From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed - Part 8

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 7 with the following:

 

(p.25) " Yet despite the weirdness of such images--and perhaps because of

it--every version of this last supper in the New Testament, whether by Paul,

Mark, Matthew, or Luke, interprets it as a kind of death-feast, but one that

looks forward in hope. So Paul declares that " whenever you eat this bread and

drink the cup, 'you proclaim the Lord's death, until he comes.' [64]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

Chapter 1, pg. 25

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Note:

 

[64] 1 Corinthians 11:26.

 

Here now, is Part 8.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed - Part 8

 

(p.25) Many Christians 'preferred' these powerful images, apparently, to the

more innocuous interpretation found, for example, in Didache; for later

generations chose to include in the New Testament the versions of the story that

tell of eating flesh and drinking blood, dying and coming back to life. Yet

during the centuries in which crucifixion remained an immediate and hideous

threat, Jesus' followers did not paint a cross--much less a crucifix--on the

walls of the catacombs in Rome as a symbol of hope. Instead, they depicted Jesus

as one who, delivered from destruction, now delivers others: like Daniel freed

from the lions' den, Jonah released from the belly of the whale, or Lazarus, his

shroud unwinding, walking out of his grave. The Apocalypse of Peter, one of the

so-called gnostic gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945, goes

further, depicting Jesus " glad and laughing on the cross, " [65] a radiant being

of light; and, as we shall see, the Acts of John, another " heretical " source,

depicts Jesus celebrating the eucharist by leading his disciples as (p.26) they

chant and dance together a mystical hymn, the " Round Dance of the Cross. " [66]

 

Within decades of his death, then, the story of Jesus became for his followers

what the Exodus story had become for many generations of Jews: not simply a

narrative of past events but a story through which they could interpret their

own struggles, their victories, their sufferings, and their hopes. As Jesus and

his disciples had traditionally gathered every year to act out the Exodus story

at Passover, so his followers, after his death, gathered at Easter to act out

the crucial moments of Jesus' story. As Mark tells the story of Jesus, then, he

simultaneously offers the script, so to speak, for the drama that his followers

are to live out. For just as Mark opens his gospel by telling of Jesus' baptism,

so, as we have seen, every newcomer's experience would begin as each is

baptized, plunged into water to be " born again " into God's family. And as Mark's

account concludes with what happened on " the night Jesus was betrayed, " so those

who were baptized would gather every week to act out, in their sacred meal, what

he said and did that night.

 

This correspondence helps account, no doubt, for the fact that Mark's

gospel--the simplest version of the story later amplified by Matthew and

Luke--became the basis for the New Testament gospel canon. Just as Exodus serves

as the story line for the Passover ritual, so the story Mark tells came to serve

as the story line for the Christian rituals of baptism and the sacred meal. [67]

Receiving baptism and gathering every week--or even every day--to share the

" Lord's supper, " those who participate weave the story of Jesus' life, death,

and resurrection into their own lives. [68]

 

This, then, is what I dimly recognized as I stood in the doorway of the Church

of the Heavenly Rest. (p.27) The drama being played out there " spoke to my

condition, " as it has to that of millions of people throughout the ages, because

it simultaneously acknowledges the reality of fear, grief, and death

while--paradoxically--nurturing hope. Four years later, when our son, then six

years old, suddenly died, the Church of the Heavenly Rest offered some shelter,

along with words and music, when family and friends gathered to bridge an abyss

that had seemed impassable.

 

Such gatherings can also communicate joy--celebrating birth, marriage, or

simply, as Paul said, " communion " , [69] such worship refracts a spectrum of

meaning as varied as the experience of those who participate. Those repenting

acts of violence they have done, for example, might find hope for release and

forgiveness, while those who have suffered harm might take comfort in the

conviction that their sufferings are known to--even shared by--God. Perhaps most

often believers experience the shared meal as " communion " with one another and

with God; thus when Paul speaks of the " body of Christ, " he often means the

collective " body " of believers--the union of all who, he says, were " baptized

into 'one body', Jews or Greeks, slaves and free, and all were made to drink

from one spirit. " [70]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

Chapter 1, pg. 25-27

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Notes:

 

[65] Apocalypse of Peter 81:10-11. The sign that Constantine later adopted,

although often seen as a cross, actually consisted instead of the first two

letters of the title 'Christ'.

 

[66] See Chapter 4 for discussion and references.

 

[67] Gershom Scholem, the great scholar of Jewish texts, wrote that " myth is the

story line to a ritual " ('On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism' [New York, 1969],

132-133); and while some might object to applying the term 'myth' to the

gospels, since they relate events attested actually to have happened, the story

of Jesus, as the gospels tell it is, if not a myth, a story intended to convey

meaning.

 

[68] Professor Helmut Koester, my first and invaluable mentor in the history of

Christianity, has demonstrated in a wide range of articles how the early

accounts of the gospel are connected with liturgical celebration. See, for

example, his recent article " The Memory of Jesus' Death and the Worship of the

Risen Lord, " 'Harvard Theological Review' 91:1 (1998), 335-350.

 

[69] The Greek term 'koinonia' can be translated " communion " or " participation, "

in passages such as 1 Corinthians 10:16: " The cup of blessing which we bless, is

it not a 'koinonia' in the blood of Christ: The bread which we break, is it not

a 'koinonia' in the body of Christ? "

 

[70] 1 Corinthians 10:17; Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 10:3-4.