Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 119

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world."

Catholic and Protestant churches often celebrate Good Friday with a series of brief sermons by seven different preachers on the "seven last words of Jesus." They represent the intensity of the moment and the Lord's presence of mind throughout his final ordeal. But his most important last word was spoken the night before he died, to his disciples in the Upper Room, as they celebrated a Passover meal,, "Do this in memory of me." 

So let's remember that moment: The evangelists of all four Gospels agree that the Lord's disciples had no idea of what would happen when they arrived in Jerusalem. They were, however, full of expectations. But the Gospels don't really tell us. Perhaps they expected Jesus to reveal himself as the Messiah and then, somehow, to take control of the holy city. Maybe a host of angels would appear when Jesus the Messianic High Priest entered the city, or the temple. Others supposed an army of angels, both cavalry and infantry, would drive out the Roman authorities with their occupying soldiers. 

In any case, it was going to be spectacular and they alone, the disciples, would know what was going on. They would have front row seats and first tier choices of positions of power and seats of honor. 

Jesus, of course, had told them repeatedly what would happen. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that three times he said to them, "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days."

But the disciples could not and would not listen to his prophecies of doom. After they heard Peter called a satan for daring to argue with Jesus when he spoke of his death the first time, they said nothing. But perhaps they just thought they knew better than he did what would happen. If they could not explain why they stayed with him and listened to his terrifying predictions, they could only say they were convinced that he had the words of eternal life, and that he was the Holy One of God. 

But when they arrived in Jerusalem nothing spectacular or apocalyptic happened. The sky did not open up; there was neither an infantry or cavalry of warrior angels. They saw only that their Master created a one-man riot in the temple one afternoon, and then somehow, for no apparent reason, the authorities let him speak to the crowds daily within the temple precincts. If they were hatching plots to have him arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified, only one disciple knew about it, and he said nothing to the others. 

And so they proceeded with the Passover Meal with Jesus as the host, presider, master of ceremonies, and guest of honor. And, at the highest moment of the ceremony, Jesus took a loaf of bread, broke it, and gave a piece to each disciple, saying, "This is my body. Eat it!" 

And he took the cup of wine and said, "This is the cup of my blood. Drink it." 

They ate and drank, but did they know what he meant by it? And then he said, "Do this in memory of me." 

Perhaps we can still feel the intensity of that moment. "If you do nothing else in your life, if you remember nothing else about me; if you have forgotten everything I said and did; my healings, prayers, blessings, and rebukes; if you cannot remember anything else I asked you do; if you live to be a hundred and the whole world seems to have forgotten me, you must "Do this in memory of me! 

"If you do this, you will not forget. You will know and you will understand. And you will tell the world about my life and death, and about my resurrection; and they will come to know me as you know; and they will know eternity.

"You must do this; you must tell them; you must invite them to know me as you do; and then your life will have meaning and purpose, and you will know that the entire world, with all its continents and its islands, all its oceans and lakes, rivers, streams, and glaciers, with its atmosphere and all its weather, was created so that I might be born in Bethlehem. God the Father made us in his image and likeness so that I could give you my body to eat and my blood to drink; and so that you would be gathered into my body and be presented to God my father as a good, worthy, and totally satisfying sacrifice for the salvation of the world.

"So long as you do this in memory of me, you will know what Saint Paul meant when he wrote, 

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
[through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven
And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds
he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, 
to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him."

Many years later, Saint John would explain the Lord’s last words more simply, “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”