God gave Israel manna in the desert. He instructed his people to gather three times a year for annual feasts. Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 in a deserted place.
Our Lord provides for our daily food and our desire to feast, reminding us that he is our provision. The Lord’s Supper is so humble that we might not think of it as a meal. But it, too, is a reminder of God’s greatest provision and it should inspire our greatest thanksgiving.
Jesus was in an upper room in Jerusalem with his disciples. They were gathered to celebrate the Passover, a feast observed annually for well over a thousand years by this time. It commemorated God’s deliverance of his chosen people from slavery in Egypt.
Passover included a meal with a roasted lamb, slaughtered as a sacrifice earlier in the day at the temple. While Jesus and the disciples were eating the Passover meal, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples.
All of this was normal enough. Unleavened bread was part of the Passover meal. It was a reminder that when God rescued the people from Egypt, they left in haste. They didn’t have time to put leaven, or yeast, in their bread and let it rise before baking it. As a result, the bread was flat and brittle like a cracker.
By the first century, the unleavened bread had taken on an additional meaning. The yeast or leaven that makes bread rise had come to be a symbol of spiritual impurity and corruption. As leaven spreads through the lump of dough, sin and unrighteousness spread through a soul, a family, a community, or even a nation. Unleavened bread had become a symbol of what is holy and pure, free of sin and corruption.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said a blessing, and broke it. He gave it to the disciples and said, “Take. Eat. This is my body.” Jesus reinterpreted the bread so that it now stands for his body. The unleavened bread is the perfect symbol for Jesus’ body, because he is sinless, pure, and holy. And as that bread was broken, so Jesus’ body would be wounded on the cross.
The Passover ritual in the ancient world included four cups of wine which the participants drank at certain times during the evening. These cups were added to the Passover ritual in later generations to remind the people of God’s promises in Exodus 6. Each cup represented one of the promises: I will bring you out, I will free you, I will redeem you, and I will take you as my own people.
The cup that Jesus used to institute the Lord’s Supper may very well have been cup number three. The third of God’s four promises was to redeem his people, the perfect symbol and reminder of Jesus’ work of redemption on the cross.
After taking the cup and offering thanks, he gave it to them saying, “Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant for many being poured out for forgiveness of sins.” Jesus says that this cup is his blood. His life.
It is his blood of the covenant. A covenant is an agreement between two parties. The prophet Jeremiah told God’s people to expect a day when the Lord would institute a new covenant with his people, one written not on stone tablets but written on their hearts. Jesus is letting his disciples know that his sacrifice, his blood, will institute that new covenant.
Jesus’ last statement gives us the reason for his sacrifice. It is for the forgiveness of sins for the many. The many are God’s people. As God’s adopted sons and daughters, we enjoy the benefits Jesus secured with his sacrifice, including forgiveness for our sins, our disobedience against God.
“And I say to you-all I will certainly not drink from this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you-all new in the kingdom of my Father.” Yes, his body will be wounded, crushed, pierced, and his blood poured out, but he will again drink the fruit of the vine with his disciples. He will drink it again on that day, the day when God’s kingdom, his Father’s kingdom, is finally and fully consummated.
A day is coming when all Jesus’ followers will celebrate with him at the wedding supper of the Lamb, the Lamb of course, being Jesus, the ultimate Passover Lamb. Jesus assures his disciples that he will once again be at the table with them celebrating and drinking the cup.
Remember the past. Jesus died for our sins. Rejoice in the future. Jesus will come for all who belong to him. He will share his abundance and joy with us forever! Give thanks!
May the Lord inspire us to remember his abundance and express our deepest gratitude to him,
Brother Richard
brotherrichardsblog.com 