Reflecting on Mark's Gospel - Mark 14:22-25

Mark tells of that special moment within the meal that Jesus and his disciples are sharing when Jesus takes, in turn, bread and wine and gives them a very particular significance. He takes some bread, a loaf, and blesses it. Having done that, he breaks it and gives them each a piece – this is my body. He then takes a cup of wine. He gives thanks to God for the cup of wine. They then pass it round, and each drink from it. This indicates a new promise, a new covenant and he talks of it being poured out.

This profoundly significant moment has led to one of the most often repeated elements of church life. As a minister of word and sacraments, I have long since lost track of how many times I have remembered this moment and celebrated this sacrament. I have done so in many different settings, and in a number of different ways. One memorable occasion was in a remote part of Panama. We arrived by boat on a beautiful beach, called Caya Paloma (Dove Beach) and beside the beach was the tiny Methodist Chapel, in which I preached and actually celebrated both the sacraments of Baptism and of Communion one Sunday in the early part of 1994. Another particularly memorable occasion was in December 2011 at Abu-Ghosh, one of a number of villages that claims to be the original Emmaus, where, in the chapel of the Benedictine monastery, I had the joy of concelebrating with a Palestinian colleague who spoke the words of distribution in the original Aramaic.

This is perhaps the high point in what seems to have been a challenging meal as Jesus and the disciples share these elements in this very special way for the first time in Christian history.

It is interesting, and significant, that this happens during conversations about how the disciples are going to fail Jesus. It is a telling reminder that God loves us as we are, and accepts, blesses and uses the messy chaos of our lives. As Megan McKenna (On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross) reminds us – “Jesus ate with sinners and the unworthy. His mercy and forgiveness were and still are the great marks of his ministry and practice.”