MARK - My Works (19)

 

It was two days before the most significant celebration.  The leaders of the people were still discussing the best way to silence Jesus, and agreed the people would not like a distraction during their festival.

Jesus was staying in a village with Simon (the one who was healed of leprosy).  A woman entered the room they were in and poured extremely expensive perfume on Jesus’ hair.  His friends were indignant. “That perfume could have been sold and the money given to feed many poor people,” and they scolded the woman harshly.  But Jesus rebuked them saying, “Give her some peace, the problems the poor face will always be with us, but I will not.  She is preparing me for my death.  Listen to this, when people talk about this time in the future, they will remember what she has done, and honour her.”

Then Judas, one of Jesus’ friends, left the party, and went over to the Jewish leaders.  He agreed to lead them to Jesus at an opportune moment.  The leaders promised to reward Judas.  They had their solution.

On the first day of the festival, Jesus’ friends wonder what they would do.  Jesus knew.  He explained that they should walk into Jerusalem.  There they would notice a person carrying water.  Follow them into a house and find the owner.  There, ask to be directed to the upper room that had been prepared just for them.  And this is what they did.

In the evening Jesus and his friends gathered to begin the celebration.  As they settled down, Jesus announced that someone from within their group was going to hand him over to the authorities.  The friends were greatly troubled by this.  Jesus went on “It was foretold that the one who comes from the Creator to rescue the world would be treated like this.  They will be betrayed, and murdered.  What a terrible day for the betrayer.  It would have been better that they had never been born.”

As was the custom, Jesus took hold of the bread and divided it.  He said “This is like my body, being shared out to you as sustenance, essential food for life.”  As was the tradition he took up a glass of wine.  This time he thanked the Creator and added, “This wine symbolises my blood, which is poured out freely for your good.  Drink it, because you must share a part of this suffering to live.”

Then Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the next time I eat and drink I will be in heaven.”

They then sang a tradition song of worship and went out in the evening breeze to the Mount of Olives.

A prophetic act.  Perfume on Jesus' head. How many prophecies do not involve words?  Better for a multi-lingual world?  Why not?  People don't seem to get it even when it is spelt out in words on one syllable.  

The cultural calendar clicks in, and Jesus and his friends prepare to celebrate an age-old tradition.  The meaning is perhaps lost in the midst of time. Suddenly today is the day that this ritual looks forward to!  Did we miss it?  Today is the day this sacred bread, the staple diet of the Roman world, takes on it's full meaning.  Yesterday it was in memory of how the people of Israel were rescued from oblivion through a radical intervention.  "Do this in memory of how we were once saved."  Today it reminds us that a second radical action took place, significant not only to the Israelites, but to the whole of humanity.  "Do this in memory of how we were once saved."  In the same way that we eat to live, we take Jesus' body into our earthy bodies to sustain 'life'. Just as we drink to stay alive, we drink the 'life blood' of Jesus in order to live.  Without it we die.  This what what the Creator said in Eden.  "If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that day you will surely die."  God did not lie.  We did die, but we were also brought back to life.  

So one day we will eat and drink together in the new garden.  I hope that it will be a bit like the meal we shared in the Temple de Marais in Paris (real baguette and French wine.)