Take, Eat, and Drink

26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; Matthew 26:26–27

Good afternoon and welcome to the Panhandle of Oklahoma. Well as you can see from our verses we are watching and listening to Christ Jesus institute the New Covenant. Following the meal Christ Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, variously called the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Communion, or the Covenant Meal. Different views of the sacraments have divided the church through the centuries but I'm not opening that can of worms. I'll just say this, those of us who hold what has been called a “low view” of the sacraments, the Lord’s Supper is seen much more as a Covenant Meal, “the new covenant in His blood,” to be observed in faith and hope “until He comes.” This is a more relational than ritualistic approach. So get your Bible if you have one, pull up a chair or a spot on the floor and lets get ready to do some digging.

Christ Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it. This was hardly the traditional Jewish “grace” at the beginning of the meal, that prayer would have been prayed earlier: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the Universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth.” Christ Jesus emphasized what was to follow by praying a specific new prayer of blessing for the bread, and then He identified it as His body, and passed it to His disciples. This reference to the bread as His body and the later designation of the church as the body of Christ stand in direct relationship. Next He took the cup “and gave thanks,” an awesome thing, for He well understood it to symbolize His own death. He referred to the cup as “My blood of the new covenant,” a covenant to the death, His blood being “shed for many for the remission of sins.”

A point not to be overlooked is the implication of the fact that Christ Jesus was sitting there in His body with blood in His veins when He said, “This is my body… this is my blood.” His declarations were symbolizing that He was about to give Himself to the death for all peoples! The new covenant would carry the meaning of the Cross. As He gave Himself to the death for us, we are to pledge ourselves mind, body, and soul to Him. Partaking of the Lord’s Supper is not just a memorial, it is a commitment to Christ Jesus with our whole being “until He comes.”

As to the meaning of the blood in salvation history, A. W. Meyer says, “The atonement through the death of Jesus is at any rate the necessary premise of even the symbolical interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. With every attempt to explain away the atoning death, the supper becomes utterly unintelligible.”

An outline for this section could be (1) a covenant to the death, (2) a covenant of forgiveness, and (3) a covenant of hope.¹

The next time you partake of the Lord's Supper remember it is something more than just a ritual or something to check off your to do list. It is a time to remember that Creator God came to earth and lived life as fully man and fully God. And when it came time to make atonement for our sins He didn't back down or back out of His mission. He came to take back what we gave away and make away for us to have a restored relationship with God the Father. And that Charley Brown is what the Lord's Supper and the New Covenant is all about.

Thanks for dropping by and hanging out with me for awhile, and don't forget to share what you learn here with others. I pray you and yours have a blessed week.

Biblesurfer

1 Myron S. Augsburger and Lloyd J. Ogilvie, Matthew, vol. 24, The Preacher’s Commentary Series (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1982), 18.