The final 24 hours of Jesus’ life on earth before His crucifixion had arrived, and it was so critical to John that he dedicated chapters 13 through 19 (about 1/3 of his book) to this night alone. The other Gospel authors give a lengthy chapter on these events, but none go into detail like John does. The only part John skimps on is the Passover Meal itself because John instead focuses on the teaching that took place during the meal. So I will focus on Matthew’s take on this meal. But this meal was crucial; only one meal ever served compared in significance: the original Passover Meal on the night before Israel left Egypt.
Jesus longed to eat this meal because this would trigger the final sequence of events that His earthly life was designed for. The Jews had been celebrating this meal for 1500 years as the marker for their God being their God of salvation. To the Jew, every time they thought of their salvation and deliverance, they all looked back to this one moment of history when they ate the meal in which the death of the firstborn would pass them over, and then God brought them out of Egypt. In the morning after that meal, every one of them would be packing up and staging to leave Egypt for good. This Passover meal was to be a perpetual reminder that the judgment that was due to all and to be placed on all would be passed over by the blood of the lamb, and in that passing by, the deliverance and freedom from slavery would take place. Israel would never serve as slaves again as a nation. This was the marker moment, and throughout the Bible, God would identify Himself as, “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” This Passover meal was the moment in which Israel ceased being a family and became a nation. This was the moment that Israel became Israel.
But all of it was for a much greater purpose. The Passover and the Exodus were a physical picture of the ultimate reality that would come this very night as Jesus sat down with His disciples. It was a private setting in an upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus would give His final teachings and carry out His final act of service before locking in and facing the greatest trial any man could ever face. This was the meal of meals that we honor and celebrate today.
I am not going to go into the details of the ritual, but the meal was marked by several dishes that each had their own symbolic meaning, including remembering the times of slavery, and several cups that had their own meaning, too. But it was during this meal that Jesus changed it up. No longer would people be remembering the exodus from Egypt and slavery, which was only a memorial for Jews. Instead, Jesus made this a memorial for the exodus from sin itself, and it would be something that people from all over the world would be able to experience.
Jesus identified two things: the bread and the cup. The bread would be the body, broken for us, and the cup would be the blood shed for us. As I am writing this, my pastor has been preaching quite a bit on the Lord’s Supper, and there is good reason to believe, like with Israel in Jesus’ time, that we’ve lost sight of what this meal really is. Too many of us take it way too lightly, and I have been guilty of that myself. Jesus said we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, and most understood precisely what He was saying. Jesus is to be our sustenance – our source, our food, the very thing that we rely on for our life.
Now, some will say that the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of Christ, and others will say that they are just symbols of the body and blood. I believe both are wrong. Christ is not still on the cross, but at the same time, to merely treat the bread and wine as symbols takes away the sacredness of this meal. It is worth noting that the demonic, the witches, etc., will take the bread and cups from Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, but not from most Reformed churches. Why not? Because the spiritual side of darkness knows that the power in the Lord’s Supper is hardly present in most Reformed circles. And no, I am not supporting those churches here, but I’m addressing a concern in doctrinally sound churches.
One thing I am learning is that the Lord’s Supper is so much more than a mere remembrance of what Jesus did. When we partake in it, it is also a declaration of war against Satan and his minions and against sin. Yet so many of us will sin all week long, all day long, then go to church and take the Lord’s Supper and act like sin never happened. There have been times I have wondered if I should partake due to what had been going on in my head that morning, and it’s a battle that I keep losing. The taking of the Lord’s Supper is to remind us of the victory over sin, that we are not to live that way anymore, and not be a cover for our sins. People have been sick and literally died because they were taking the Lord’s Supper unworthily and put a curse upon themselves.
The Lord’s Supper is for believers who have professed the faith and begun to live according to those principles. It is not for anyone who lives an open life of sin. John Calvin denied a group of immoral men from partaking because they were living lives of sexual fornication. They came in one service, demanding to be served, and Calvin barred the way. They drew swords, and Calvin did not budge. They left, and Calvin protected the sanctity of this precious ordinance of the church.
There is power in the Lord’s Supper that we simply don’t recognize in our Protestant, Reformed circles anymore. And it’s time we get a grip that we are to live supernatural lives, battling against supernatural foes, and living for the supernatural God. And yes, there is rationality behind it, but not according to human wisdom. Jesus established the Lord’s Supper as one of the two ordinances that mark and identify the Christian as being separated from the world, as being delivered from sin, as being the people of God and not of this world, and on the journey toward holiness in the process of sanctification. Let us return to what this meal is truly about and not lose its true meaning.
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