We rightfully make a big deal of “last” meals. When close friends move away, we cherish the opportunity to enjoy one last nice meal together until we meet again. Before we send the kid off to college, the last meal together is a special one.
Perhaps it isn’t so unordinary that we should find our Conquering King dining the night before his death. After all, even those sentenced to death today are generally offered a last meal request before they die.
But this was no ordinary meal. This was yet one more opportunity for Jesus to play the host – always the one to serve others rather than be served. On Holy Thursday (also known as Maundy Thursday), we remember with gratitude our Savior’s final meal and how through it he still feeds us today. When our Conquering King Dines with his own, he provides the menu and the means to feed us exactly what we need.
We can be quite certain of the menu spread out on the table that evening, since we know the meal they were celebrating. It was the Passover. Ever since the time the Lord had delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, he had established a special meal that was intended to serve two purposes.
One, it would serve as a vivid memory of the first Passover, during which the angel of the Lord passed over every Israelite home with lamb’s blood brushed around its doorposts, sparing the firstborn child.
Two, it would serve to foreshadow the blood of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, the promised Messiah, Jesus. The meal itself involved certain food and drink that held special symbolic meaning, as well as an established pattern of prayer and dialogue. Two of the items at that meal, which we are more familiar with than the others because of their present-day association with our Holy Communion, were unleavened bread (which simply means it didn’t have yeast in it) and wine.
But on that night Jesus forever improved the menu. Why? The primary reason was that the meaning and significance of the Passover itself was being amplified and fulfilled. God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt was itself a foreshadowing of the greater deliverance the Messiah came to bring: deliverance from hell.
How would Jesus secure this deliverance? Not by brushing lamb’s blood on any doorpost, but by shedding his own blood on the cross – blood that sufficiently paid the price for all sin. It is that very blood of Jesus he offers us in this special meal. And more than that – Jesus also offers his very body.
Why should it matter what one believes about this meal? For starters, Paul thought it was important enough to pass along to believers, given that he had received this instruction from the Lord himself. Paul, therefore, is not simply sharing his preferences or opinions on the matter, but the very guidance of God.
And let’s be clear on his method of instruction, which is the same manner by which Jesus first instructed his disciples. Neither Paul nor Jesus used fable nor parable nor illustration to teach and instruct, but rather plain, straightforward language, to be as clear as possible and to limit anyone missing the point.
Paul, as Jesus was, is specific. First, he leaves no question as to when Jesus instituted this meal – “on the night he was betrayed” (v.23), which we know is the Thursday of Holy Week when the traitor Judas betrayed our Conquering King with a kiss. We also know also that Jesus instituted this meal as they were celebrating the Passover.
And Paul speaks of four substances being present for this special meal: bread, wine, body, and blood. No other substances are included in his instruction, neither are any of these four excluded in the Gospels and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which are the only sections of Scripture in which this instruction takes place. So there is a precision and unmistakable clarity with which Paul writes. In this sacrament, bread and wine are given and received, as are body and blood.
How can that be, we ask? Indeed, many are so quick to let their reason save the day and change the words of Jesus and Paul so that there is no body or blood present, but merely the bread and wine symbolizing Jesus’ body and blood.
But nowhere did Jesus say that. Nowhere did Paul say that. Friends, if we begin to allow reason to serve as the filter by which we vet the Scriptures, then how much else must we discard? All of Jesus’ miracles? The Lord God’s spectacular showings of strength against the world’s almighty armies and even nature itself?
If reason is required to make sense of this Sacrament, then the door has creaked open to sift all of the supernatural in Scripture. But if we can permit God to remain God and allow our reason to be subject to his very words, then we don’t need to make Jesus or Paul out to be liars. Then, we can actually receive the very things offered, the body and blood of Jesus, in, with, and under the bread and wine.
And when we have that on the menu, Jesus declares that we also have what he attached to it in Matthew 26: the forgiveness of sins. Talk about the greatest menu change in the history of any meal ever eaten! Sure, there was obviously deep spiritual significance attached to the Passover meal, otherwise the Lord would not have directed his people to celebrate it every year for generations. It was a meal of remembrance that helped to ensure God’s people would never forget that he is in the business of delivering.
But now this meal, the one Jesus instituted, would offer so much more! Weary and worn-out sinners come to this meal and their souls receive rest and refreshment. Contrite consciences receive the very stuff the Savior sacrificed – his body and blood – so that nothing is lost in translation and no lingering doubts can keep those consciences from being cleansed. The penitent receive pardon and peace. The guilty are guaranteed forgiveness.
The menu at this meal is the means by which a gracious and compassionate God wants to restore and sanctify his people. And he does. So it does not surprise me anymore to see tears shed by the homebound who are unable to gather for worship when they receive this meal. They know full well their Savior comes to them personally with his good gifts of grace and mercy, feeding their souls and freeing their consciences.
So we return to the table again and again where our Conquering King Dines with us as often as we join him, giving us himself. And as we receive him, we remember his deliverance and we proclaim his death. Because Jesus’ Last Will and Testament in this Supper is also our will and testament as we remember and proclaim, we take seriously Paul’s directive to examine ourselves. We acknowledge and confess our sins and our need for the forgiveness Jesus feeds us. We trust that we have in this Supper exactly what Jesus offers and promises: bread and wine, body and blood, given for the forgiveness of sins.
Then, in that newness of life, we are drawn into an even deeper relationship with our Savior, our Conquering King. He not only arrived at Jerusalem to offer the ultimate sacrifice – himself – on the cross, but he also dines with us in this Sacred Meal to confer on us the blessed food of forgiveness.