Corpus Christi | Sunday 6 June 2021

Today is Sunday the 6 June, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.    

The Porter’s Gate sing ‘Hallelujah Sing’.    

In today’s scripture passage, Jesus’s interaction with the world is taken onto a new and different level.  This reading, for the feast of the Body of Christ, is taken from the gospel of Mark.

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26  

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, "Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?" So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.   While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.  He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.  Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.    

“This is my body,” Jesus said – words that are repeated every time the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper, is celebrated.    But what do those words mean to you?  How do you understand them? What do you think Jesus is saying to us in these words?  

More than half of today’s reading is spent telling of the preparations for the last Supper of Jesus, a Passover Meal.  Any memorable meal is likely to take more time in preparation than in the eating. Think back to any really pleasantly memorable meal you have experienced.  What made it joyful?  

Imagine you are one of the disciples at that last meal with Jesus and he hands you a piece of bread which he says ‘this is my body’ and a cup of wine which he says ‘this is my blood’.  How do you feel about this?  

As the passage is read again, imagine yourself present at the table as Jesus speaks these words.  Imagine him saying all this to you.  

Writing about the Lord’s Supper, St Augustine imagines Jesus saying to him, “you will not, as with bodily food, change me into yourself, but you will be changed into me.”  How do you want to respond to the invitation from Jesus to be changed into him, to eat at his table and be drawn more deeply into him?  

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.