Great and Holy Thursday

St. Tikhon Monastery
South Canaan, Pennsylvania

April 8, 1999

St. Tikhon Monastery
South Canaan, Pennsylvania

By celebrating this vesperal liturgy we enter the Lord’s three day Pascha. Sharing the mystical supper with his disciples the Lord manifests himself as the lamb of the new Passover and the life giving bread of his Father’s Kingdom. Reclining with his disciples Jesus shows them that what they are being led into is a new and everlasting covenant with the living God. Therefore, whether we adhere to the chronology of the Synoptics and characterize the evening supper as a Passover meal, or whether we follow the chronology of Saint John the Theologian and place the Lord’s supper with his disciples prior to the Jewish Pascha, we must acknowledge that we are participants in this irrepeatable and saving event.

According to Saint John Chrysostom, what we do in this sacred space is no different than what was accomplished in the upper room. (Hom. 82, on Matt) There is no discontinuity. There is no break with what we do now from what was done in the past. It is our Lord who presides at the one mystical meal which extends throughout time and space. For this reason what is so often referred to as the “Last Supper” is in fact misleading since it has never ended. It is an ongoing meal offered “on behalf of all and for all.”

The celebration of the Lord’s mystical supper is opened to all who seek to be his true and faithful disciples. Jesus calls all to himself. He identifies himself with the food which satisfies the hungry. He is the bread of immortality which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world (Jn. 6:32). Without this bread that comes down from heaven (Jn. 6:51) one cannot live. Without the Son of Man who gives himself as flesh and blood for the sentence and transformation of the human person all life—all existence—remains entombed in its own mortality. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…” (Jn. 6:53).

Like the disciples of Jesus we are to take this hard saying (cf. Jn. 6:60) and make it our own. For if we cannot accept this teaching of the Savior the mystical supper will be perceived as a memorial meal with no eschatological significance—with no eschatological reality. Indeed, what we celebrate in the present is the ongoing event of the upper room which extends into the future. As the new and everlasting covenant the mystical supper joins us to that which is yet to come. The Lord himself stresses this to the disciples in the upper room; “I will not drink again the fruit of this vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Mk. 14:25; cf. Mt. 26:29).

Because of the Messiah’s voluntary death and glorious resurrection, the Kingdom of the Father is among us through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As Israel passed over the sea and was delivered from bondage and led into the promised land, we now, in the Eucharist, pass over into the Kingdom of heaven. In this pascha the new Israel, comprised of Jews and Gentiles, is manifested. In this passover, rooted in the sacrifice of the God Man, the universe continues to be renewed.

The passover of Jesus Christ proclaimed and revealed in the mystical supper is a transforming event. Bread and wine become the body and blood of the Savior. Yet, the transformation does not end here. For we, through our receiving the food of the new and everlasting covenant, are joined to Christ’s deified and resurrected body. Listen again to the words of St. John Chrysostom, “For neither was it enough for [Jesus Christ] to be made man, to be smitten and slaughtered, but he also commingles himself with us…truly making us his body” (Hom. on Matt. 82).

Each celebration of the Eucharist “members” us to the Lord’s three day Pascha. Each celebration reveals and affirms the activity of the Holy Spirit who maintains the catholicity of our celebration. Through the Holy Spirit the crucified and resurrected Christ is among us. Through the Holy Spirit the Passover of the Lord continues to draw every one and every thing into the new and everlasting covenant.

Amen!