Note that we’re still on our Holy Week “topsy-turvy” schedule, always “anticipating” the next appointed service. As I said, despite my not understanding this, somehow it feels just right for this Week when the whole world gets turned upside down.
Holy Gospel: Luke 22:1-39
Jesus and the disciples are in the upper room at the house of John Mark’s mother – by tradition the Mark who later wrote the Gospel. Imagine having the Mystical Supper, the risen Lord’s Pascha night appearance and the descent of the Holy Spirit in your house!
Matthew, Mark and Luke all say this was the Passover meal. John says it was the night before the Passover – a mystery which I think has never been resolved.
Icons by permission of Saint Isaac’s Skete at skete.com
In Luke Jesus says: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer….I shall not eat it again till it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God… I will not drink the fruit of the vine again till the Kingdom of God comes.” A shadow must have fallen over the meal which is usually a celebration. They knew what was coming so very soon, and they couldn’t face it.
The Institution of the Holy Eucharist
At the appointed time during the meal Jesus took the unleavened bread, and added the puzzling words “This is my Body given for you.” And at the end: “This is my Blood shed for you.”
What could this mean? Some Christians have given complex philosophical explanations. We Orthodox have not. Nor do we believe there is a chemical change in the Holy Gifts. Materially, they remain bread and wine. And yet they are Christ’s Body and Blood. We just accept what He said: “This is my Body… this is my Blood…” (How odd that some Christians who try to take the entire Bible “literally” do not take this literally!)
“Do this in remembrance of me” is a terrible translation. It suggests that Christ said “Do this to remind yourselves of my Body… my Blood”. Far from it! The word “Remembrance” comes from the Greek “anamnesis” / “ανάμνηση”, which in the New Testament means to “re-call, call to be present again.”
The text of the Liturgy in my Archdiocese (again an inadequate translation) tells us that here we have “in remembrance, therefore, this saving commandment and all those things which have come to pass for us: the cross, the grave, the third-day resurrection, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming”. It means in fact that we call Christ to be present in all His fullness, in all He has done and is doing and ever will do for us.
Coptic Orthodox
The Holy Eucharist is the place our Lord Jesus Christ specifically appointed for us to find Him and to feed on Him – gain Life from Him. “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh.” John 5:50-51
Here is my own simple, non-philosophical non-dogmatic approach to the words “Body” and “Blood” – which I hope is not heretical, and if it is please tell me, and I will recant. Our own bodies are the place where we are located, through which we act. Christ’s Body the Holy Eucharist is the place where He is, through which He acts for our salvation. Our blood is the source of our life, our strength. Just so, Christ’s Blood gives us life, strength for Eternal Life.
Christians, guided by the words of Saint Paul, would later emphasize that the Church also is the Body of Christ – that He meets us, comes to us, strengthens us through the holy People of God, both on earth and on high.
As indeed He does in all things if we only have eyes to see, for there is no place where Christ our God is not. This is why the Orthodox Church does not have “devotions to the Blessed Sacrament” as in traditional Western Christianity, focusing attention on the Eucharist itself. Let me try to say this carefully, so as not to mislead: In Orthodoxy we believe the Holy Eucharist exists to feed us with the Bread of Salvation, but not to draw us into the Sacrament itself. The Eucharist is “outward directed”, so to speak. We find Christ’s Presence first in the Eucharist, so that then He can begin to lead us out to find His Presence everywhere in all things – already waiting for us there.
Saint Symeon’s Orthodox Choir (“Orthodox Christian Chants” site)
The Narrative continues
Judas now goes out to betray Him. Jesus again (lest they forget it) tells His 
apostles how to lead the Church – not by lording it over others but by serving them, leading them, just as He the Lord of all is servant of all, and will now lead our way through death into the Resurrection. He promises His Apostles that they will sit with Him at His table in His Kingdom on thrones judging the tribes of Israel. Tonight they will fail, but He looks beyond tonight. He knows they will again be faithful.
Saint Clement’s Church, Ochrid, Macedonia
Simon Peter especially: Simon, Satan is out to get you. “No, Lord, I will go with you to prison and death”, as indeed He did in Rome 35 years later. But not tonight. Peter, before dawn you will deny me three times – and so discover how weak you are. (This is something we all need to discover.) Once I sent you all out with nothing, so you would learn to depend on God alone. But now you need provisions, a moneybag, a sword, “for now that which is written about Me comes to its conclusion”. He speaks in symbols. The disciples don’t understand: “Look, we have two swords.” Jesus said: “It is enough.”
Enough swords? No. That night Peter will use a sword, and Jesus will forbid it: “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword”.
Like all the others, they do not understand. So now He will show them. He leads them out to the Mount of Olives and into the Garden of Gethsemane.
And now in the next three days we will follow with Him, with them, through the final crucial events of Holy Week. (Do you know where the word “crucial” comes from?)
Holy Unction
For most of our Orthodox history the Holy Wednesday night service was Matins/Orthros, which continues the Holy Week narrative. However, beginning a few hundred years ago in Greek and Antiochian 
churches, Matins began to be replaced by the long service of Holy Unction – which as written requires seven priests and seven deacons and I don’t remember what all. (They were actually able to do that at Agia Sophia in Constantinople.)
courtesy of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
The Anointing was used as part of the preparation for Pascha Communion. In those days the Holy Eucharist was received rarely, for many only at Pascha, and there was extensive preparation – strict fasting all week, Confession and Holy Unction. This is still true in some places.
However, today Communions are far more frequent in most places, and Holy Unction is also used much more often for healing those who have serious illness, as it was originally intended. Still the Holy Wednesday Anointing remains popular, at least in “Byzantine” Orthodoxy. (I think it’s not common in the Slavic tradition.) I know Greek churches especially are full to overflowing this evening.
Liturgical scholars now recommend that we have both Matins and Anointing services tonight – which is a whole lot! I mean, three or more hours worth. When I was pastor at Saint Nicholas, Cedarburg, so nothing would be lost I worked out a sort of hybrid combination of the two. (Please do not tell the Bishop…)
For myself, I have come to find Holy Wednesday Unction meaningful – not as preparation to receive the Eucharist, which normally I do once a week and more, but now to heal my sin-sick soul, to open my inner eyes, to clear my foggy mind – so that I can enter into the wonderful events of these next three days with my whole being at peace and open to God, and truly live them with my Lord Jesus.
I suggest that before you are anointed on Holy Wednesday night you pray something like this: “Lord, open my eyes, my ears, my heart, and enter into my soul. Focus my wandering mind. Let me walk with you, fully alert, through your Passion and Death and into your holy Resurrection.
Next Post will arrive tomorrow morning for Holy Thursday Morning Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil