08 | Basics: Communion

I want to share a story about the last meal that Jesus had with his closest followers. It was the meal they shared the night before his arrest and execution. The gospel writer Luke is the one who retells this story.

(This story is recorded in Luke 22:7-20.)

In this particular story, Jesus sends two of his disciples, Peter and John, into Jerusalem to make some preparations so they could eat the Passover meal together.

But Peter and John ask Jesus, “Where are we supposed to prepare it?”

And Jesus tells them, “Go into the city and look for a man carrying a jar of water. He will meet you and take you to a particular house. When you get to that house, tell the master of the house that the Teacher wants to know where is the guest room where he can eat the Passover together with his disciples.”

So Peter and John head into the city, and everything went down just like Jesus told them it would, and so they prepared the Passover meal in that guest room.

When they were all together for the meal, Jesus said to them, “I have strongly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”

And then he took a cup of wine, and when he had given thanks for it he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.”

And then he took the bread on the table, and when he had given thanks for it, he broke the bread and gave it to them and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

And then in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

This is the story of Jesus’ last meal with his closest followers, and you will find this story in the other accounts of Jesus’ life as well. It’s clear from the way that Jesus prepared for this meal and presided over this meal that this was something special that he had planned to do before giving himself over to those who were out to kill him.

The specific instructions that he gives to Peter and John seem to suggest that Jesus had already made a secret arrangement with a friend in Jerusalem where he could share this meal with his disciples without being disturbed. It would have been unusual for a man to be carrying a water jar, and then the message the disciples were told to give to the master of the house seems to imply a pre-arranged method of being able to identify Jesus’ disciples.

The meal that they were to share was the Passover meal which is full of meaning and significance for all Israelites. The fact that Jesus’ last meal with his first followers was the Passover meal is no coincidence, and we need to make sure that we understand the significance of the meal and the structure of the meal in order to understand what Jesus was teaching his followers.

Jesus is taking the most significant event in Israelite history and identifying it with himself in order to institute a new kind of meal that fulfills the Passover. Today, we call that meal the Lord’s Supper (Communion, The Eucharist, etc.).

In order to better understand what Jesus is intending to do through instituting the Lord’s Supper, we will quickly look at Israel and the Passover, Jesus and the Passover and then Christians and the Lord’s Supper.

Israel and the Passover

As we’ve already mentioned, Jesus sends two of his disciples to a specific place in order to find a specific man doing a specific task who would then take them to a specific house where another specific man had already prepared a specific room for the specific purpose of accommodating Jesus and his closest followers for the Passover meal.

The Passover was the celebration commemorating the most important moment in Israel’s history. The day when God delivered his people out of their bondage in Egypt and established them as his own chosen people and as his holy nation.

We read in the Old Testament that the Passover was actually the tenth and final plague that God sent upon the Egyptians in order to finally free the Israelites from their oppression and slavery in Egypt. Through this plague, God declared that he was going to bring judgement upon the land through the death of all firstborn males throughout Egypt. Everyone in Egypt (including Israelites) were subject to suffer this act of wrath and judgement from God.

But God provided a way to escape this wrath and judgement for those who loved him and trusted him as their God. The special provision that he gave was pretty unique. A healthy young lamb was to be sacrificed, and then the blood of that lamb was to be spread on the door posts of your home. If you did this then the plague of death would pass over you which is why it is called the Passover.

And so for ancient Israelites, they had to trust in this sacrificial substitute for salvation. It was the only way they could be spared and delivered from the judgement of God. This is how God delivered his people from their slavery in Egypt and the distinguishing moment in history that gave Israel its identity as God’s chosen people. And so, God instituted a special meal that was to be celebrated once a year so that his people would remember what he did for them. It was properly called the Passover meal, and God’s people were to observe it from generation to generation.

Jesus and the Passover

Now by the time that Jesus came into the world, Jewish tradition had instituted a specific order and routine that was to be carried out throughout the course of the Passover meal. This specific structure of the meal is significant in order to understand what Jesus is doing when he shares the meal with his followers.

The main elements of the meal would have been a lamb, bread, some bitter herbs and some wine. The presider over the meal would get up with a glass of wine at four specific points during the meal in order to explain the significance of each of these elements and every aspect of the meal. The four different points of the meal were meant to represent four big promises that God made to Israel when he was preparing to rescue them from their slavery in Egypt. God promised to free them from Egypt, deliver them from slavery, redeem them by his power and renew a relationship with them as his own chosen people. (see Exodus 6:6-7)

And so as the third point in the meal approached (which is the period of the meal associated with God’s promise of redemption), the presider over the meal would get up and bless the elements of the meal by explaining their symbolic significance pertaining to the first Passover and Israel’s exodus from Egypt.

However, when Jesus gets up to administer this portion of the meal, we see the rich tradition of the past being absorbed into Jesus’ institution of something entirely new. Jesus blesses the elements, but then he proceeds to associate their symbolic significance with himself rather than with history.

He explains that the bread is his body, and that the wine is his blood.

Jesus doesn’t merely preside over the feast; He portrays himself as the feast.

Jesus begins to associate the sacrifice he is about to make with the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. And he is declaring that he is about to bring a redemption that is better than the redemption experienced by the ancient Israelites.

In essence, Jesus is using the Passover meal to demonstrate that a new kind of Passover is here and that the true freedom, deliverance and redemption that was promised by God is about to be fulfilled by what he’s about to do.

Jesus is declaring that he is actually accomplishing something that the blood of animals was only foreshadowing. And so, Jesus instituted a special meal that was to be celebrated regularly so that his people would remember what he did for them. And followers of Jesus are to observe this meal until the day that Jesus returns.

Christians and the Lord’s Supper

So what is the Lord’s Supper?

It is the special meal instituted by Jesus that is meant to remind his followers of what he has done to save us from our sin and to set us free as his new people.

And how should eat the Lord’s Supper?

The apostle Paul gives detailed instructions in his first letter to the Corinthians on how the first followers of Jesus were to eat the Lord’s Supper together. He instructs us to wait for one another and share the meal together. He instructs us to take a moment to examine ourselves and to discern whether or not we have been representing Jesus with integrity.

We ought to take a moment to confess any areas of sin that come to mind and then contemplate what Jesus has done and the sacrifice that he has made in order for us to be forgiven of our sin. Then the presider of the meal ought to take a brief moment to explain the significance of the bread and the wine in relation to the broken body and blood of Jesus. And then the bread and the wine should be taken together in remembrance of what Jesus has done and looking forward to the day that he will return.

Jesus took the most significant event in Israelite history and identified it with himself in order to institute a new kind of meal that fulfilled the old Passover. And he has commanded his followers to do this in remembrance of him.

The Lord’s Supper is meant to constantly remind all followers of Jesus that we are the true redeemed people of God waiting for that day when Jesus returns and we get to drink with him again as his renewed people on his renewed earth.

As Timothy Keller so eloquently puts it:

“The Lord’s Supper gives us a small, but very real, foretaste of our future… Imagine you were in Egypt just after that first Passover. If you stopped Israelites in those days and said, “Who are you and what is happening here?” they would say, “I was a slave, under a sentence of death, but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb and escaped that bondage, and now God lives in our midst and we are following him to the Promised Land.” That is exactly what Christians say today. If you trust in Jesus’s substitutionary sacrifice, the greatest longings of your heart will be satisfied on the day you sit down for that eternal feast in the promised kingdom of God.”