May We Break the Bread Again
Gospel of Luke 24:30-31
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.
The Emmaus event has a great significance, if we pay attention to a core feature of Christianity, which is almost forgotten or became quite obsolete. This core but forgotten feature of Christianity is the sharing of the bread. Some people might say that Christians do it quite regularly, especially Roman Catholics during the daily mass, and different denominations do have communions regularly at least four times a year.
However, holy communion, as we know it today, as a central rite in the established and institutionalized Christianity, especially regarding the Holy Communion as a sacrament, and the breaking of the bread in the first Jerusalem congregation of the Jesus followers are two separate activities, because in Jerusalem they not only broke the bread, but they shared the food with each other, as everything they had was held in common, like in a kibbutz today.
Most researchers agree that as baptism emerged from the baptismal movement of John the Baptist, as it came from the ablution habits of the so-called Essenes in Judea and Galilee and Egypt, so the Holy Communion came from the agape tradition of the early Jerusalem congregation, which tradition was also inherited from the same so-called Essenes in Judea and Galilee and Egypt.
These Essene groups are almost completely forgotten today, until the so called Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 hardly anybody talked about them in the worldwide Christianity. However, Josephus, the famous contemporary historian, deemed the Essenes, as one of the three most important religious groups in Judea, beside the Gospel mentioned Sadducees, aka the priesthood, and the Pharisees, aka the forerunners of the Rabbinic movement. All these three groups were rivals and held often bitterly differing religious and worldviews.
It should be obvious to any Bible scholars that the baptist movement of John the Baptist and the group of Jesus followers were offshoot Essene branches. It should not be too big of a surprise, that the source of the two Christian major sacraments, the baptism and the holy communion respectively, was embedded in the every day practice of the Essenes.
The Essenes submerged themselves in pools of water before the morning and the evening meals. This submerging were not only about cleansing the body, but a ritual as well, not only a tool to wash themselves from dirt, but also a symbol, to mirror the cleanliness of the soul, as they forbade the sinners from submerging, until they repent and make amendments.
Although the Essenes did the submerging everyday, still it is similar to the preaching of John the Baptist, who proclaimed, that people, repent first, then come and be baptized, as the submerging into the water will be the visible sign that your life changed by repenting.
The followers of John the Baptist were a different branch from the group of the followers of Jesus, but both groups were Essene offshoots. After the death of John, many joined the Jesus movement, a different branch, mostly Galileans.
Nonetheless, both groups were Jewish. Whatever rituals, habits, traditions, beliefs they had, it was all Jewish. It took centuries for the Greek Christianity shaped by the Apostle Paul to build a something entirely different religious framework, which just hardly resembled to the original precepts and regulations of the first generation of the Jesus followers, when the Apostles were still alive, and the Jewish Temple was still standing in Jerusalem.
This applies to the sacraments as well, where the everyday baptism became a once in a lifetime event, and the agape feast became a most holy and sacrificial ritual, intending to focus on the sacrifice of Jesus, who gave his life on the cross for humanity.
The transition from the agape feast to the sacrament was slow, as it is shown in a well know document jotted down by the early church fathers as early as the late first century and it is the oldest extant written Christian catechism. Its short Greek Title, Didache, means teaching. Its full title says that The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the non-Jewish believers (to the Gentiles). Which means that the content still reflected very much the doctrines agreed by the very Apostles in Jerusalem, at least more or less.
This Didache talks about baptism as well, and it also reads about the communion, that
"Now concerning the Thanksgiving (Eucharist), thus give thanks. First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever. And concerning the broken bread: We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever.
Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. But let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving (Eucharist), but they who have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, Give not that which is holy to the dogs."
(trans. M.B. Riddle - wiki-)This text is the suggested prayer before the Eucharist, which still means thanksgiving and not sacrifice, it follows the Jewish custom to bless the cup first, and just after comes the breaking of the bread. However, the Roman church teaches exactly that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, by the broken body and the blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine, therefore it is a sacrificial sacrament, where the elements of the Eucharist, the sacramental bread (leavened or unleavened) and the wine (or grape juice) are consecrated on an altar or a communion table. The liturgy is beautiful and festive, but it lost its original core.
The Didache reads in the prayer after the Eucharist, that ” But after you are filled, thus give thanks: We thank You, holy Father (in Heaven), for … You gave food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to You; but to us You freely gave spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Your Servant, (Jesus).
It clearly shows that originally the communion was not a wafer based sacrificial ritual, but a thanksgving agape meal, when they broke the bread together and shared the food as in the community as one family and they ate, until they were filled. It was a thanksgiving meal, repeated every day.
Having a modern festive sacrament and a sacramental ritual might be uplifting as well, however an ancient core feature of the life of the Jerusalem congregation was lost, and that feature is that they all shared the food, everyday and by default, as they held everything in common, what they owned, just like the Essenes, as it is documented in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
This core feature was expressed, when the disciples did not recognize Jesus, until he broke the bread. Until Christianity will share the food as one family, and nobody goes hungry, and there will be no more needy among us, it is hard to recognize the Christ part in Christianity. May we break the bread and share the food with all as one family of the Christ, as we used to say, brothers and sisters, siblings in GOD.
Amen.
