How we can receive more from the Mass – 24

“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

This passage, written by Paul, tells us more about the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Jesus than we may at first imagine.

We read in Exodus that the Jews were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, and use the blood of that lamb to daub the doorposts and lintel of their house as a sign to the Destroyer not to slay the firstborn of that house.  They were then to roast the lamb and eat it during the Passover meal.

In the Last Supper, Jesus renewed and transformed this Passover meal.  He introduced some changes that made it much more than just the Passover with which the apostles were familiar. 

The lamb that was sacrificed for the original Passover meal, that delivered their firstborn from death and led to their leaving behind a life of slavery, is replaced by Jesus himself; his body and blood, which Jesus tells us unequivocally is the bread and wine.  Our sin alienates us from God which is, in a very real sense, slavery and death.  But Jesus talked about his blood being poured out for the forgiveness of sins.  His sacrifice, the shedding of his blood, delivers us from the death caused by our sin.

However, just as a Jewish Passover is not completed by the sacrifice of the lamb, but by the eating of it, so in the new Passover – the Eucharist – our participation involves the eating of the Lamb that was sacrificed; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Not a symbol of the Lamb, not a mere recollection of the Lamb; but the actual flesh of the Lamb in the form of bread and wine, so that the new Passover may be complete.