March 8
Luke 22: "This Is My Body"
Exodus 19; Luke 22; Job 37; 2 Corinthians 7
Matthew, Mark and Luke all record the first “Lord’s Supper” or “Communion.” Luke’s recounting (22:7-20) emphasizes that Jesus “earnestly desired” to share this meal (15). There are at least four reasons why.
First, because it’s the Passover, which remembered when God delivered His people from Egypt. Each family prepared and ate a meal of unleavened bread and a lamb. The lamb’s blood was placed on the doorpost of their house so that the avenging angel would see it and “pass over” that household (Exodus 12).
After passing through the Red Sea, God gathered Israel to Mount Sinai and entered into a covenant with them. A covenant is a solemn oath or agreement, with stipulations of blessing or wrath for obedience or disobedience (Exodus 19-24).
All of this rich history was gathered and celebrated at the Passover.
The second reason Jesus earnestly desires to eat it is that he will not enjoy it again until the kingdom is fulfilled (16, 18). It sounds as though this will be a long time.
Then comes the words that the church has argued over through the centuries: “This is my body.” Yet we can make a few universal deductions. The first is that Jesus sees the bread in every Passover meal before this as anticipating Jesus’ own body, soon to be broken for us, for the forgiveness of our sins.
Secondly, the wine enjoyed in every Passover meal before this anticipated his blood, his life that would be given over on a gory Roman cross, again, for us, for our sins.
And thirdly, what Jesus will do on the cross will create a new covenant, one that’s better than the old.
Thus Jesus desired this meal (thirdly) because it pictures the cross. He sees that even the Exodus itself prefigured a greater, deeper Exodus to come, in him. No wonder Luke records earlier that Moses and Elijah, on the Mount of Transfiguration, only want to talk with Jesus about his Exodus (9:31; see ESV footnote there).
The fourth reason Jesus earnestly desires this Supper is to institute it as a remembrance for all time - for us. He wants us to come back to the cross, again and again. For we humans are a most forgetful race. We forget the gospel before we leave the parking lot.
Francis Schaeffer said in 1981 that “The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so, in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals.”
I don’t think it is a coincidence that this happened at the same time that Communion became less and less important in worship.