The Leaven of the Kingdom

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

Jesus said, "Unless you drink my blood and eat my flesh you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” (John 6:53) This was a difficult idea for the Apostles to accept, and the Scripture tells us that many stopped following Jesus because of this hard saying. (John 6:66) Why would Jesus declare such a seemingly crazy thing? It is such a strange saying that Protestants now spiritualize it, denying that Jesus was actually talking about His flesh and blood, but Christ did not give His own disciples this option. He let them leave when they were unwilling to accept this teaching. 

"The life is in the blood", the Law declared, and then proclaimed that no blood should enter the mouths of those in the Old Covenant. Blood made unclean, and eating blood removed people from the Covenant. Instead, they should remember their place as the Chosen People of God by eating bread unleavened and a lamb sacrificed, smearing the blood of the lamb upon their door-frames. Blood was also used to sanctify the people once a year, offered to God and then sprinkled on the Book of the Law and the heads of all the faithful. (Hebrews 9:19) 

Christ said, "Take eat this is my body, which is broken for you... Take of this cup, which is the New Testament of my blood shed for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:27-29) Christ established His Church, His single edict and ritual, commanding that His disciples do it "as oft as ye will". (I Corinthians 11:25) 

The Council of Jerusalem during the Apostolic Age kept none of the Law, accept for the edict against eating blood and meat offered to idols. (Acts 15:29) Why? Because the center of our covenant with God is the body and blood of Christ, and to take of those things that covenantally tie us to other gods is to break with our commitment to having the Life of Christ in us. Now we are to receive the life of Christ through His Blood, to be joined to His Body through the power of God incarnate. 

At this time, they also discarded the ritual of circumcision. Why? Circumcision was a cutting away of self from self, of spiritual blindness from our conscience. But now, the Church practices baptism as a rebirth into God's kingdom, the Church. Therefore, circumcision has been replaced by Baptism, and it imparts the action of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Church in our lives. The Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, created the World, and the Trinity created man whole for a purpose... Now that purpose can be fully revealed as the Holy Spirit lives inside of man, working with man to accomplish the things of God. Before, the flesh of the foreskin was cut to show that man was the barrier to knowing God, but now the foreskin is not a barrier, because God has taken on human form and lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. He lives in us to accomplish His works, so that it is no longer us, but Christ who lives within us. The curtain that separates man from the Holy of Holies is rent in two, and God now dwells among man. We now pray with heads uncovered in the temple, for man is the image of the glory of God. Now the self rescends in natural desire for connection with God, and does no longer blind and choke, for we have been set free from self, sin, and death through the work of Baptism - the fullness of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Church. Baptism is rebirth into the Kingdom of God, in which the Body is an Icon of the Creator, and God and Man live as One, through the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Because of this, we are no longer hopeless and cast away, but restored, filled, purposeful, and perfected. 

Such is the case of leaven. During Passover, the Jews would hunt for leaven, and then ritually destroy it. At Passover, Christ was also hunted down and put to death. Leaven represented sin, in the same way that Christ represented sin, taking our sin on Himself, being destroyed as sin, thereby destroying both sin and death. Now the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, enlivening the "dead and unleaved loaf" of the Church before Christ. The dead lump of humanity is now filled with the life of Christ, enlivened from within, risen, and spreading. For this reason, as a picture of the continuing work of Christ, the Church uses Levened Bread in its communion, as a recognition of the life that comes from Jesus Christ. It represents the role of the Church in the Universe!

Leaved Bread Prepared to be Offered to God in the Holy Eucharist