Today, at the Mass of the Lord's Supper, we revisit the night before Jesus died, when he celebrated a final meal with his colleagues According to the Synoptics, it was a Passover meal; the Johannine tradition makes it a friendship meal. Either way, though details vary, the core common witness in the early gospels is that Jesus at table took bread, broke it, declared it his Body, and gave it, then took a cup filled with wine, declared it his Blood and gave it. Then he authorized, we might say ordained, those with him to continue the ritual. From the apostolic age, the authority to say Mass passed to the first bishops and on to bishops and priests right up until today. The ordained minister "stands in" for the Saviour as host at the holy table.
By the time John's very late gospel was in circulation -- early second century -- Mass was old-hat, so the narrative of institution is left out of John. What we have instead is a long sermon by Jesus about His Real Presence in the Eucharist (chapter 6) and then the footwashing narrative (chapter 13). That is the gospel portion we read tonight. The essence of its message is that we, like Jesus, are called to be servants of others in acts of selfless generosity and kindness. Not being biblical literalists, we don't necessarily effect a ceremony of footwashing but rather re-commit to whatever servant ministry will look like in our culture today.
The most important point is that the Eucharist, as sacrament, is the ordinary way in which we as followers of Jesus are fuelled, our batteries charged so that we can go forth into our day and time, being servants of others, friends of the marginalized and persecuted. Thus the Christ who was incarnated in Jesus takes flesh and blood in us who now minister in his stead, strengthened by the Body and Blood of the Lord.
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