I will be taking a short break. Lisa will do 2 back-to-back posts while I zip off to Mass.
While I am there I will hear an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading and a Gospel reading. I mention this because a fellow blogger out there today is attempting to read the entire Bible during this 24 hour Blog-A-Thon. I think that is an admirable goal. I am not a regular Bible reader, but I do browse the good book from time to time. The Catholic Church has it that every 3 years, a person attending regular Mass will hear the entire Bible from cover to cover. Let’s see, I am 47 (almost). If you count the times I went to Mass when I was a baby and understood nothing and don’t count the times I did not attend Mass for one reason or the other, I pretty much calculate that I’ve had the Bible read to me a little more than 15 times.
What I love about the book is the theme that runs throughout. God is clever how he rallies us people during the times we need to be rallied the most. I like the description as Jesus as the Lamb of God. There are lots of references to God being a shepherd, the people His flock and Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. Did anyone else pick up on the fact that at the Last Supper there is no mention of the slaughtered lamb? There’s bread and wine, but no mention of any kind of sacrificed meat. These 13 guys are devout Jews. They’re in town to celebrate the Passover Meal (see Exodus and the history of Moses leading the slaves out of Egypt, cut to the plagues…Yul Brynner Pharoah is still relentless and doesn’t release Moses and his people until that last plague when God sends the angel of death over the Egyptian households to kill the first born, but he does not touch the houses where His chosen people are – the ones with girded loins, ready to leave at a moment’s notice, those who have sacrified an unblemished first-born lamb and covered their doorposts with the blood.)
See the connection? There is no meat at this dinner because Jesus IS the dinner.
That’s my post pre-Mass. Wonder what I’ll have to say when I get back!
