Weekend Wisdom - July 6-7, 2024

Over the past year we have contemplated and prayed with the icon of Christ the Teacher as we learned with Jesus in the Word. This year our focus shifts to Jesus in the Eucharist. Our new icon, Christ the High Priest is based on a detail from an earlier icon called “Communion of the Apostles”, a representation of the Last Supper.

Icons are not just images. The tradition of icon writing means they are testimonies of the scriptures, confessions of the Christian faith, doctrinal teachings and proclamations of the Gospel. Icons are an expression of God. They are often called “copies” because they are reproductions of the image of God’s Word/work, not human.

Scholars have shown that Christ the High Priest does not appear in a central place in church sanctuaries until the 11th century. This shift was likely in response to the Great Schism between the eastern and western Catholic Churches in 1054, having the goal of identifying clearly that it is Christ, not anyone else, that gave us the Eucharist. The earlier icon presents Jesus as dressed similarly to the other disciples. This version we see later presents Christ as a priest and/or bishop in the context of a liturgy, emphasizing the divine institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist by Christ.

Vestments – Christ wears the contemporary vestments seen all the major clerical orders. The armholes are meant to symbolize the pierced side of Christ and the strings in the cuffs to symbolize the bonds of Christ’s hands. The layers of story in this image go both backward in time to the Last Supper and forward to the celebration of the Eucharist in the present. It connects the apostles with Christians in church consuming the Eucharist and the belief that priests make the offering stand in for Christ.

The Color Red – In Christianity red has the meaning associated through the blood of Christ.

Wounds – The marks on Christ’s hands are from the nails which held Him to the cross, a reminder of how the Mass is also the offering of Christ’s suffering and death on the Cross.

Host and Chalice – Christ in this icon holds the host the same way that the priest does when celebrating Mass, a reminder that it is through Christ’s consecration of bread and wine at the Last Supper that the sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted. It’s interesting to note that Jesus never gave communion to the disciples in the form of the host that is represented in this icon, but in the form of unleavened bread. Furthermore, there is a separate icon for the Last Supper. Even artists see these two ideas as separate - the divine origins and institution of the Eucharist through the words of institution and the reception of the Eucharist by the apostles. Icons are much more than a historical story about a person or a moment in time. They are liturgical art and dogmatic art. Liturgical scenes require knowledge of the ritual itself. Icons are confessions of faith through scripture where the historical details must be accurate, but more importantly, the theology must be true.

Meaning for Us in this Year of the Eucharist:

The Eucharist, Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity, directly gives God to us, into our very beings and bodies, for this is both physical and spiritual food that grows through all Eternity. Christ unites Himself to us directly through the Eucharist. We see Christ holding the host, his own Body and Blood, offering it to us while he receives the same offering from us (at the offertory/presentation of the gifts). This unified gift is at the heart of our belief and it is where we are healed and saved.

“You are the One Who both offers and is offered, the One Who is received and is distributed, O Christ our God, and to You we offer up glory, with Your Father, Who is without beginning, and Your all-holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.”

Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn from the Orthodox Divine Liturgy