This meal is commonly referred to the Last Supper. That is why Paul refers to Jesus as "our Passover lamb [who] has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). As we learned from the cup after supper, Jesus was telling his disciples that he would be the Passover lamb slaughtered for their redemption and freedom. The physical action of the Lord’s Supper is not the consumption of a seven-course meal. That is, we are to consciously call to mind the person of Jesus as he once lived and the work of Jesus as he once died and rose again, and what his work means for the forgiveness for our sins. spiritually . God required the Jewish people to eat bitter herbs during their Passover meal (Numbers 9:11). It appears clear that Jesus and his disciples did eat the Passover supper. So for the Lord’s Supper to be what Jesus means for it to be, something more must be happening than only eating, drinking, and remembering. Paragraph 12.4 gives the doctrinal summary of what we believe and teach about the Lord’s Supper: We believe that the Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of the Lord in which gathered believers eat bread, signifying Christ’s body given for His people, and drink the cup of the Lord, signifying the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. About the other things I will give directions when I come. Answers bring clarity and structure to our lives. Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples. Here are believers—those who trust and treasure Jesus Christ—and Paul says that they are participating in the body and blood of Christ. But how can we talk to friends who find themselves gripped by them? Indeed, if the devil could put on flesh, he could do it. . The Passover was instituted the night the destroyer passed through Egypt. Philadelphia, PA 19106-2155 The Gospels of Matthew (26:26ff), Mark (14:22ff), and Luke (22:14ff) all report the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples the night before he died. The last “cup of blessing” at the end of the Passover meal was a cup of wine used to celebrate the fact that God had blessed His chosen people and would bless them again someday in Jerusalem. The time for the Passover celebration has arrived. We eat and drink—that is, we take into our lives—what happened on the cross. Eat, drink, and remember. Let me simply read slowly 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 as we move joyfully and seriously to the Lord’s table. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11:26, Paul says, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” So there is a proclamation aspect to the supper. 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. He warns that if you come to the Lord’s Supper in a cavalier, callous, careless way that does not discern the seriousness of what happened on the cross, you may, if you are a believer, lose your life, not because of wrath, but as an act of God’s fatherly discipline. During Passover, God commanded the Israelites to eat only unleavened bread (i.e., bread without yeast) for seven days. Many times they are easily given: What time is dinner? It means that they are sharing in or benefiting from what happened on the altar. Why Did Jesus Want to Eat That Last Supper? The Last Supper. In conclusion, then, the Synoptics present the picture that the Last Supper was the Passover meal, whereas John gives the idea that the Passover was not celebrated by the Jews until after Jesus’ death and burial. But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. It is not mysticism. In this exclusive guest post, Boston University Professor of Religion Jonathan Klawans provides an update to his popular Bible Review article questioning this common assumption. Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18). That happened once and for all in history. In it he was founding the priesthood, a new structure, one that he was bequeathing exclusively to His apostles and to no one else. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. Something that unbelievers and the devil cannot do. The questions I asked when I first learned all of this were: Why this bread? So the participants in the Lord’s Supper are the gathered believers in Jesus. It is done in public. Because matzah has no yeast, it also doesn’t rise, and so must be pierced all over to prevent it from burning–though striped burn marks are often inevitable. Verses 23b-25, “He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. By faith—by trusting in all that God is for us in Jesus—we nourish ourselves with the benefits that Jesus obtained for us when he bled and died on the cross. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. “ [T]he historical origin of the Lord’s Supper is that final supper that Jesus ate with his disciples the night before he was crucified. And notice the word “church” in verse 18: “when you come together as a church.” This is the body of Christ, the assembly of the followers of Jesus. He died publicly on a Roman cross in the place of sinners so that anyone who believes on him might be rescued from the wrath of God. 33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. Exodus 12:46). Many people assume that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Seder, a ritual meal held in celebration of He got a towel and a wash … (3) The hypothesis that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper on Tuesday night has an added dimension of historical plausibility: it allows more time for the extensive legal proceedings that transpired between his arrest and condemnation. What exactly is the relationship between Israel in the old covenant and the church in the new? When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we feast spiritually by faith on all the promises of God bought by the blood of Jesus. He had a body and a heart that pumped blood and skin that bled. The closest text to support this is in the previous chapter: 1 Corinthians 10:16-18. She is the co-author of Kingdom Vision and Kingdom Values, and the upcoming God You Long For. Just as the first lamb’s blood would serve as a price to redeem the people of Israel from slavery and enable them to enter into a covenant with God at Mount Sinai, so too Jesus’s blood would be the payment to redeem his disciples (both then and now) from slavery to sin and enable them to enter a new covenant with God (see Jeremiah 31:31). and 2) What frequency or infrequency helps us feel its value rather than becoming callous to it? “Those who eat and drink in a worthy manner partake of Christ’s body and blood, not physically, but spiritually, in that, by faith, they are nourished with the benefits He obtained through His death, and thus grow in grace.”, Where does this idea of “partaking of Christ’s body and blood . Warning, even when administered in the most tactful manner and conveyed in the most kindly spirit, as a rule, only intensifies hatred and fires the evil determination to carry out to the full one's own selfish projects, when love is once really dead. The Last Supper was a Passover; the Lord's Supper was instituted during the Passover, but it is not a "Christian Passover" -- it is something completely new. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ (koinōnia estin tou haimatos tou Christou)? So he said, Eat your own supper at home and come together to eat the Lord’s Supper. Each describes Jesus giving thanks or blessing the bread and the cup, and giving them to his disciples saying that the bread is his body and the cup is the blood of the covenant, or the new covenant in his blood. It is very simple. Not imagining. Help us share God's Word where needed most. The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” he means: Do we not at the Lord’s table feast spiritually by faith on every spiritual blessing bought by the body and blood of Christ? For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hereof, why did Jesus celebrate the Last Supper? Verses 24 and 25: “Do this in remembrance of me.” As we do the physical act of eating and drinking, we are to do the mental act of remembering. Several times, the Lord gave the Israelites specific instructions on how to commemorate their miraculous exodus from Egypt—by recounting the Exodus and Passover story over a shared meal of unleavened bread, wine, bitter herbs, and roasted lamb on the 14th day of the month of Aviv. Soon, Jesus would be pierced, striped, and “broken.” He would give himself up to affliction, explaining to his disciples that his body was to be “given for [them]” (Luke 22:19)—in other words, for their freedom. In Mishnah Pesachim, the oral teachings of various rabbis – including Rabbi Gamaliel (teacher of the apostle Paul) and Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai (contemporaries of Jesus) – are recorded in writing. Bread and Cup. 27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Quite simply, the last supper "sends us" the Eucharist. Suzy Silk is the Teaching Pastor at Church of the City NYC. Nisan 21 is a solemn fast. Execution and death. There is nothing in the text that commands or forbids the one or the other. Jesus and his disciplines were celebrating Passover on the night before his death. So I take verse 16 and 17 to mean that when believers eat the bread and drink the cup physically we do another kind of eating and drinking spiritually. He is author of. The third cup, representing the promise “I will redeem you,” was to be drunk after dinner (after eating the Passover lamb) when consuming the broken matzah (specifically the piece of matzah that had been wrapped in a napkin and hidden away during the dinner). The central observance of Holy Thursday is the ritual reenactment of the Last Supper at Mass. The Last Supper today is remembered during the Lord’s Supper, or communion (1 Corinthians 11:23–33). The Last Supper was the final meal Jesus shared with his Disciples in Jerusalem. Verse 17b: “When you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.” Verse 18: “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.” Verse 20: “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.” Verse 33: “When you come together to eat, wait for one another.” Verse 34: “If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment.”. Charoset. The Lord’s Supper roots us, time after time, in the nitty-gritty of history. So the historical origin of the Lord’s Supper is that final supper that Jesus ate with his disciples the night before he was crucified. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. This pierced, striped, and holy bread was a perfect symbol for what would be done to Jesus. If the identification holds, this would tighten the possible connection between Jesus, the Last Supper, and the Essene solar calendar. Jesus is now our forever “lamb of God” who has forever freed us from slavery to sin and brought us into a new and eternal covenant with God.