The Mystery of the True Pascha

Ancient Ritual Meals

Before Christianity there were three ritual meals, only one of them was sacrificial and sacramental, and the others were just simple blessings. These meals were:

1- The Sabbath meal (or Kiddus meal): The Last Supper was not a Kiddus meal. The Kiddus meal was employed only on the evenings before Sundays or before feast days. When the first stars appeared after sunset, the head of the household (on the Sabbath, after lighting the Sabbath candle) recited the blessing at the table over a cup of wine, in the midst of his family and guests. Then he himself drank and after him the other people present. After the end of the meal, the Kiddus was employed.

The Kiddus is neither a meal, nor a sacrifice, nor does it have sacrificial significance, but it is just a simple blessing.

2- The Chabourah (Habourah) meals: These meals were held by groups of friends when they gathered together. These meals were marked by features peculiar to banquets held on specific occasions such as those connected with betrothals, weddings, circumcisions and funerals, in which every guest present would participate in them.

In these ritual meals the father of the family took a piece of bread, uttered over it a short "prayer of blessing," broke it and distributed it at the table to the guests. After the meal was over, a cup was passed around for all to drink. This meal does not involve any sacrificial or sacred act.

3- Pascha meals: It was a symbol of the True Pascha, Jesus Christ,

the Lamb of God. St. Paul says, "For Christ, our Paschal lamb, has been sacrificed."

The Pascha in the Old Testament

"Pascha" means to "pass over," and it refers to the destructive angel who passed over the houses anointed with the blood of the lamb. It also means "crossing," as their fathers crossed the Red Sea.

According to the Law, every family was to gather each year to eat the Pascha supper in a special rite. The description of the Pascha's rite is found in the Mishnah. We can summarize it in the following points.

• 1- The Father of the family slew the lamb he had brought, and the blood was dashed against the altar.
• 2- The meal was to be eaten after nightfall.
• 3- A first cup of wine was mixed, and God was blessed for both the feast and the cup.
• 4- A preliminary dish was served and eaten before the usual table blessing, and subsequent breaking of the bread with which Jewish meals ordinarily began.
• 5- Then the meal was set out with its unusual Menu of unleavened bread and bitter herbs, as their ancestors had eaten it at that remarkable night of liberation long ago.
• 6- A second cup of wine was mixed.
• 7- One of the children asked his father: Why was that night different from all nights?
• 8- The father related the narrative of Exodus, clarifying three points:
• a. The Passover as a ransom.
• b. The unleavened bread.
• c. The bitter herbs, indicating that God had transported their Fathers from the life of slavery to the joyful life of liberty. For this reason they drank wine which referred to joy and happiness.
• 9- The narrative concluded with the recitation of the first part of

"Pascha" is the Greek form of the Hebrew " Pascha."

the "Hallel," the psalms of praise which are sung about the Lord's greatness and His salvation. (Ps 112 - 117).

• 10- The second cup was drunk.
• 11- The bread was then broken into pieces and distributed, and the meal was eaten in the usual way.
• 12- The third cup of wine was mixed, which was called "the cup of blessing," and was passed around for everybody to drink.
• 13- Finally, over a fourth cup the remaining psalms of "Hallel" were recited.

Passover Meal and Eucharist

Our Lord instituted the Eucharist in the framework of this "Liturgy of the Pascha meal." After eating the Pascha meal, He offered the real meal of Pascha, raising the same notions, not through shadows, but realistically.

1- Commemoration: According to the Pascha's ceremony everyone considered himself as Abraham's son. He regarded himself as having personally received God's redeeming love. The Pascha's meal was actually a remembrance of past events, enacted in order to practice God's saving deeds in their life as a present fact and to hope for future salvation and to renew the eternal covenant between God and them, which was foretold by prophets and would be realized by the Messiah.

The rabbinic literature itself witnesses this notion. They defined the night of the Pascha as the anniversary of the creation of the world, the circumcision of Abraham, the sacrifice of Isaac, the release of Joseph from prison, the future exodus from captivity, the appearance of the Messiah, the coming of Moses and Elijah, the resurrection of the patriarchs, and the end of the world.

The Messiah achieves this feast, which is rich in its memories and promises; He bestows on the Church the true deliverance from the bondage of sin and mortality into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Now Jesus fulfilled the Pascha Meal by offering the Eucharist:

The Paschal mystery has been fulfilled in the body of the Lord... He was led like a lamb, and slaughtered like a sheep, He ransomed

us from the slavery of the world of Egypt, and freed us from the slavery of the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls with His own spirit and our bodily members with His own Blood...

This is the One Who rescued us from slavery to liberty, from darkness to light, from death to life, from tyranny to the kingdom of eternity...

He is the Passover of our salvation...

He is the Lamb without voice... this is He who was taken from the flock and dragged to immolation, and at evening slaughtered, and by night hurried... That is why the Feast of unleavened Bread is bitter, as your Scripture says, "You shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs." Bitter were the nails, which you sharpened. Bitter was the tongue by which you blasphemed. Bitter was the false witnesses you presented...

St. Melito of Sardis

• 2- Thanksgiving: The Pascha meal in its spirit and in its ceremonies was first of all a sacrifice of thanksgiving, by which they thanked God for His miraculous salvation. It retained this notion of the providential presence of God with them. The Eucharist is the true sacrifice of thanksgiving.
• 3- The Eschatological Meal: There was a strong tradition saying that the Messiah would come and the kingdom and its banquet would be established at the Passover. Until now the Jews at the Pascha Feast hope for nothing except the coming of the Messiah, who will reign forever.

Jesus Christ came and gave us His broken Body and His Blood so that we may enjoy eternal Life. In Him we pass over the kingdom of sin into His Eternal Kingdom. By the Eucharist we enter His Kingdom, so that we can meet Him face to face forever.

The Jews celebrate an earthly Pascha having denied the heavenly one but we celebrate the heavenly Pascha having "passed over" the earthly one...

He said to Moses "This month shall be to you the beginning of

months; it is the first to you among the months of the year." It means that the sacrifice of the true Pascha is for us too the beginning of eternal life...

Knowing this let each one become eager to undertake the beginning of this life and refuse to return to the old Pascha, whose end has been achieved, "for how shall we who are dead to sin still live in it? 2"

For five days the victim remains with those to be saved, until the fifth day nears its end, then the victim is immolated; death passes over and the one who is saved enjoys perpetual illumination, for the full moon shines during the entire night and is succeeded by the light of day. For this is the fifteenth of the month...

St. Hippolytus of Rome