Analogue 35: Yeshua's Feast

 ANALOGUE 35: Yeshua’s Feast

Yeshua is the Eucharistic feast, because in Aramaic he is called farisatha – the One opened out and extended over all, for he came to bring the system of this world to death by means of the cross.

SYNOPSIS

• Contrasts of living and dying, as some things open and unfold while others are brought to an end. 
• Death is that of the world’s systems of blindness, ignorance and oppression.  
• The importance of the cross in opening the world into another form of consciousness and life beyond death.
• There are higher realities different from the pointless vanities of the world.  
• By the means of self-giving and self-sacrifice, a shift is made in the nature of reality: something new is brought into being and something else is destroyed and removed from existence.

COMMENTARY

The Opening

In this very succinct Analogue we are told that Yeshua provides a feast of great Thanksgiving by creating conditions where the systems of the world that had destroyed and diminished humanity are removed from power. The self-giving act of Yeshua opens a way forward that feeds and nourishes humanity. Here Yeshua is given a new name (or title) in Aramaic, farisatha—the one who opens up reality and extends it outward. This phrase corresponds to a divine Name (Al-Fattah) in Arabic (a sister-language to Aramaic), suggesting that the divine Source is the Opener, the doorway and the beginning point from which everything else unfolds towards a new reality. 

Through his self-giving, Yeshua makes the crucifixion not an ending, but an act of Eucharist—a thanksgiving feast or Eucharistia—which signals a new beginning: an opening up of what had previously been closed. Yeshua’s death was an act of total surrender that initiated a transformative change radiating out in all directions which continues until all is included and opened. Not only the world as we know it, but all of the entire Cosmos will be brought into this embrace. This act is the crosspoint, the fulcrum, between the realms in all directions. Something has begun that “nails” the current construction of this world to this cross. In a great reversal, the instrument of Yeshua's own crucifixion begins the destruction of the very systems that were attempting to annihilate him.

Freeing the World

The world, the kosmos, of Yeshua’s day took him hostage and crucified him. This act, however, planted the seeds of its own destruction, laying the foundations for a new world order. An entirely different meaning is given to the crucifixion here. Yeshua’s death was not an act of sacrifice to appease God. Rather, Yeshua died in self-sacrifice to bring the systems of this world to a close by another methodology—self-giving and thanks-giving. Such an act will ultimately frees the kosmos from bondage, which begins there and is extended, reaching beyond itself—opening out into the universe, offering itself as a new and unique form of divine Being and Consciousness. 

The malaise that sent the donkey-form-of-humanity round and round in circles is ending. Humanity is being freed by the Messiah and its limited form of consciousness is being lifted so that a feast of Great Thanksgiving for its freedom can begin. First, though, death itself must be defeated: the death-dealing systems of this world that impose their tragic blindness, ignorance and oppression upon humanity must be brought to a close, subjugated to or replaced by something higher. Then the world may open up and grow out from that narrowness into the freedom of a new form of life.  

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. The symbolism of the cross is of course historically related to the crucifixion of Yeshua who was nailed to a Roman instrument of execution. From a larger perspective, the cross is also the sign of the bi-axial dimensions of reality, expressing the truth of our lives occurring at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical axes. How do you understand the historical and symbolic concepts expressed in this analogue?
2. How is it that a fundamental transformation of the human world and its activities could happen by means of Yeshua’s profound act of self-giving and thanks-giving? How could his death transform the cross from an instrument of death to one that extends life to all the creation?
3. Do you see that it has had any such effect upon the world in our day or in you? Journal your insights. 
4. Suppose that we are each in some sense “crucified” on the double-axes of horizontal and the vertical realities. Living along both axes at once can be painful. How might you have experienced such a form of crucifixion in this way? Journal your experiences. 
5. What role does thanks-giving play in this metaphor? We often associate Eucharist simply as the remembrance of the painful torture of Yeshua’s execution imposed by the Roman Empire. How is it seen here as a form of thanksgiving turned into a feast? 

Notes for Further Reference and Study

1. The sacrament of the Eucharist has always been fundamental in Christian rites of worship. Based on the Jewish Passover feast, it came to be understood as the central act of Yeshua’s self-giving, offered as an ultimate gift of self-surrender. The analogue clearly assigns it to a feast, offered as food for humanity—both bread and wine symbolizing all that was given. Yeshua nourishes humanity while setting the human world free from its chains. These complex metaphors are woven together in this Jewish and Oriental text in ways that are different from the theology of the western tradition. In both cases it is an outpouring, but here it is seen not as a sacrifice made for sin, but as an offering that frees humankind and begins a great unfolding. You might want to read more about the sacramental mysteries and how they are understood by various traditions. An important text to begin your search is Alexander Schmemann’s For The Life of the World. The orthodox perspective in that text is similar to the teaching of this analogue. 
2. The use of the Aramaic language in this text indicates the analogue’s origin within the Aramaic speaking streams of Oriental Christianity. The term farisatha is similar to a related term in Arabic, Fataha which means to open, grant, explain, disclose, make victorious or let loose. It is the name of the first surah of the Quran, al-Fatiha, based on this same root, and is generally translated as The Opener, or The Opening.  This similarity indicates we are in the Semitic world of the Abrahamic family of languages where similar divine names are used to express fundamental spiritual realities. 
3. We typically speak of living in three-dimensional space plus time. From a normal perspective this appears to be inclusive of all reality, and from some philosophical and scientific viewpoints it is. However, more recent considerations of other dimensions beyond our normal 3-D world has led to the greater realization that this is a relative flatland by comparison. To imagine other dimensions extending beyond our reality creates a new double axis that is similar to the way in which Perennial Wisdom views reality—multi-dimensional, populated with intelligent beings and flooded with consciousness. This is the context for thinking of the cross not as an instrument of destruction but as an opening to a great multi-dimensionality through love and self-giving. 

Notes for the Translation

1. This short analogue has many interesting complexities. The first concerns the phrasing at the beginning, which in the original simply says, “the Eucharist is Yeshua.”
2. The Aramaic farisatha expresses the idea of being spread out and opening to the whole world.
3. The final phrasing concerning crucifixion could simply be translated, “for he came to crucify the kosmos.” A more graphic translation might be, “for he came to nail the system of this world to the cross” which, though not literal, is completely dynamic.