Discovering Christ's Church Through the Mass

For the first Christians, almost all of whom were Jews, the Eucharist of Jesus Christ was inseparable from the mystery of the Passover.  This was because the Jewish Passover celebration was a foreshadowing of the Eucharistic celebration or Christian Passover.  In chapter twelve of Exodus, God established the Passover and instructed Moses to take the Passover lamb, sometimes referred to by the Jews as the lamb of God, and sacrifice it for their redemption. 

This sacrifice consisted of four primary elements:

1.         The offering was to be without blemish (Ex. 12:5).
2.         The lamb had to be killed (Ex. 12:6).
3.         The blood had to be applied (Ex. 12:7).
4.         The lamb had to be eaten (Ex. 12:8).

In addition, God commanded that this was to become a perpetual and everlasting celebration: “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever” [italics added](Ex. 12:14).  Three verses later, God repeats this command to Moses a second time to emphasize its importance (Ex. 12:17).

As a faithful Jew, Jesus celebrated the annual Passover, the celebration of his people’s exodus from bondage in Egypt.  The Gospels give us a very detailed description regarding the last time that he celebrated it with his disciples.  After the lamb had been sacrificed to God in the temple, it was brought to the upper room where Jesus and his disciples ate it.  Knowing that this was the night before his death, Jesus explained the importance of celebrating the Passover with them saying, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).  Then, our Lord gave this sacrifice new meaning, sharing with his disciples that he would become the Passover lamb.  This was the primary purpose of God’s incarnation as man.  We remember the words of St. John the Baptist when he met Jesus: “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

St. John’s Gospel portrays Christ’s crucifixion with profound Passover imagery.  The author Edward Sri comments:

Jesus was sentenced to be crucified at “the sixth hour” on the Day of Preparation for the Passover – which was the same hour the Passover lambs would have been sacrificed in the Temple.  John also mentions that Jesus was stripped of a seamless linen tunic (Jn. 19:23-24).  The same word for this “garment” was used to describe the official tunic worn by the high priest during Temple sacrifices (Ex. 28:4; Lev. 16:4).  Moreover, just as the Jewish Passover lamb had no broken bones, so also Jesus’ bones were never broken (Jn. 19:33,36; Ex. 12:46).  Finally, just before His death, Jesus said, “I thirst” and was given sour wine raised up to Him on a hyssop branch – the same type of branch used in that first Passover in Egypt for sprinkling the blood of the lamb on the Israelite doorposts (cf. Jn. 19:29; Ex. 12:22).

The early Church saw Jesus as a Jewish high priest offering sacrifice to God.  But instead of a lamb, the sacrifice was his own body and blood, shed to set us free from sin.  The apostle Paul affirmed this belief when he said, “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival” (I Cor. 5:7-8).  The Eucharistic