“For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NLT
Today’s verses are well known in Christian denominations, the Holy Communion, or Lord’s Supper, being the highlight of a service. The Roman Catholic denomination has a service called “Mass” in which they share in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But regardless of where they worship, all Christians celebrate a time when they remember the Lord’s Last Supper, in accordance with His instructions. Paul’s account in our verses today omits the events that preceded those momentous words of Jesus, while the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) capture the poignant drama of that fateful evening meal.
There are two facets of the Lord’s Supper that I want to dwell on today. The first is that Jesus said, through Paul’s words, “Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it”. Jesus never intended for His people to delay celebrating this occasion, setting it apart as a special service perhaps four times a year. Some churches make the Lord’s Supper an integral part of their weekly meetings. Others only have such a service at irregular intervals, when someone remembers. But this is a very solemn and important part of a Christian’s life, because when we share the Communion with each other, it brings together the very essence of why we are Christians in the first place. There is the significance of the bread, being shared from, ideally, a single source such as a roll or a loaf, depending on the size of the congregation, and, nevertheless, primarily remembering that Jesus willingly sacrificed His body for us. This then captures the importance of being together in unity and spirit, and in the presence of the Lord. Then we have the cup of wine, which we share, as we remember Jesus’ death, where He shed His blood for the salvation of all who believe in Him. Today, it is sad in a way that we have abandoned the single source of the bread and the shared cup in favour of sanitised alternatives, which even take the form of a small plastic cup with two seals, with a small wafer of something sandwiched between the two and above the container of some form of juice. Where is the oneness in that? But the Lord’s Supper is an act of remembrance, and how we share it must never detract from the importance of Jesus and all that He has done for us.
Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you”. We should note the word “given,” as many services substitute “broken” for it. Jesus was once described by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), a statement with special significance because of the Passover lamb. We read in Exodus 12:46, “Each Passover lamb must be eaten in one house. Do not carry any of its meat outside, and do not break any of its bones”. John took great care in his Gospel to relate this account of the first Passover lamb with Jesus, in John 19:36: “These things happened in fulfilment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”” Why so many leaders choose to say, “This is my body, which was broken for you” escapes me.
The second saying of Jesus was cataclysmic in its impact. The Jews, up to this point, had known only one covenant —the law of Moses. But Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, as we read in Matthew 26:26-27, “And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many”—the meaning of this we will consider on another day.
For pilgrims everywhere, the Last Supper is a time of remembrance, preparing our hearts through the confession of our sins and reminding us of the relationship between Christians both inside and outside our churches and fellowships. But above all, we remember all that Jesus did for us at Calvary. He died in our place, taking on Himself the punishment we deserved to redeem us from our lives of sin. And now we can stand before Father God wearing a cloak of righteousness given to us by Jesus. This is such an amazingly loving act that we can never forget it. Ever.
Dear Lord Jesus. How can we ever forget Your ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, where You died for us. We are so grateful and look forward to the time when we can join you in Heaven. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 