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Holy Thursday Year B, April 9, 2009

First reading, Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14

• Prepare for the moment of liberation by a ritual meal (and make the meal an annual ritual).
• Ritually mark your homes to exempt yourselves from the coming slaughter, which will effect your liberation.

• Our ritual meal is the Eucharist, instituted not when Jesus was at the height of his powers, but when he was most in danger.
• We use the metaphor of the slaughtered lamb to help us understand the death of Jesus.
• Because of Jesus' death and rising, we're liberated from sin and allowed to return to our true home.

1. The detailed instructions for the meal
2. The instructions, puzzling at first, about marking the house with the lamb's blood
3. The resumed meal instruction, with emphasis on eating as if preparing to flee
4. The prediction of the destruction of all the firstborn among the Egyptians
5. The explanation of how the lamb's blood will mark the Hebrews' homes as exempt from the destruction
6. The final instruction making the ritual meal an annual institution

While reading this aloud, mark the differences by pausing, changing your pace, and changing your tone of voice. For example, for the first set of detailed instructions (1), use a staccato, matter-of-fact delivery. Then slow down (2), as if you expect your hearers to be puzzled by the orders to apply the blood to the doorposts and lintel. The next sentence (3) is, on its surface, odd for a different reason: we think of ritual meals (whether Sunday mass or a secular honorary banquet) as dignified, stately affairs that last longer than ordinary meals, with periods of inactivity. But these diners are to eat with one foot out the door. Make sure your listeners see that image in their minds.

The next sentence (4, "I will go through Egypt, striking down ...") introduces an entirely new idea, so don't let it just blend into the prior sentence. The sentence after that (5) is also startling; be sure to express clearly how the marked doorways win the Hebrews exemption from the slaughter.

The final summary sentence (6) is meant to tie later readers of the book, with their now institutionalized Passover ritual, to the original event. It deserves a solemn, triumphal rendering.

Second Reading, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

But interestingly, the larger context of this passage, in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11, especially verses 17-34, shows that some early Christians needed some serious instruction about how to celebrate the Eucharist properly.

Proclaiming It: Paul implies that the purpose of celebrating the Eucharist is to proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. He may mean simply that Christians remind themselves and one another of the death and resurrection of Jesus, by this ritual act. He may also mean that Christians prepare themselves, by this ritual meal, for missionary proclamation of Christ to the world at large. You as lector need not decide, but you should not let this sentence get lost. Rather make it sound like the climax that it is.

Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular. Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date."
Bible Study pages of Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, Picayune, Mississippi	The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes

The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.