C Cycle – Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

Lk. 9:11b-17

The church tells us our liturgy is to give thanks as we encounter God in the Word and Christ in the Eucharist. We are remembering and celebrating the promise of God to redeem us by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We affirm Christ’s presence and acknowledge our failure to acknowledge our human nature will always need God’s grace.  At least that is what we should be doing, but often we are distracted by life’s problems and other events which demand our attention.  The result is our mindset, and our movements become mechanical, practiced and are done without thought. We follow the prescribed formula, but we are not engaged.   

This past week I have been watching the fifth season of “The Chosen.”  Jesus triumphally enters Jerusalem days prior to His passion. He is preparing the disciples for what will come, and they are not listening as they are certain the promised king will be acknowledged.  They believe Jesus is the one who will restore the kingdom of David.  Jesus is revealing how He will suffer and die but they remain clueless.  We who have had thousands of years of teaching, theology and tradition know they will remain that way until Pentecost.  We know they failed to understand the ritual sacrifices of blood for forgiveness to follow the laws was preparing them for Christ’s sacrifice.  His death would be the one sacrificial lamb they celebrated on the Feast of Atonement.

Yet we know the Holy Spirit did bring to their minds the words of Jesus spoken to them during their three years of discipleship.  They would finally realize the Levitical law (Lev.16:21) about the one sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of all was not about a lamb.  Jesus was the sacrificial lamb!  They would know why His sacrifice was the only way we could be reconciled to God.  The messiah’s role was not about a king freeing them from the yoke of Roman rule; it was bringing us into the kingdom of God.

We say we know that is what His death achieved but we must admit our sin does create within us a sense of failure.  An unworthiness that causes us to withdraw from God.  Like the prodigal son, we wallow in our failures and know we deserve to be punished.  Like the prodigal, we do not fully realize the Fathers heart longs for us to go to Him.  That separation creates doubt which keeps us from freely worshipping, unable to give thanks.  We need our own moment of revelation; the Holy Spirit filling us as it did the disciples on Pentecost. 

Today the Church in its wisdom, has us singularly focus on the consequence of sin and the response of a loving God to free us. Jesus Christ on the night before He died told us “Unless we eat His body and drink His blood, we will not have life within us.”  We have been given a perpetual memorial of Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  We are not clueless like the disciples were on the night of the last supper.  We acknowledge the truth happening before us each Sunday is the Body and Blood of Christ. We behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and know we are blessed to be called to His supper.

We approach the altar of sacrifice and acknowledge what we are to take and eat and take and drink is the very presence of Jesus into our sinful bodies.  That simple fact should make us rejoice as we are returning to our seats. We should be dancing and rejoicing because Jesus comes to us and embraces us. 

The pharisees constantly complained about Jesus’ dining with sinners. How Jesus violated the laws and touched people who were unclean.  How He allowed the disciples to eat grain with unwashed hands and healed on the sabbath. Well, here we are on the sabbath, and Jesus is reaching out to us.  Allow Him to touch those places that need to be healed and allow Him to free us.  He is reaching out to us because we do not grasp how the simplest of sin, those we call “venial” are acts of unrighteousness and separate us from God (1Jn.5:17).  The truth is God wants to transform us from one degree of righteousness to another into His image.    

Christ’s presence to us will be transformative if we like Thomas acknowledge Him as our Lord and God.  If we acknowledge we are unworthy we will respond to the words of Jesus as He tells us He will send the Advocate to us.  The Holy Spirit is the source of our transformation into disciples.  Today we acknowledge the gift of Jesus, present to us in the Eucharist but it is also the first step in our transformation.  The next step is to acknowledge we are called to be witnesses. We are destined to be a holy people, a royal people who give our constant worship and praise to God. 

I invite you to say a silent prayer that your belief in Jesus Christ becomes a visible belief so much so that each of us begin to give God thanks for the gift of Jesus Christ.  Give thanks to God for Christ’s sacrifice that freed us to stand before God and allow he Spriit to complete the work of transforming us.