The Institution of the Eucharist

A meditation

This is the old supper, the one before. Come and stand at the table, because everyone is standing — cloaks on, hats on, staffs in hand, the way the Law commanded: *eat it in haste, ready to leave.* A roast lamb on a pewter plate. Flat bread. Bitter herbs. Small cups. A kitchen with a fire, and a family eating on their feet as though the Exodus were tonight.

Look at their faces. They are quiet. This meal has been eaten this way for a thousand years, and everyone at the table knows what each thing means — the lamb whose blood saved them, the bread that had no time to rise, the herbs for the bitterness they left behind. They are remembering by eating. That is what the meal is for.

Now let the room change. It is still a table, still bread, still the night before a departure. But he has taken the bread, and given thanks, and broken it, and said something no one at any Passover had ever said: *this is my body.* And the lamb on the plate is no longer needed, because the Lamb is at the table.

Stay standing. Stay ready. That is the right way to be at this meal — not settled, not comfortable, but on your feet with the door behind you, because after this there is a garden, and a night, and a road. He gave you this food for the road.

Adore him in it. He is as plain as the bread and as near as the man beside you at the table. Eat, and then go where he goes.