Materially speaking, there is a sparseness of things when we gather to remember The Lord. Only bread and only wine. It is a most helpful sparseness, for it helps us focus on the plenty present in The Saviour.
By contrast, the table from which The Lord took bread and wine from was adorned with all the normal trimmings that accompanied the passover lamb. Vegetables, charoset (a sweet, nutty relish), bitter herbs and unleavened bread. It was probably into the Charoset that The Lord dipped a morsel of bread, referred to as a ‘sop’ in the King James.
But there is no sop in our remembrance. That would remind us of Judas of course, not a happy character to be preoccupied with. We are certainly not gathered to remember him. Yet perhaps that is what we should find at the table. If it were not for the grace of God, there would be no bread or wine for us. A soggy morsel, as a token of us having abandoned trust in God’s Anointed one. A ticket to leave the gathered company of believers and get on with our betrayal of God’s life, light and love. That is what we deserve for that is who we would be, but for grace.
Grace removes the sop from the table. Grace calls us to feast on Christ and Him alone. No other garnishes needed.
As an interesting aside, the Oxford defines the sop as, “a piece of bread dipped in gravy, soup, or sauce.”. But the first definition reads like this:
noun: a thing of no great value given or done as a concession to appease someone whose main concerns or demands are not being met: my agent telephones as a sop but never finds me work.
The Oxford English Dictionary
How intriguing this is, for Judas was just such a man. As far as he was concerned at least, his concerns or demands were not being met. I doubt he was appeased by the morsel, but morsel he received. How different to what receive – something that speaks of infinite and unparalleled value – the very Bread of Life Himself!
