(Huzzahs to Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr thrashing around in Hawaiian sand for Fred Zinnemann's cameras back in the day, but there's more in the post title than that. Theologically and metaphysically speaking, every beach is "Playa del Rey," and even a landlocked stable in Bethlehem looks a lot like Pirates' Cove to fallen angels who can't abide the thought of a divine beachhead on a fallen world)
So, in case you were wondering, I usually leave meditations on scripture readings in the lectionary to Julie at Happy Catholic, but the readings for Tuesday sparked a thought on the nature of the Mass, and I decided to use the blog as a notepad.
Yesterday's gospel reading was taken from the first chapter of Saint John, verses 29-34. It started like this:
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
He is the one of whom I said,
‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’
Christ's herald and the countrymen to whom he was talking were both conversant enough with scripture to not be fazed by an allusion to the Lamb of God.
What strikes me is the argument of a grammarian rather than the argument of a theologian or scripture scholar: The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world-- John uses present tense.
Christian theology says this mission was accomplished by Jesus through His own death and resurrection, but at the time of John's announcement, none of that had happened yet. The locust-eating prophet might more properly have said, "behold the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world." Except that he didn't, and who are we to correct his grammar, even in translation?
We do well to back off from the cul-de-sac into which logic implies that both John the Baptist and John the Evangelist were headed. As the closing verses in my excerpt suggest, the Baptist (not to be confused with Christians of that sort who bear the same moniker nowadays) isn't thinking in temporal terms; he's waxing poetic about the eternal.
In the world but not of it, John recognizes his cousin as the man coming after him who ranks ahead of him because he existed before him. There's not a science fiction author in the world who's ever had more profound fun with time travel than John the Evangelist does in that line quoting John the Baptist.
Why, then, the leap from that whiplash yet stunningly logical chronology to a thought about the Mass?
In re-presenting Jesus's self-sacrifice at every Catholic Mass (per what He himself did at his last Passover meal with His apostles and then after the resurrection for disciples in Emmaus who "recognized Him in the breaking of the bread" ), the church does not mean to suggest that Christ's sacrifice was other than once for all time. After all, the apostolic record shows that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by Roman soldiers on Calvary Hill outside Jerusalem while Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea.
Yet even while acknowledging that historical fact, the church also stands with her Lord and savior outside of time, in the eternal present. Ergo, every Mass in something like two thousand years of Masses is a window on and participation in the same event. When Jesus said, "do this in memory of me," he didn't then mutter "until you get it right" because He got it right in the first place, as Christians are commanded not to forget.
How then, to put this, when I'm already in way over my head (big surf on that beach)? I'd say every Mass is a confluence of the historical and the sacramental, and every Mass takes us from here to eternity.
It's only by thinking in those terms that I can see a Jewish prophet's timeless description of his cousin's work as ongoing rather than past or future for what it is: a fleeting glimpse of heaven from beside the Jordan River two millennia ago, painted not in purple prose but in a man's inspired choice of verb tense.
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2 comments:
You have just described ever so well, the orthodox Jewish person's sense of time. An understanding that continues today among them. No doubt our Jewish Messiah had this understanding. As they reflected upon what had happened, his disciples understood as well, the significance of His asking, not to 'do this in memory of me' as our beautiful but faulty translation states, but rather to be made 'present again'. They were to celebrate a memorial in the OT sense of that word.
The disciples began re-presenting these events of their most recent past in order to participate in them. They did so in their homes every week after sundown on the Sabbath which they spent in worship in the synagogue. They remained Jewish and theirs was as it continues to be, a religion of the home. It was in the home that covenants (sacraments) were celebrated, lived and renewed.
Excellent connection Patrick, thank you!
A beautiful thought, Patrick, and so well-put. And quite appropriate as the Eastern Church celebrates the feast of the Theophany of our Lord tomorrow (Friday), with the Western Church celebrating Epiphany shortly thereafter.
Of course, to truly witness this sacrifice in the liturgy (instead of a commemorative meal with sacrifice only mentioned as an afterthought), you'll have to visit any one of these traditional masses in Walnut, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, Escondido, Vista, San Diego, Colton, or National City. ;)
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