Last Supper
In Matthew 26, Luke 22, and Mark 14 Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples. It was at this meal that he gave them the bread and the wine and told them to eat and drink in remembrance of him.
Communion is also known as The Lord’s Supper. It’s something we do in remembrance of Jesus. He told the disciples to do it in remembrance of Him on the night before He was crucified. But it’s not just the act of us eating and drinking as a way of remembering what Jesus did for us, though it is also that. The Lord’s Supper is a sign that Jesus fulfilled God’s old covenant with Israel, and started a new covenant with all who believe in Him.
There is a parallel between the Lord’s Supper and Passover that I want to present to you.
Passover
In Exodus 12 God instituted the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread.
These festivals were to be observed annually as a reminder of how God saved Israel from slavery in Egypt.
Exodus 12:14 - This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generation to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord - a lasting ordinance.
Passover was instituted by God on the night of the final plague in Egypt. You can read about it in Exodus 12. As a final plague on Egypt, God was going to kill all the firstborn males throoughout the land.
God told Israel to kill an unblemished lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts. Then He would see the blood of the lamb and passover those houses – sparing the people inside from destruction.
He also told them that on that night (the night of the 14th day of the month of Nissan) they were to begin observance of the feast of unleavened bread for 7 days. They were to remove all leavened dough (that is dough with yeast) from their houses, and they were to eat unleavened bread for 7 days.
Passover was not actually a day, but a meal. But because the Passover meal marked the beginning of the 7 days of the feast of unleavened bread, the whole feast was often referred to as Passover. Kind of like how we might refer to December as Christmas, or the Christmas season.
When did Jesus die?
He died on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. The Passover meal is eaten the night before the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. What we call The Last Supper was, for Jesus and His disciples, the Passover meal.
In fact, Jesus told His disciples that He had a strong desire (basically, He couldn’t wait) to eat this Passover meal with them. He also told them that He would not eat it again until it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God. (Luke 22:15-16)
So, what was it that was supposed to be fulfilled?
The Passover was God seeing the blood of the lamb and sparing His people from destruction. So, for Passover to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, could only be Jesus shedding His blood for us. That’s what He’s pointing at. He is our Passover lamb.
And God told Israel to observe the feast of unleavened bread in remembrance of what He did to save them from slavery in Egypt. When Jesus broke the bread He told His disciples that it was His body. Do you also remember Him telling them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees. The leaven is their pride, arrogance, foolishness, sinfulness. Jesus is the unleavened bread. He does not have those things. He told them to eat it in remembrance of Him. It’s as if He was fulfilling the old covenant observance of the feast of unleavened bread. Saying don’t just remember how God saved Israel from Egypt, but also remember how Jesus saved all of us from sin and death.
And then He took a cup of wine and said it was the new covenant poured out for us in His blood. Instead of sacrificing a lamb and smearing it’s blood on our doorposts, we drink the fruit of the vine to remember that Jesus is the Lamb of God who shed His blood for us.
When Jesus told His disciples to do this in remembrance of Him, He instituted this new observance right on top of the old one. The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance to mark the fulfillment of the Passover, and an advancement of God’s work of salvation for His people. First they were saved from slavery. Now we are saved from sin and death.
So we break bread as a sign that Jesus fufilled the old covenant with Israel. And we drink the fruit of the vine in rememberance that He made a new covenant to save us by His blood.
If you want to meditate more on this I encourage you to look at Exodus 12, and Luke 22.
Abuses of the Lord’s Supper
In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul writes to correct the church from abusing the Lord’s supper. Some eat while others go hungry, and some drink to the point of getting drunk.
We are to examine ourselves before we eat and drink - so that we may do so in reverence to God, and not in satisfaction of our own desires.
Sacraments
Baptism is the sacrament of faith.
Communion is the sacrament of fellowship. (https://study.christianleaders.org/mod/page/view.php?id=23705)
Marriage is the sacrament of love, dedication and devotion.