Communion

I was taking communion today and considering the vow of the Nazrite. Jesus indicated to do communion, which includes grape products, but a Nazrite is prohibited from grape products. This got me considering: what should a Nazrite who is also a Christian do in this case? The commands seem at odds with each other within that subset, and since Jesus was fulfilling the Law, not abolishing it, it seems that this special case is worth looking into.

So I looked into it and as I was skimming through Leviticus, I came across the section on not drinking blood, which is Leviticus 17. I didn't catch until I was reading the verse that it was Leviticus 17:15 which says "Anyone, whether native-born or foreigner, who eats anything found dead or torn by wild animals must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be ceremonially unclean till evening; then they will be clean." I have written about this before, in my research into baptism before getting baptized again. At first pass searching for "water" in the Bible, this command repeats in some form 12 times in Lev 15, and a thirteenth time in Lev 17, with the addition of "then they will be clean" in the last one, which the others do not have. What is also interesting is that this commandment is also in Lev 11:40, but I did not catch it initially because it does not contain the word water, unlike the others. Also interesting, Lev 11 and 17 both reference the eating of unclean food, or touching dead bodies. Jesus seems to have amended or even contradicted this specific rule in Mark 7:18-19 "'Are you so dull?' he asked. 'Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.' (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)." It is interesting that the "hidden" verse of the 14 instances of this commandment, unfound initially because it did not contain the word water, pertains to food/dead animals, and the final one that contains both water and "clean" does also. In fact what I had previously called the 13th reference I had compared to Jesus, as the 13th in his traveling party, the one who can make us clean amidst the rest of The Law. Then I realized that this verse followed the prohibition in Lev 17, immediately following Lev 17:14 "because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, 'You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.'" Not drinking blood is reinforced in Acts 15:29 "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things."

So this takes us back to communion. Jesus specifically says in Luke 22:20 "In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.'" Now Jesus did not say it was like his blood or a symbol for it, although he could have, he instead chose to say that it is his blood. Now from a scientific perspective, if one were to examine the liquid after ingestion I'm guessing it would still be wine or grape juice, but on some real level it must be blood if Jesus was speaking the truth, which is a core assumption of every word he said, for Christians. This ties in so well with my previous entry on the 13 repetitions of washing with water. In fact even the presence of the 14th instance without the mention of water, could be considered a tie in, as after Judas betrayed Jesus, he was no longer in the party (he left and died), but another disciple replaced him in Acts. In the same way, it seems like Jesus removed the uncleanliness from eating animals from the requirements of The Law. While from a physical perspective the grape juice does not become blood, it must on some level, which I assume is spiritual. Now to me, the spiritual realm is not some unknowable place outside of understanding in this life, but a specific and real place I am constantly trying to understand more about. With that in mind it struck me as interesting that something that would be prohibited in the physical realm under The Law would actually be required in the spiritual realm. At a very minimum it shows there are a different set of rules in each place, which is of great interest to me. So Jesus was using a challenge here, for anyone thinking deeply enough about taking communion, a challenge which has lost its teeth now but at the time caused many to leave his discipleship (John 6:53-66). It is just funny that I weighed this before I fully thought it out, and without hesitation went with Jesus' council over what I thought was a prohibition earlier in The Law. I do this a lot, I think all Christians do, and it is a smart approach (why take on expert council and not listen to him?). The key is remaining flexible as the truth of the Bible is layered, and the apparent paradoxes can be fleshed out and more deeply understood, but only if one remains diligent in confronting them and then reasoning though the specifics while praying for guidance. Some are simple "Do not judge" "Love your neighbor as yourself" "Love your enemy" intentionally to be starting points, so as not to break them in attempting to enforce the rest incorrectly, but remember that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, and so it will all tie together like an elegant framework in the end.