Communion Cups
I was sitting in Church as our time of Holy Communion was drawing to a close. For the past fifty-four years Beverley and I have taken communion, basically every week since we became church members; Beverley for longer than I as she was a church member five years before me. I was sitting contemplating the significance of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross for us. Every Sunday we have taken the bread and the wine representing His body given for us and His blood shed for us. Having thanked God for His body and the spiritual life it gives us, and for His blood, which signifies His cleansing us of our sin, I was idly looking at the communion cup in my hand.
It was made of plastic, as many are these days. I prefer the older glasses but the washing and drying of hundreds of glasses after every service was a time consuming exercise. For fifty years I have thanked God for the people who washed and wiped thousands of glasses every week and saw their task as a humble privilege.
I thought of communion cups I have on a shelf in my study. Each one came from a special communion service attended by thousands of people in different parts of the world. One is made of baked clay, made by some faithful peasant Christians in Mexico. Another is made of olive wood from Jerusalem made by Christian Palestinians. Another in silver plated stainless steel from Nashville, USA; another in finest Staffordshire china from Brighton, England; another in glass but covered in finest leather marked with a maple leaf from Calgary, Canada; another in blue and white painted Delft china from Holland, and another fitted into a wood tray with a hand painted sprig of golden wattle, from Brisbane. Another made from paper from Asia. Each of these remind us of moving occasions of Holy Communion celebrated with hundreds of our friends from scores of countries around the world.
The communion cup is the symbol of the faith we share in common. I have a small, boxed set containing four glasses and a silver tray (platen) with an airtight container for bread and a small bottle for wine. I have used this hundreds of times, sharing Holy Communion with sick and dying people in hospital. For many it was their last act of faith. It is one of the greatest privileges of an ordained minister. I have also a small communion set, once a missionary’s and the only set of communion glasses in the whole of Papua New Guinea, given to him for the first converts. It was many years before it was used.
I have also some magnificent silver chalices used for large Church services. Once, a silver chalice was given to priests upon ordination, usually given by their family.
Chalices have been used since the early church. Because of Jesus’ command to his disciples to “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19), and Paul’s account of the Eucharistic rite in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25, the celebration of Holy Communion became central to Christian worship. Naturally, the vessels used in this important act of worship were highly decorated and treated with great respect.
Where all communicants now receive from the chalice, the modern chalices used tend to be larger. In the early and medieval church, when a deacon was ordained he would be handed a chalice during the service as a sign of his ministry. The chalice is considered to be one of the most sacred vessels in Christian liturgical worship, and it is often blessed before use.
In Christian tradition, the “Holy Chalice” is the vessel which Jesus used at the Last Supper to serve the wine. New Testament texts make no mention of the cup except within the context of the Last Supper and give no significance whatever to the object itself. There is no reliable tradition regarding the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper. In the sixth and seventh centuries pilgrims to Jerusalem were led to believe that the actual chalice was still venerated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, having within it the sponge which was presented to Our Saviour on Calvary. But there also grew up an amazing tradition concerning the cup of the Last Supper.
In this highly muddled version, the vessel is known as the Holy Grail. In this legend, the cup was used to collect and store the blood of Christ at the Crucifixion. In a book I purchased recently, “The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend” (Alan Lupack, Oxford, 2005) there are a hundred pages covering legends of the Holy Grail. Those legends are tied up with the Crusades, with historic places and poems. The poems are legion, from Thomas Mallory and Tennyson to T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”.
Then I started to think of all the chalice legends that have influenced our films. There were hundreds of black and white films before my time. The first I remember was in 1954, when as a 15 year old new Christian I went to see “The Silver Chalice” starring Paul Newman, as the historical silversmith who made the silver chalice to hold the original pottery communion cup used by Jesus. Archaeologists had discovered this chalice in Antioch in Lebanon dated from 426 AD and it is today in a museum in New York. The film was not very good.
“The Fisher King” with Jeff Bridges is about a disc jockey who is on a search for the Holy Grail. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in 1989 is Harrison Ford again fighting the Nazis to rescue his father Sean Connery who disappeared while hunting for the Holy Grail. Of course, the one which causes the most laughs is “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. The less said about this the better.
Glastonbury (England) and Joseph of Arimathea’s supposed visit with the Grail is still great for tourism and the whole cycle of King Arthur and Merlin stories, including the new series on television at the moment. Many of these legends were picked up in the best selling book and film by Dan Brown, “The Da Vinci Code”. Millions of people have believed something of these fictional stories based upon a historical cup handled by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.
After contemplating the significance of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross for us, I thanked God for His body and the spiritual life it gives us, and for His blood which signifies His cleansing us of our sin. My idle looking at the communion cup in my hand made me realize how much it has influenced our literature, poetry, art, stories, legends and films.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.