THE LORD’S SUPPER

Jesus established the Lord’s Supper on the night He was betrayed and arrested. It is a memorial to the death and resurrection of Jesus, pre-pictured and foreshadowed by the Jewish Passover meal. It was during a Passover celebration with his disciples that Jesus took bread and gave it to them. He said, “This is my body, which is given for you; remember me when you do this” (1 Corinthians 11:24). After they had finished eating, He took the wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; whenever you drink this, do it in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). It is a sermon of sorts, because every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, Paul said, we proclaim the return of Christ until it happens (1 Corinthians 11:26).

The new covenant of Christ was sealed with His blood. Jesus died to save us and to initiate the covenant that was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31. Because Jesus died for us, we do not live under a law system where we depend on our ability to get things “right.” We live in a relationship of love and acceptance with the Christ who died for us.

As sinful creatures often do, the Lord’s Supper had been corrupted by the church in Corinth, and Paul wrote to them to correct those abuses. To partake of the bread and the cup means that you believe in Christ in a personal relationship and you realize that it is a “participation in the blood of Christ and in the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16).

Partaking of the bread means that we are one in Christ (1 Corinthians 10:17). There is a serious warning from the apostle about taking the Lord’s Supper in an “unworthy manner” because it displays a failure to seriously and soberly “discern the body” (1 Corinthians 11:27, 29). So believers are warned to “examine themselves” before participating (1 Corinthians 11:28). This command is not meant to drive you away from the Lord’s Supper. On the contrary, it causes you to look away from yourself and your sin to Christ, to put your faith in Him and to recognize your unity in Jesus with every other believer. You honor the sacrifice of Christ’s body on the cross, and you honor the unity of Christ’s spiritual body, the church.

Being a part of this memorial to Jesus has tremendous significance and power in the Christian life. But it is a simple memorial to be done in a simple way: in appreciation for what Christ has done for you and in appreciation for what He has done for all of your brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus is the “bread of life,” the giver of eternal life to all who put their trust in Him (John 6:35, 48, 51). One of the most challenging things our Lord ever said was that we as believers eat His flesh and drink His blood. If we do, we are in a relationship with Him and have eternal life (John 6:54, 56).

Jesus was not talking about the Lord’s Supper when He spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. But the metaphor He used there points to the same thing to which the Lord’s Supper points: we are saved and sustained by the finished work of Christ. We feed on Him by having faith in Him in a daily relationship of trust and obedience. This is where our spiritual sustenance comes from.

All of these things are about “communion” with Jesus and with one another. And they point to the eternal communion we will have with Christ and His people in heaven (Matthew 26:29; Revelation 19:9).

So the Lord’s Supper is a concrete way to remember and celebrate the salvation that we have in Jesus and the unity that we share with one another. It is a beautiful act of faith that is done in remembrance of and in honor of Jesus. It points to the fact that Jesus died so that we can have our sins forgiven (Matthew 26:28), and it establishes the new covenant which His blood has brought about (Luke 22:20).

The church that was established by Christ in the New Testament “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). We do the same thing today because we want to share fellowship with one another and celebrate the blood of Jesus that makes that possible (1 John 1:3). Assembling together in faith and sharing in the Lord’s Supper encourages us to continue serving Christ (Hebrews 10:25). We are to draw closer to Christ, and we are to appreciate one another and draw closer to one another in the unified body of believers (Romans 12:5). And that is what the Lord’s Supper is all about.

Bryan Dewayne Dunaway