The true presence of Christ in the Eucharist has been a
stumbling block for Christians dating back to Jesus’ own time. For myself the
true presence of Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist has been something that
I have struggled to understand.
Recently I went on a retreat that focused on this question
of True Presence, and I spent some time in reflection on this subject. I would
like to share with you what I found. The physical reality of Jesus in the
Eucharist comes down to two core beliefs. 1) I believe in God the Creator and
2) I believe in Jesus Christ His son. If we believe these two things then we
must believe in Jesus’ physical presence in the Eucharist. Let me explain.
God the Creator
Genesis chapter 1 shows God creating the world. As He
creates this world, the authors follow a literary pattern of “Then God said…
And so it happened.” God said “Let there be light” and there was light. God
said let there be life, and so it happened.
What God says, IS. He merely speaks and He is obeyed. God is all
powerful, all knowing, and omniscient. His
Word is enough to bring things into existence.
Jesus: God’s Word
Incarnate
In the Gospel of John chapter 1 we see John identifying
Jesus as the Word of God incarnate. Verse 1 says, “In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.” Verse 14 goes on to say, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, the glory as
of the Fathers only Son, full of grace and truth.” Jesus then is God’s Word
made flesh. He is the power that creation obeys.
We can see that this is clearly the case when we look at all
the miracles Jesus performed. In them, we see a reflection of Genesis. Jesus
makes a command and He is obeyed. Jesus
commands the sea in Mark 4:29, “Quiet! Be still!” and it was. In Mark Chapter 2,
Jesus commands the paralytic to “Rise, pick up your mat and go home”, and he
did. In Mark 5, Jesus says to the dead little girl “Little girl, I say to you
arise!” and she did. Jesus raises the dead, heals the blind, the lame, the sick
simply by using His Word, the Word of the Father, the Word of which He is
incarnate.
Let us let that point steep in our minds for a moment and
talk about Jesus the storyteller. Jesus loved to tell stories, called parables,
as a way to help his disciples understand greater spiritual truths. Often his
disciples did not understand what He was saying, and so Jesus would take them
aside and explain to them the allegory. For example, in Matthew 13:36-43 Jesus
explains to His disciples the meaning of the parable of the weeds. The parable,
in summary, is that a sower sowed good seed into his field, but an enemy sowed
weeds into it. When they began to grow the servants asked if they should pull
the weeds. The sower said no, to wait for harvest time and then the weeds would
be gathered and burnt.
The disciples were confused, and asked Jesus to explain this
parable to them. Jesus explained what each element of the story represented.
“He who sows good seed
is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the
Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows
them is the Devil.” (vs 37-39)
Now, it’s easy to see that Jesus is not using His Godly
“Word power” here. He is not being literal. If He were, all evil people would
be weeds and Jesus and the Devil would be running around in a field throwing
seeds around. After all, when Jesus makes a command He is obeyed.
As we read the gospels we must be on the look out for when
Jesus is simply speaking as humans speak, and when he is speaking the Word, the
mighty God power of which He is incarnate. So, there seems to be a difference
between Jesus speaking AS the Word and Jesus simply speaking words.
Now we get to the difficult subject of Christ’s physical
presence in the Eucharist. How can we know that it is so? For this we must turn
again to the gospels. The Last supper narratives are very similar in the first
three gospels and Jesus’ words are clear; this is my body, this is my blood.
Matthew 26:26-27: “Take, eat; this is my body…Drink of it all of you, for this
is my blood.” Mark 14:22-23: As they were eating… Take, this is my body…they
all drank of it… this is my blood.” Luke
22:19-20: “And he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them ,
saying, ‘this is my body which is given for you’… And likewise the cup after
supper, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my
blood.’”
None of the first three gospels offer an explanation of such
an extreme statement. Imagine yourself being there. Jesus picks up a piece of
bread, turns to you, gives it to you and says, this is my body, and I want you
to eat it. Would you not be slightly concerned? Would you not ask for an
explanation? No explanation is offered.However, now we must look at John 6:51-58.
“I am the living bread
which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live
forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my
flesh.”
Here we see these provocative words,
much like the last three gospels. Are they literal or allegorical? The Jews
certainly took Jesus literally.
The Jews disputed
among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
Jesus’s statement was clearly said in such a way as to make
the Jews believe He was serious. It caused arguments among those who heard.
This would not have been the case if Jesus was clearly speaking in Parable. But
perhaps they misunderstood Jesus? Jesus offers this explanation:
“So Jesus said to
them, “Truly truly I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks
my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
And if THAT weren’t enough to convince them Jesus was being serious,
Jesus goes on to say, quite bluntly:
“For my flesh is food
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”
There is no allegory in that statement. His flesh is food.
Period. His blood is drink. The end. Picture yourself in that crowd. Jesus has
just said these shocking words, and there is no getting around what He means by
them. What do you do? You are Jesus’ follower; you have come to believe that He
is the Son of God. Now what?
For many of Jesus’ followers that day marked the last day
that they would follow Jesus. “As a
result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and
no longer accompanied him.” (vs 66)
Jesus turned then to his hand chosen, his twelve, and said
to them “Do you also want to leave?”
Jesus does not take back his words. He sees how people are divided because of
what he said, he sees how people are leaving him, yet he does not explain. He
does not say “Wait, wait, I didn’t mean that LITERALLY.” He turns to the twelve
and waits to see if they accept his teaching. Peter then said the words that,
in my opinion, are his crowning glory in the gospel. He looks at Jesus,
confused as he must have been by this teaching, and said, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We
have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
In essence, Peter says to Jesus, I believe you are who you
say you are, and I trust your Word. What an example Peter set. For we too
believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God, the Fathers Word incarnate. We know
that what Jesus says is Truth, and all creation obeys his Word. Jesus says that
the bread of the Passover meal is his flesh, and the wine is his blood. We know
that he was not speaking in parable or allegory. Otherwise, why would the Jews
have argued and left him? So Jesus was speaking literally, and what Jesus says,
IS.
In summary, if we believe in a creator, God who created the
world with his Word, and we believe in Jesus His son who is the Word made flesh,
then we must believe and trust what Jesus taught. Jesus says the bread and wine
of the Passover meal (the Eucharist) are his body and blood, and we are to
drink them so that he might abide in us and us in Him (John 6:56). My brothers
and sisters in Christ, if we trust in Jesus and believe in his Word, His word
must be enough for us.
