew background of both Jesus’ eucharistic words and Isaiah 53:12 as well as the context of these words (the sacrifice of Jesus and the suffering servant) are so close that it would be difficult to believe that the ancient tradition of Jesus’ eucharistic words was not referring to Isaiah 53:12. Moreover, Jesus seems to have had an intimate acquaintance with the texts of Deutero-Isaiah, and also seems to have interpreted His life and His mission in terms of this passage which was uncannily similar to the passion He was about to suffer. Hence, it seems likely that Jesus intended the words “poured out for many” in a way that could be interpreted through the lens of the Suffering Servant song. This means that Jesus intends His eucharistic actions and words in an expiatory way, that is, as a “sin offering” or “guilt offering” for the sins of many. Johannes Betz notes in this regard:

Jesus accomplished the decisive purpose of His life, His task as Messiah, in carrying out the mission of the servant of God of Deutero-Isaiah, who as God’s majestic envoy proclaims and inaugurates a new phase in salvation and who as martyr takes upon Himself expiatory sufferings for the sins of the many.

It would seem, therefore, that Jesus had this Suffering Servant song deeply in mind when He decided to proceed toward Jerusalem with full knowledge that the authorities were seeking to persecute Him (see John 11:8). This makes sense of both His resoluteness toward impending death and His obvious preparation for the eucharistic ritual (with its imbedded passage from Isaiah 53:12), which would, in turn, make sense of Matthew’s additional words (probably reflective of a later tradition): “for the forgiveness of sins.”

The logic of this sin offering may seem a bit confusing to a contemporary audience, especially the passage in Isaiah that states, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see the light of life and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10). At first glance, it may seem that the portrayal of the Lord in this passage (and therefore Jesus’ view of God’s will) is sadistic, but this is certainly not the case, for Jesus’ interpretation of the Isaiah passage is set within His view of the Father as “Abba” and Himself as Son and Beloved. Thus, Jesus’ interpretation of this passage must be seen within the context of the logic of love, which makes the Johannine words of Jesus particularly significant, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). If this passage represents Jesus’ interpretive principle for both the Isaiah passage and His Eucharistic words, then Jesus would have interpreted “the Lord’s will to crush him” in terms of the Father’s acceptance of Jesus’ love offering (the gift of Himself) for the sins of the world.

Recall for a moment some of the observations about Jesus’ view of love (agape) from the previous Unit. We saw that Jesus viewed love as the highest commandment (Mark 12:30 and par.), and that He elucidated His view of love through the beatitudes (Matt 5:3-12), which included humble-heartedness, gentle-heartedness, hungering and thirsting for the will of God, being merciful (which includes being forgiving), peacemaking, and enduring persecution for the kingdom of God. Ironic as it may seem, Jesus’ self-sacrificial gift for the expiation of sins synthesizes and catalyzes every one of these elements from the beatitudes and concretizes their “synthesis in love” within not only historical but future reality.

The Gospel of John has captured Jesus’ intention well. There is no greater love (the synthesis of the beatitudes) that a person can have than to give his life. In light of Jesus’ view of the Father as Abba (which has embedded within it generative, compassionate, forgiving, restoring, affectionate love – similar to the father’s love in the Prodigal Son parable), it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus would have loosely interpreted the words of Isaiah 53:10 to mean “it would have pleased the Father – despite His pain – to see the self-sacrificial (loving) will of His Son become a reality for all humanity.” Just because Jesus uses Isaiah 52:13-53:12 as an interpretive principle for His self-sacrifice does not mean that He agrees with every theological element in that passage. Indeed, Jesus was known to have loosely interpreted and even reinterpreted many passages from Torah and the prophets. It would seem inconceivable that Jesus could have interpreted Isaiah 53:10 outside the context of His being the beloved Son of Abba.

Therefore, we might look at Jesus’ mindset about the passion and Eucharist (as He approached Jerusalem) as follows. First, He intended to make Himself an expiatory offering much like the one spoken of in Isaiah 53:8ff:

…for the transgression of my people he was stricken…. …and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering…. …my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. …because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Secondly, Jesus had a twofold understanding of the efficacy of this “sin offering”: (1) the efficacy of sacrifice, and (2) the efficacy of love. With respect to the efficacy of sacrifice, it seems probable that Jesus organized His Eucharistic words to indicate that He was making a sacrifice of Himself. By separating the words over the body and the blood, Jesus implied that what He was about to endure on the cross was like the separation of flesh and blood in a cultic sacrifice.

Yet, Jesus was not making Himself a cultic sacrifice in the traditional sense, for He, the Son, the Beloved One, the innocent One, made Himself the sacrificial gift for those who are not innocent, in the certain hope of the resurrection and universal atonement. Betz notes in this regard:

Taking on alien guilt meant taking on also the necessity of death. As his life went on, Jesus thought more frequently of his death and spoke more frequently of it to his disciples…. It was for Jesus not something that merely happened to him, but a conscious and willed deed to which he assented as a necessity in the history of salvation, and on which he freely decided (Lk 12:50). His total readiness for the death which was the mission of the Servant of the Lord is also expressed in the logion of the ransom (Mk 10:45), and the prophecies of the passion (Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:32ff). … His death is total dedication and the deepest fulfillment of his being. … Unlike the cultic sacrifices, there is no separate gift which stands for the offerer and symbolizes his dedication to God. Here the offerer himself functions as gift in his own person and accomplishes the sacrificial dedication by the real shedding of his blood. Jesus must have been sure that God would accept this sacrifice, his body, and hence that God would fill it with new life. Thus the death of Jesus brings with it the resurrection as an inner consequence, as an essential part of it, regardless of the difference in time between the two events.

The middle term, as it were, between efficacy of sacrifice and efficacy of love is gift. As is clear from the above, a cultic sacrifice finds its efficacy in the gift given to God, and, as is clear from the Johannine passage on love, there is no greater love than to give one’s life. When Jesus made Himself the gift in the sacrificial offering, He transformed the efficacy of that gift from one of cultic proportion to one of unconditional Love. This is evidenced in Jesus’ use of the word “covenant” (“the covenant in my blood”) which, as will be seen below, implies a bond of love.

In sum, when Jesus proceeded to Jerusalem He planned to complete His mission of being the suffering (messianic) servant of the Lord by becoming a sacrificial gift for all transgressors. In so doing, he hoped to effect an atonement for all sins as a perfect sacrifice (that is, as the self-sacrifice of the beloved innocent one) in place of cultic sin offerings. This atonement went far beyond mechanical cultic sin offerings because it was fundamentally an act of unconditional self-giving (Love) for humankind. This act of unconditional Love was the source and power of perfect atonement and a new covenant which promised eternal life through the God who has loved us so.

Jesus as the New Sacrificial Paschal Lamb

As noted above, it is likely that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper within the context of a Passover meal – perhaps an adapted Passover meal (without a lamb) on the eve of the 14th of Nisan. So why would Jesus have chosen the Passover celebration to make His sacrifice and institute the Eucharist? Jeremias believes that He wanted to compare Himself to the paschal lamb, or perhaps better, He wanted to be the eschatological paschal lamb – the one who was to initiate the new covenant (which He correlated with the kingdom of God) in His blood:

With the words den biśri, “this is my (sacrificial) flesh”, and den idmi, “this is my (sacrificial) blood”, Jesus is therefore most probably speaking of himself as the paschal lamb. He is the eschatological paschal lamb, representing the fulfillment of all that of which the Egyptian paschal lamb and all the subsequent sacrificial paschal lambs were the prototype.

It should not be thought that the absence of a lamb at an adapted Passover meal (on the eve of the 14th of Nisan) militates against Jeremias’ thesis that Jesus associated Himself with the eschatological paschal lamb, for if Jesus did celebrate the Passover on the eve of the 14th of Nisan, His own passion would have begun at the time that the paschal lambs were being slaughtered in preparation for the feast celebrated on the eve of the 15th of Nisan. This would correlate well with the Last Supper’s anticipation of the impending self-sacrifice which might have been Jesus’ very intention.

The lamb is a simile for two essential dimensions of the Eucharist: (1) the sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, and (2) the sacrifice initiating the covenant (leading out of slavery into a new life of freedom in the “promised land”). With respect to the forgiveness of sins, Jeremias notes:

By comparing himself with the eschatological paschal lamb Jesus describes his death as a saving death. … [A]t the passover meal the attention was directed…to the one “passover of the exodus” for the sake of which God had mercifully “passed over” the houses of the Israelites. The blood of the lambs slaughtered at the exodus from Egypt had redemptive power…

This “redemptive power,” this atonement for sins, protects from death and leads to everlasting life:

As a reward for the Israelites’ obedience to the commandment to spread blood on their doors, God manifested himself and spared them, “passing over” their houses. For the sake of the passover blood God revoked the death sentence against Israel; he said: “I will see the blood of the passover and make atonement for you.” In the same way the people of God of the End time will be redeemed by the merits of the Passover blood.

Jesus sees His blood not only as a protection from death in this world (in imitation of the blood of the lamb at the Passover), but also as an eschatological protection (that is, a protection from death itself) which opens upon an eternal life of communion with Him and the Father:

Jesus describes his death as this eschatological passover sacrifice: his vicarious (huper) death brings into operation the final deliverance, the new covenant of God. Diathēkē (“covenant”) is a correlate of basileia tōn ouranōn (“kingdom of heaven”). The content of this gracious institution which is mediated by Jesus’ death is perfect communion with God (Jer. 31.33-34a) in his reign, based upon the remission of sins (31.34b).

Thus, Jesus’ selection of the Passover (whether this was celebrated on the eve of the 14th or 15th of Nisan) as the context for His death was a deliberate attempt to manifest a sacrificial death, and therefore, His institution of the Eucharist at this time established Him as the new Passover sacrifice for the atonement of sins and the initiation of the new covenant unto eternal communion with Him and His Father.

There is one more element to be discussed about Jesus’ identification of Himself with the Passover lamb, namely, its correlation with agape. Recall that there is a natural correlation between Jesus’ view of love and the beatitudes (see Unit II-J, Section IV). Love is humble-hearted, gentle-hearted, peace-making, merciful (forgiving), and accepting of persecution for the kingdom of God. Jesus’ identification of Himself with the unblemished (innocent) lamb (correlative with the suffering servant) brings to mind the humility and gentleness of the paschal lamb, as well as the forgiveness, reconciliation, and “endurance of persecution” intrinsic to its sacrifice. By making Himself a self-sacrificial Passover offering, Jesus revealed Himself to be Unconditional Love.

Thus, it is not only the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ self-offering which has the redemptive power to atone for sins and establish a covenant of eternal communion with God, but also the unconditional Love intrinsic to that sacrifice. Jesus’ first-century audience would have probably noticed the redemptive power in the sacrifice more readily than in His unconditional Love, but subsequent generations, reflecting on Jesus’ words of love, began to realize that the unconditional Love intrinsic to the self-sacrifice is the sacrifice’s redemptive power. Jesus was not using sacrifice in some kind of magical-mystical way to elicit God’s power; neither did He believe that God the Father was demanding that He sacrifice Himself in a mechanical way to atone for sins (“I will put my Son on one side of the scale to balance off all the negatives on your side”); Jesus sacrificed Himself to concretely actualize unconditional self-sacrificial gift (unconditional Love) in the world, which is the redemptive power overcoming all hatred, darkness, emptiness, and evil. Notice that the Son’s self-sacrifice in unconditional Love was also the Father’s self-sacrifice, for the Father had to give His Son as much as the Son had to give Himself.

“This is My Body” (Sōma)

We may now turn to the words of institution within the context of the suffering servant and the paschal lamb. To what does “this” (touto – in Aramaic, “den”) refer in “this is my body?” Jeremias notes that it cannot refer to Jesus’ action of breaking the bread, but rather to the bread itself:

This interpretation [that “this” refers to Jesus’ breaking of the bread], which in any case is incompatible with the touto estin (“this is”), would only be feasible if the actions named coincided with the words of interpretation. But that is not the case. As regards the bread-word, the fact that it is preceded by gabete (“take”) shows that Jesus said it not as the bread was being broken, but as it was being distributed.

Jesus identifies the bread (signified by touto/den) with His body (sōma). The Semitic background of sōma, according to Jeremias, is incontestably zeh baśari (Hebrew) and den bisri (Aramaic). This Hebrew/Aramaic background indicates that Jesus is referring to His physical body, his flesh, given in self-sacrifice. However, the Greek translation for Jesus’ Semitic word (sōma) may also indicate that the translators thought that Jesus was referring not only to His flesh (which would have been translated more precisely by sarx), but also His whole person (His whole self).

This interpretation is compatible with the Semitic mindset which was not dualistic in a platonic way, and therefore, did not view body as mere corporeality; rather it viewed body as the whole corporeal self. According to McKenzie:

[In the Gospels], the body is parallel with life and is conceived almost as the self. … [In Paul, t]he first meaning of body is the concretely existing human being; in some contexts it again appears to be nearly synonymous with self (Rm 6:12f; 8:10?; 1 Co 6:18 f)…

Perhaps the Greek translators used sōma to more accurately convey to non-Jewish converts that Jesus’ Aramaic/Hebrew words were referring not only to His physicality, but to His whole self (which would have included characteristics the Greeks would have attributed to soul, such as the power of thinking and love, and the desire for justice and beauty, etc.).

If this interpretation is correct, then Jesus is making His whole corporeal self present in the words over the bread. The notion of “making a blessing present” in the reliving of an action or even in a substance (e.g., bread) was not uncommon in Semitic and Jewish religious practices. As Jeremias notes:

When at the daily meal the paterfamilias recites the blessing over the bread – which the members of the household make their own by the “Amen” – and breaks it and hands a piece to each member to eat, the meaning of the action is that each of the members is made a recipient of the blessing by this eating…

The bread of blessing, as it were, contains the blessing and conveys it to the willing recipient who says, “Amen” and consumes it.

The blessing which Jesus intends to be internalized by believers is certainly His sacrificed corporeal body; it is also His whole corporeal self. But Jesus’ use of “body” here cannot be restricted to this life alone, for He anticipated that His body would rise, that is, that there would be a fundamental continuity between His whole corporeal self and His “self in risen life with the Father”:

…[W]e can see from the simile and from the use of ekchunnomenon that Jesus did expect a violent death. Mark 14.25 par. makes it clear that Jesus was certain that God would vindicate his death by his resurrection and the establishment of the kingdom.

What is even more striking is Jesus’ probable intention to use the body of His sacrifice (which He views as being in continuity with His future risen state) to be the medium through which communion with God (and consequent unity among believers) would be effected. Paul implies this in 1Cor 10:15-17:

Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body for we partake of the one loaf.

It seems that by “participation” Paul means more than participating in the historical self-sacrificed body of Jesus; He means participation in the presently existing body of Jesus which is capable of effecting unity among believers through unity with God. McKenzie notes in this regard:

The sacrificial element prominent in this passage of 1 Co and implicit in the formulae of institution is communion with the deity in the sacrificial banquet. Through the Eucharist the deity is rendered present in a striking and unique fashion. Communion is achieved only through Jesus Christ, who is man, and as man is body. The body is therefore rendered really present; the language of the four sources…leaves no room for mere symbolism in this respect. … The body which is present is the glorified body; we seem justified in believing that the NT implies that it is through His resurrection and exaltation that the body of Jesus becomes the Church [the unity of believers]. But this is the body “which was delivered for you,” one and the same Lord Jesus who died, rose, and sits at the right hand of the Father. Communion is achieved through the participation of the body and the blood of the victim. The salvation of the NT is not directed to the soul, but to the man, and man in Hebrew thought is body; if salvation is to reach man, his communion with the Savior must be a communication of body.</ref>McKenzie 1965, p. 251. Italics mine.</ref></blockquote

Paul’s view of the “body of Christ” cannot be retroactively put into the mind of Christ, for Paul is speaking in the light of having witnessed the risen Jesus. Nevertheless, one cannot altogether delete Paul’s interpretation from the mind of Jesus, for Jesus associated His “body” with His risen life with the Father, and this risen life would have been the vehicle through which the full meaning of the new covenant (which He viewed as “the kingdom of God” or communion with God) would be effected.

Thus, Jesus’ sacrificial words over the bread might be interpreted as, “This is my body to be sacrificed for you, the body which will be risen and will bring the blessing of communion with the Father and with believers through me. This sacrificed – risen – salvific – unifying – mediating body is my gift of self for you.” Johannes Betz summarizes this as follows:

Hence, the bodily person of Jesus is present in the supper, not however in the static manner of being of a thing, but as the Servant of God who in his sacrificial death effects the salvation of us all and more precisely as the sacrificial offering of the Servant who delivers himself up on the cross. The real presence of the person is there to actualize the presence of the sacrificial deed and is united with this in an organic whole. The Eucharist becomes, then, the abiding presence in the meal of the sacrificially constituted salvific event “Jesus”, in whom person and work form an inseparable unity.

Remarkable as these intentions of Jesus may seem, they do not exhaust the meaning and mystery of His words, for He also intends to communicate His unconditional Love through His “gift of self.” Recall that Jesus’ eucharistic words in the context of the suffering Servant Song may be interpreted as a self-sacrifice (gift of self) to “justify many” and to “bear iniquities.” This definition is similar to Jesus’ view of love manifest in the Beatitudes and in the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.

Paul directly associates Jesus’ self-sacrificial death with “gift of self,” and associates “gift of self” with love in several passages. In the Letter to the Romans:

While we were yet helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man – though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love [agapēn] for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (5:6-8)

in the letter to the Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ…; the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (2:20)

and in Ephesians:

And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (5:2)

It is difficult to miss similar parallels between Jesus’ Eucharistic words, the Suffering Servant song, and the view of agape in the Gospel of John. Jesus indicates that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life (i.e., “body”) for one’s friends (Jn 15:13), and further that the Father loves the Son precisely in the laying down (“giving”) of His life (“body”).

Summary. If Jesus’ view of love is “gift of self” (as suggested by Paul and John) then the eucharistic words “this is my body” (i.e., “self”) within the context of self-sacrifice (self-gift) would be virtually equivalent to love. Since this love knows no limit (i.e., it is complete self-sacrifice), it seems equivalent to unconditional Love.

Thus, we might interpret Jesus’ words as follows: “This is my body given in sacrifice, my future risen presence with you, and my unconditional Love – atoning for sin, transforming your hearts, unifying the community, and actualizing the new covenant unto eternal life.” If this is truly what Jesus had in mind as He instituted the Eucharist at the time of the Passover, then the Eucharist is not only Jesus’ interpretation of His passion, but also the vehicle for transmitting His gift of unconditional Love to all future generations. This leads to the next point.

“This Cup is the Covenant in My Blood”

Recall the reconstruction of Jesus’ words and actions with respect to the cup (Section II.A, above): After the completion of a Passover meal, Jesus initiated the ritual of the wine which He identifies with the covenant in His blood. He took a cup of red wine, gave thanks, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “This cup is the covenant in my blood.” Recall further that the cup of red wine is identified with both (1) Jesus’ blood and (2) “the covenant in His blood.” These two concepts, among the richest in Christian history, deserve individual discussion.

With respect to “blood,” the Greek term “aima” was probably derived from Jesus’ words of institution: “zeh dami” in Hebrew, and “den idmi” in Aramaic. Though its meaning within Jesus’ words of institution is in many ways similar to the Old Testament, it is also significantly different. There are three major similarities:

1) blood is the life principle and it is roughly equivalent to life itself;

2) blood (the life principle) was the vehicle through which atonement occurred in sin or guilt offerings (which is most poignantly described in the ceremony of the scapegoat on the day of atonement ); and

3) blood is the agency through which a covenant is established, restored, and maintained.

However, Jesus parts ways with the Old Testament tradition by proposing His blood as drink (Mt 26:27ff; Mk 14:23ff; Lk 22:20; Jn 6:53ff; 1 Co 11:25ff). McKenzie notes in this regard that “…the eating of blood is prohibited (Gn 9:4; Lv 17:10ff); life is conferred by God and is under His dominion. This prohibition was retained in the apostolic Church (AA 15:20).”

Recall that Jesus anticipated a violent death to be followed by His resurrection, and that He separated the rituals of the bread and wine indicating a sacrifice (or in this case, a self-sacrifice).

 Thus, the blood He refers to in the eucharistic ritual is His future sacrificial blood (the blood of the passion).  Jesus intended this to be a sacrifice of atonement (as implied by His allusions to the suffering servant and the paschal lamb) which was understood and deeply appreciated by the early Church (and reflected in the Pauline epistles and the Letter to the Hebrews).  McKenzie notes in this regard that:

[Jesus] is a propitiatory offering in His blood (Rm 3:25), through which we are made righteous (Rm 5:9). We are redeemed through His blood (Eph 1:7) and through it we draw near to God (Eph 2:13), and by His blood He has made peace (between man and God; Col 1:20). The contrast and analogy between the blood of Jesus and the blood of sacrificial victims is drawn out at length in Heb. His blood excels that of animals (Heb 9:12 ff). Blood is the only effective agent of purification (Heb 9:20 ff) and of the remission of sins (9:22). But the blood of animals cannot remove sins (10:4); Christ has effected eternal redemption by His own blood (9:12), through which we have access to the sanctuary (10:19).

Jesus does not directly advocate violating the Old Testament proscription against drinking blood (because He is not advocating the drinking of physical blood), yet He implicitly does this when He advocates drinking the red wine which He identifies with the blood of His impending sacrifice in order to share the redemptive power of that sacrifice. Recall that the power of the Passover lamb’s blood was protection against death in a specific situation, but the power of Jesus’ redemptive blood goes far beyond this because it protects against every manifestation of death unto eternal life and communion with God. The redemptive power of the lamb’s blood was placed on the exterior (door posts) of every Hebrew house. Jesus’ blood (redemptive power) is taken interiorly and protects from interior (spiritual) death, making it the transformative power of eternal communion with God. It is difficult to believe that Jesus would have advocated the implicit violation of the Old Testament proscription (against drinking blood) unless He believed that His blood of sacrifice had the real power to protect against spiritual death.

Jesus also associates His sacrificial blood with the “blood of the new covenant.” A covenant is a solemn promise. McKenzie notes:

In early Hebrew society written documents were employed little or not at all. In their place the spoken word was invested with ritual solemnity which gave it a kind of concrete reality. The spoken word thus uttered could not be annulled or retracted. … The covenant was such a solemn ritual agreement which served the function of a written contract. The covenanting parties bound themselves by a ritual agreement which included terrible imprecations upon the party which should violate the covenant.

Thus, a covenant has the effect of an absolutely guaranteed promise. In the case of Jesus (who is representing Abba as His Son and suffering servant) it has the effect of an absolutely guaranteed promise on the part of an absolutely truthful God.

But what is Jesus’ new covenant promising? Four interrelated promises: (1) communion with God, (2) the new covenant of Jeremiah, (3) Isaiah’s servant covenant, and (4) the eschatological (fulfilled) kingdom of God (Jesus’ mission – what He has come to bring in His person).

With respect to the first point, common life was part of any “covenant in blood,” because the sprinkling of blood indicated that the parties were one blood or one family. Thus, covenant between God and human beings would indicate common life or communion with Him. It can hardly be doubted that Jesus intended this very basic meaning of “covenant in blood” in His words of institution.

With respect to the second point, Jeremiah promises (presumably at the messianic time) a new covenant which would be written on the hearts of human beings:

“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers…. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Presuming that Jesus was as familiar with this common text in Jeremiah as He was with the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus would have seen His new covenant as embracing the new law of the heart (the law of love) which He came to bring through His sacrificial death, resurrection, and gift of the Spirit. Jesus would have probably seen the blood of the covenant not only as a guaranteed promise of communion with God, but also as the vehicle through which the law of unconditional Love would be infused within the heart of every human being through the Holy Spirit.

With respect to the third point (Isaiah’s “servant covenant”) it seems highly probable that Jesus who identified Himself as the suffering servant in Isaiah 52:13-53:12 would have also been acutely aware of the preceding servant prophecies (Isaiah 42:6ff and 49:8ff). A brief review of these two passages will show that the servant is the covenant, that the covenant is for all peoples, and that it leads to the atonement of sin and new communion with God:

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness” (Is 42:6-7).

And also:

This is what the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’ They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. … See, they will come from afar – some from the north, some from the west…” (Is 49:8-12).

Given Jesus’ familiarity with the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and the remarkable parallels with the themes surrounding His institution of the Eucharist (the suffering servant, atonement of sin, poured out for the many – for the all) it seems very unlikely that Jesus would not have had this notion of “servant (Himself as covenant)” in mind when speaking of the new covenant (the new communion) with God at the Eucharist. Hence, the new covenant in His blood is filled with the notion of a complete healing of humanity (sight for the blind, liberty for captives, release for those who sit in darkness, etc.).

The above eschatological dimension leads to the fourth and final point, namely, the covenant as definitive bringing of the kingdom. This dimension of covenant is manifest in Isaiah 59:21:

“As for me, this is my covenant with them” says the Lord. “My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever,” says the Lord.

The “forever” here indicates that the covenant brings with it the eschatological kingdom through the permanent imparting of the Spirit of God. When this is combined with Jeremiah 31:31 and the eschatological dimensions of Isaiah 42:6-7, 49:8-12, and 59:21, it seems likely that Jesus viewed the new covenant as a “guaranteed promise of the actualization of the kingdom.” Jeremias links Jesus’ “new covenant” to His new Passover sacrifice (see above, Section II.B.2) and concludes to the following:

Jesus describes his death as this eschatological passover sacrifice: his vicarious (huper) death brings into operation the final deliverance, the new covenant of God. Diathēkē (“covenant”) is a correlate of basileia ton ouranōn (“kingdom of heaven”). The content of this gracious institution which is mediated by Jesus’ death is perfect communion with God (Jer. 31.33-34a) in his reign, based upon the remission of sins (31.34b).

Summary. Unconditional Love would seem to be the power of this beautiful and encompassing new covenant. It is Jesus’ total gift of Himself, His taking the place of an animal in the sin-offering, and the offering of His blood in place of an animal’s blood in the covenant sacrifice that enables us all to be “one blood, one family” with God. It is His act of total humility and self-sacrifice (Agape) which unites us together as God’s family. The Holy Spirit is the personal power effecting this unity, and Jesus is its “body.” Jesus intended that His act of self-sacrifice, His gift of self, His unconditional Love, be the creative power of protection from spiritual death and therefore from all death. The new covenant is the absolute bond, the absolute guarantee, the very principle of eternal life in communion with God. It arises out of unconditional Love, it finds its fulfillment in unconditional Love; it is unconditional Love. Though He may not have used these words, one can scarcely interpret His action of taking the place of an animal in a sacrificial offering to mean anything less. Thus, when He said, “This cup is the covenant in my blood,” He intended to bestow on us an eternal communion with one another through His own person/body given in self-sacrifice. This is unquestionably unconditional Love.

“Do this in Remembrance of Me”

If Jeremias’ extensive study of anamnesis (remembrance) within Semitic cult is correct, then Jesus’ command of repetition (“Do this in remembrance of me”) has the double function of (1) asking God to recall something of religious significance, and (2) asking God to make that blessing really present (to recreate that blessing in the present).

With respect to the first point, Jeremias shows that in both the Old Testament and New Testament (Mark 14:9, Matt 26:13, and Acts 10:4) a ritual remembrance is not so much directed at the human subject but at God so that He might remember: “…[I]n the Old Testament and Palestinian memorial formulae it is almost always God who remembers. In accordance with this the command for repetition may be translated: ‘This do, that God may remember me’”

With respect to the second point, Jeremias notes:

This calling into the presence of God [remembrance – anamnesis], this bringing to life before God, this recalling of the past, this is, on the other side, effective. It has a purpose, it is intended to effect something: that God may remember – mercifully or punishingly. God’s remembrance is, namely (this is an important fact to which O. Michel called attention), never a simple remembering of something, but always and without exception “an effecting and creating event.” When Luke 1.72 says that God remembers his covenant, this means that he is now fulfilling the eschatological covenant promise.

If we combine all these elements, it would seem that when Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me,” He expected that He and His self-sacrificial action would be presented to God (the Father) to be made present (real) in the blessed and distributed bread whenever the words of institution were repeated. Johannes Betz summarizes the work of Michel, Jeremias, and others as follows:

Anamnesis in the biblical sense means not only the subjective representation of something in the consciousness and as an act of the remembering mind. It is also the objective effectiveness and presence of one reality in another, especially the effectiveness and presence of the salvific actions of God, in the liturgical worship. Even in the OT, the liturgy is the privileged medium in which the covenant attains actuality. ¶ The meaning of the logion may perhaps be paraphrased as follows: do this (what I have done) in order to bring about my presence, to make really present the salvation wrought in me.

We may here see Jesus’ intention to extend His self-sacrificial gift, His whole self, and the covenant in His blood to all future generations through a ritual which recreates the efficacy of His passion through His real presence. This desire to share in perpetuity is yet another manifestation of the unconditional nature of Jesus’ self-sacrificial covenant love.

“Poured Out for Many”

As noted above, the notion of pollōn (many) in Jesus’ logion “poured out for many” is a translation of the Hebrew rabbim which can have an exclusive or inclusive meaning. When it has the inclusive meaning, it signifies “all.” Jeremias summarizes these linguistic issues as follows:

While “many” in Greek (as in English) stands in opposition to “all”, and therefore has the exclusive sense (“many, but not all”), Hebrew rabbim can have the inclusive sense (“the whole, comprising many individuals”). This inclusive use is connected with the fact that Hebrew and Aramaic possess no word for “all”.

This inclusive sense of rabbim was very common in Old Testament and intertestamental literature. When it is accompanied by the definite article in Talmudic and even New Testament texts, it almost always has an inclusive meaning (“all”); but, as Jeremias points out, it can frequently have an inclusive meaning even without the definite article.

In the New Testament (with respect to Jesus’ self-sacrificial passion), Mark 10:45 uses pollōn in the inclusive sense to refer to Jesus’ “ransom for many.” This passage refers back to the Suffering Servant song in Isaiah 53:10-12 which is interpreted in 1Timothy 2:6 by using the Greek word “all” (pantōn) instead of “many” (pollōn). According to Jeremias:

Of especial importance for our passage is Mark 10.45 par., lutron anti pollōn “a ransom for many”. That polloi has here the inclusive meaning “all” is shown by the reference in Mark 10.45 to Isa. 53.10-12, as well as by the parallel in I Tim. 2.6: antilutron huper pantōn, “a ransom for all”. Just as Mark 10.45, so also our passage Mark 14.24 [Jesus’ eucharistic words] is to be interpreted in the inclusive sense. Pollōn is therefore a Semitism. ¶ 14.24 to ekchunnomenon huper pollōn (“the[blood] poured out for many”). The placing of the prepositional phrase at the end corresponds to Semitic word order. That it is placed between the article and the participle independently of each other in Matthew as well as in Luke shows that the position at the end sounds harsh in Greek.

This remarkable parallel which shows the rabbim in Isaiah 53:10-12 to be translated by both pollōn (many) and pantōn (all) in Mark and 1Timothy, respectively, and the very uncharacteristically Greek (but characteristically Semitic) expressions of the eucharistic words in Mark and Matthew offer strong evidence that Jesus’ rabbim was meant in an inclusive sense, and therefore, as “all” (all human beings).

Once again, the unconditional nature of Jesus’ love emerges. His sacrificial act is not for a chosen few, but rather for all humankind. He offers this not only to His generation, but all future generations. His gift of Himself is total and universal. His love is unconditional.

Conclusion

Given the above interpretation of Jesus’ eucharistic words and actions, one can scarcely deny His intention to give Himself completely to all humankind in the sacrificial act. He not only wanted to give Himself completely in sacrifice (in imitation of the suffering servant, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, and taking the place of an animal in a sin-offering and a covenant sacrifice), but also wanted to be present to us and in us for all generations and all time. This seems to meet the requirements for an unconditional act of love.

Yes, Jesus had a plan, an unconditionally loving plan, as He proceeded toward imminent death in Jerusalem. He planned to atone for the sins of all unconditionally, and to initiate a covenant of unconditional communion with God in everlasting life, through a ritual which would make the blessing of His sacrifice, self, and love really present in perpetuity. Jesus not only wanted the consummation of His mission (His passion) to be an act of total self-sacrifice, He wanted to give it away to everyone for all generations (unconditionally and universally).

If God were Unconditional Love, would He do something like this as Emmanuel (God with us)? Would He give Himself away in self-sacrifice, and then give that self-sacrificial love away forever? If such actions would typify an unconditionally loving God, then Jesus would seem to be His Emmanuel – His Unconditional Love with us.

Footnotes