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Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)

The idea of bread coming down from heaven was probably not hard for Jews in Jesus time because they had the stories of manna coming from God during the exodus. The idea that second century Christians ate the body and blood of Jesus would have been very difficult to grasp. As you are probably aware, the very idea of drinking blood runs contrary to Jewish law. The derivation of the Eucharist does come in part from the Jewish family meal. Before the meal, a loaf of bread was blessed, prayers were spoken, and the bread was shared. After the meal, a cup of wine was blessed, more elaborate prayers were spoken, and the cup was passed. The Jewish service at the temple included one reading from Moses and one from the Hebrew Bible. Psalms were read, the shema would be sung, prayers were then given and the teaching of scripture would follow. If you don’t remember the shema it sounds something like this. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your might." The shema was fairly easy to understand, but Jews were also expected to follow the law, which was difficult to understand.

At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches the disciples a new understanding of this ritual. Jesus was Jewish and therefore would have celebrated the Passover. Jesus simplifies the law to two commandments. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. You all know the words of institution from the Eucharist. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to the disciples, “Take eat, This is my body which is given for you.” Jesus blood and body are given for our sins. In Jesus suffering, death and resurrection we are offered new life in him. The wine and bread become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The early Christians shared a meal at their first services and eventually shared just bread and wine. Unfortunately this ritual becomes distorted in the middle ages. Only priests are holy enough to drink the body and blood of Jesus Christ and the public observes a ceremonial ocular communion. The service is very fancy with all the bells and whistles. Certain parts of the service become very important, such as the raising of the chalice. The people can see, but are not allowed to taste the communion.

Priests begin to charge for blessings and the assurance of eternal life. The public feels that the church and the priests have taken too much control of God’s grace. They rebel against the rituals of the church and the reformation is born. In an effort to correct their excesses the true meaning of the Eucharist is lost. Scripture and teaching become the central focus of the Protestant service. The Protestant Church looked distinctly different from the Roman Catholic Church at this time. The Church of England reformed the service into a language that the people could all understand. The prayer book sought to retain many of the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church that Protestants like the Puritans had completely abandoned. Our church was known as the middle way. The Anglican Theologian Hooker said, “Through Christ’s presence in the sacrament, God’s causative presence in the world was transformed into his saving presence in the Church.”

The understanding of the Eucharist was still difficult for our church. Transubstanciation or the changing of the physical elements to actual body and blood was refined to consubstanciation by Luther. This meant the changing of the elements to the body and blood of Christ while retaining the physical elements of bread and wine at the same time. Today, the Holy Eucharist is the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s day in the Episcopal Church (BCP). The bread we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. We are talking about the real presence of Christ in the bread and the wine.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan