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The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way he took the cup, saying: This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. When ever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes.
Those are among the most powerful and humbling words that it is my privilege to say from time to time-whenever we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Mark gives an account of Jesus' last supper with his disciples. So does Matthew. So does Luke. So does Paul-in his Letter to the Corinthians.
The Gospel of John doesn't include this account, but references to the imagery of the Lord's Supper abound in John's Gospel. It is John who records Jesus announcing to the crowds, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (John 6:53)
This was a hard teaching, and many who had been following him turned away. It was in this context that Jesus turned to his closest followers with the question, "You do not want to leave too, do you?" And Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:67-68)
The reason we celebrate the Lord's Supper, in which we partake of the body and the blood of Christ, is because we believe and know that he is the Holy One of God.
The Gospel accounts of Jesus' last supper are narratives. They tell what happened. Jesus sent two of his disciples to prepare the Passover meal. When evening came-the beginning of the Sabbath-Jesus gathered with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. During the meal, Jesus took bread. "This is my body," he said. Then he took the cup. "This is my blood," he said. Then, after this cup, Jesus stated that he would not drink of the fruit of the vine again-not for awhile anyway. Then they sung a hymn.
The Gospel accounts don't provide a lot of explanation. Why the bread? Why the cup? Why the statement about not drinking wine again?
Do you ever wish Matthew or Mark or Luke had stopped here and added a paragraph or two of explanation?
Jesus didn't explain his actions to the disciples, he just did them.
The Gospel writers didn't explain his actions either, they just described them.
But Jesus didn't do these things during just any meal. It was a Passover meal.
And the Gospel writers let us know that this didn't happen during just any meal. It was a Passover meal.
The Passover meal was, and is, a ritual meal. It is a meal of remembrance, and every aspect of the meal is weighted with symbolic meaning.
The disciples knew the symbolic meanings in the Passover meal, and so they could recognize the significance of Jesus' actions and words. That very night they still didn't quite understand, but after Jesus died and was buried and was raised, they remembered and they understood. Jesus' actions and words spoke for themselves.
The earliest Christians were all Jews. They knew the symbolic meanings in the Passover meal, and so they could recognize the significance of Jesus' actions and words. They didn't need a lot of explanation. The actions and the words spoke for themselves.
Later on, especially during the time of the Reformation, Christians began to argue about how it could be that the bread of the Sacrament is the body of Christ and the wine (or juice) of the Sacrament is the blood of Christ.
Some believe that, by the action of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine are physically changed into the body and blood of Christ, though their appearance do not change. At the other extreme, some believe that the identification is completely symbolic-the bread represents the body of Christ, the wine represents the blood of Christ.
Martin Luther and John Calvin were somewhere in between-disagreeing with both extremes and with each other. Luther believed that Christ is really present in the bread and wine, though the bread and wine do not themselves physically change. Calvin-who was the spiritual father of Presbyterians-believed that, when the people of God celebrate the Lord's Supper, they are lifted in a spiritual sense into the presence of Jesus Christ in heaven where he remains seated at the right hand of God; in that way, Christ is truly present with the people as they celebrate the Sacrament.
Calvin especially liked those words we say at the beginning of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving: The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.
The earliest Christians didn't argue about how it happened. I'm not sure they even thought to ask the question. They lived in a different time, when people were less driven to understand the mechanics of how everything worked.
They did, however, wonder what it all meant. Their familiarity with the symbolism in the Passover meal helped them at least begin to understand.
The Passover meal is a meal of remembrance. Every year the Jewish people celebrated Passover as God commanded them, in order to commemorate the greatest redemptive event in history (before the coming of Christ himself)-the Exodus. Some 1500 years or so before the birth of Christ, God liberated his people from slavery in Egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is also a meal of remembrance that believers-whether Jewish or Gentile-celebrate as Jesus commanded, "Do this in remembrance of me," in order to commemorate the greatest redemptive event in history (bar none). In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, God liberated his people from slavery to sin and led us to freedom in Christ.
The celebration of Passover is about more than bringing into memory an event that happened to ancestors long, long ago. Remembering in the Passover is about reliving the event in the ritual. When God commanded the Israelites to observe the Passover every year, he instructed them: "In the days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.'" (Exodus 13:14) Every generation remembers: the Lord brought us out of bondage.
The celebration of the Lord's Supper is also about more than bringing into memory an event that happened to one group of disciples long, long ago. Remembering in the Lord's Supper is about reliving the event in the ritual. Every generation of Christians remembers: the Lord brought us out of bondage.
In the original Passover event, God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without defect. They were to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they would eat the lambs. (Houses so marked would be "passed over" and left untouched by the tenth and final plague-the slaughter of the first-born of Egypt-the plague that finally convinced Pharaoh to let the people go.) That same night, the Israelites were to eat the meat of the lamb roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. (Exodus 12)
As long as the Temple in Jerusalem stood, every Passover meal included this sacrificial lamb. (The Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., making further sacrifices impossible, so the Passover meal since then has included a shank of lamb.) Jesus' instructions to his disciples to prepare for the Passover included this sacrificial lamb.
The next day, on the cross, Jesus himself took the place of the Passover lamb, as John announced when he saw Jesus: "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) In his First Letter (1:18-25), Peter, too, speaks of the Lamb of God. "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."
In his death on the cross, the only sacrifice ever needed was completed. The one perfect Lamb gave his life, once and for all, that all who place their trust in him might be set free and given new life.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper does include bread. Originally, Christians used unleavened bread. Many still do. Some now use regular bread-more similar to what most of us are used to eating on a regular basis.
The unleavened bread has symbolism though. It was unleavened bread that the Israelites ate during the first Passover meal. They needed to be ready to leave in a hurry; they had no time to leaven the bread. Even more than that, the absence of yeast represents purity and wholeness. In then Bible, yeast sometimes symbolizes corruption or sin.
During the last supper, Jesus took the bread, and gave thanks to God, and gave it to disciples. He said to them, "Take, eat. This is my body, given for you."
In the Passover meal, three pieces of unleavened bread are eaten, representing Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. During the meal, the middle piece is taken out, wrapped in linen, and hidden. Later, after it is found, it is given to the participants.
Jewish Christians who celebrate the Passover now see the three pieces of unleavened bread as symbolic of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The middle piece represents the Son (Jesus), who was crucified, and whose body was wrapped in white linen and buried (hidden) and resurrected (found), to be partaken of by all who will. (http://www.amfi.org/passover.htm)
In the Passover meal, after this middle piece of unleavened bread is shared, the third cup of wine out of four comes. The cup is called the "Cup of Redemption," because it marks the third of God's four promises to the chosen people: "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm."
When Mark writes, "then Jesus took the cup," this is the cup he took-the Cup of Redemption. About this cup Jesus said: "This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God did indeed redeem his people with an outstretched arm-once and for all.
The fourth cup of wine is called the "Cup of Praise" or Elijah's cup. This cup is left untouched to mark the waiting for Elijah's return, which would announce the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus did not drink this fourth cup at the Passover meal in the upper room. When he drank the third cup he said "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God." There was no more need to wait for Elijah to announce Messiah. Jesus had said that John the Baptist counts as the return of Elijah. And the Messiah had come. Jesus left that cup untouched to await the time when he would come again, when the kingdom of God would come in all its fullness.
The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way he took the cup, saying: This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. When ever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes.
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