TAKE, THIS IS MY BODY
Sharing in a Different Kind of Power
(Mark 14:22-25)

J. Denny Weaver

Death and food go together. After a funeral, congregational participants often prepare a meal for the family and friends of the one who has died. Around this food are shared tears of remembrance for the deceased as well as laughter and celebration, as people enjoy visiting with friends or relatives not seen for a while.

Both death and food are common elements of our lives. Every human experiences death, and food is integral to all our lives as well.

Easter is the season of the church year in which Christians remember the death of Jesus and celebrate his resurrection from the dead. And it is our tradition that worship on Maundy Thursday before Easter Sunday includes food and drink—the bread and wine—along with remembrance of Jesus’ death.

As Jesus was contemplating what was going to happen and sharing the Last Supper with his disciples, "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’" (Mark 14:22-26).

It is important to remember the death of Jesus with wine and food, as he taught. But I want to remember in light of Jesus’ entire mission and especially his resurrection.

Jesus’ mission was to make the reign of God visible and present in the world. Through this mission, Jesus was carrying on the long tradition of the people of God as witness to God’s presence in history. God called Abraham and said his descendants would become a people through whom all peoples of the earth would be blessed. Israel’s mission was to be that people who witnessed to the presence of God’s rule in history. The prophets gave specific expression to the mission. They performed the mission themselves and also chastised Israel for failing to live up to it.

Jesus continued that prophetic mission of witness—but with a difference. In Jesus, God was actually present. Jesus’ teaching pointed to the reign of God, and his life displayed the reign of God in history.

Jesus’ mission threatened the forces that did not and still do not acknowledge the reign of God. At the end of his life, Jesus’ action in the temple was a vivid demonstration that the reign of God posed a challenge to some conventional practices. Scholars do not understand exactly what the problem in the temple was. But even without knowing the specifics, we can know that the temple confrontation concerned a proper orientation toward God and God’s reign.

When Jesus’ witness to the reign of God posed a challenge to the forces that opposed God, the temple act brought that opposition to a head. These forces were so threatened that they started plotting how to have Jesus killed. And soon after Jesus was in fact killed by the highest political authority of the day, the Roman Empire.

Killing is an ultimate act—it deprives a being of existence that cannot be restored. In killing Jesus and thus challenging the very reign of God, the powers of evil sought to deprive Jesus of existence.

But we have heard the story too often to be able to feel suspense. We know what happened next. We know that three days later God raised Jesus from the dead. In that resurrection, the reign of God overcame the ultimate evil, the denial of existence.

Here we see the true nature of the power of God. The divine power is not a bigger version of human power, as in human beings can lift only a little weight but God can lift a great big weight. That approach is to envision God in our image. Rather the character of God’s power is seen in the capacity of God’s reign to restore existence—to resurrect life—where it had ceased to exist. The resurrection of Jesus is the triumph of the reign of God over death. That is what we celebrate on Easter.

Jesus’ death is part of the story that leads to Easter. But when we look at that death in terms of his life and resurrection, it seems clear that his death was not the story’s purpose. His life was not a long-running plot whose purpose was to get him killed because God needed a death. Jesus’ death did not fulfill a requirement of God who needed blood or death to restore order in the universe or repay the offended honor of God.

Think about it. If Jesus’ death paid a debt owed to God or was needed to restore God’s order or honor, then those who killed Jesus were the ones actually doing the will of God.

But if Jesus did not die because God needed his death, what meaning of the death is an inescapable part of his story? Jesus’ death—the killing of Jesus—makes painfully clear the difference between the rule of Satan and the reign of God: One attempts to control through violence and death; the other rules through nonviolence and resurrection.

In one sense it is possible to say Jesus needed to die. That need came from the nature of his mission, which was to witness to and make present the rule of God in our world. The parameters of his divine mission made Jesus’ death necessary. But his purpose was not dying, as though dying were the culmination of his reason for being.

It took courage for Jesus to face death. In Gethsemane, he prayed, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want" (Mark 14:36). But Jesus could not avoid dying without abandoning his mission.

Martyrs Mirror (Herald Press, 1938) tells the story of Maeyken Wens, burned to ashes on October 6, 1573, with a screw holding her tongue to the roof of her mouth. A haunting woodcut accompanies her story (980). It pictures her oldest son, 15-year-old Adriaen, as he bends over, stirring through the ashes that were his mother, searching for the screw that held her tongue to the roof of her mouth, while his three-year-old brother Hans looks on.

To her husband she had written that the torture after her arrest was hard but parting from him was "hardest of all" (981). It took courage for Maeyken Wens to face that death. She could have escaped it by recanting, but her faith compelled her to persevere for a higher calling.

Many years ago my fellow Hesston College student Daniel Gerber went to Vietnam with Mennonite Central Committee. Taken captive by the Viet Cong, he was never heard from again. Daniel’s purpose for going to Vietnam was not to die. Had he not gone, Daniel might still be alive. But his faith and a desire to witness to God’s peaceable rule compelled him to go, and to face death.

On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie was at Rafah refugee camp in south Gaza, witnessing against the destruction of another Palestinian home by an Israeli bulldozer. The bulldozer knocked her under a pile of dirt, then ran over her, crushing her.

Rachel Corrie was a college student from Olympia, Washington. Her purpose was to witness against the injustice perpetrated daily against Palestinians and to try to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home. She did not want to die, but she gave her life carrying out that mission.

Jesus could have bypassed death—but only at the cost of abandoning his divine calling to make present in his person the reign of God. Death was not the purpose of his life; death was the result of the faithful fulfillment of his mission.

Most of us in North America do not face death for our faith. However, hard choices and risks still present themselves as we witness to the reign of God.

• A high school band member risks a lower grade or even expulsion for refusing to march in the Memorial Day parade.

• A public school teacher risks censure when she turns the principal’s requirement for a patriotic bulletin board display that supports the war into a show of red, white, and blue hands working for peace around the world.

• An office worker risks disapproval by presenting a peace display where other cubicles all proudly and prominently feature American flags.

Being a follower of Jesus means to take risks, some mortal, most only uncomfortable. But those risks come with sharing in and carrying on Jesus’ mission to witness to the rule of God in the world.

Jesus gave us the Lord’s Supper to remind us about that witnessing mission and to strengthen us in it. We take bread and call it Jesus’ body and juice or wine and call it Jesus’ blood. We eat and drink in memory of how he faced death in faithfully carrying out his mission to make God’s reign visible.

When we eat and drink, then, we are also committing ourselves to carry on that mission in the physical absence of Jesus. This ceremony nourishes us for witness to God’s rule.

Calling the communion elements Jesus’ body and blood should also remind us that the mission to witness to the reign of God can be costly. That witnessing mission cost Jesus his life. It cost Maeyken Wens, Daniel Gerber, and Rachel Corrie their lives.We should take seriously that the bread and wine represent Jesus’ body and blood. They remind us of the seriousness, commitment, and consequences that accompany following Jesus.

Food builds and sustains community. We know that just about any social occasion requires food and beverage, whether in our homes or going out together with friends.

We should not lightly partake of the food and drink of communion on Maundy Thursday at communion. They nourish our social interaction, our fellowship together, as followers of Jesus and as the body of Christ. In eating and drinking together and remembering what Jesus did, we experience fellowship as God’s people.

As we eat together and remember what Jesus did, we as God’s people, and our witness to the reign of God, become visible and present. That tiny piece of bread and sip of juice have nourished us as God’s people; we become what they symbolize.

We eat and drink as followers of Jesus. We eat remembering his witness unto death, and we recommit ourselves to that witness, whatever it might mean. We do this in remembrance of Jesus our Lord.

—J. Denny Weaver is Professor of Religion and the Harry and Jean Yoder Scholar in Bible and Religion at Bluffton (Ohio) College. This article is based on a sermon presented in a Maundy Thursday communion service at Grace Mennonite Church, Pandora, Ohio.