Our Three Course Meal
Commentary
Perhaps your family, like mine, has certain traditional meals throughout the year.
We have, for example, a standard menu each Thanksgiving. We all know what will be served on that holiday together, and we all look forward to it. Of course, not every dish is each person’s favorite, but we would all be disappointed if anything was missing!
Similarly, we have some traditional things that we eat together on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. There's one particular meal that I request each year on my birthday. And so it goes, year after year.
Well, the family of Israel also had a traditional meal. It was an annual tradition: a holiday meal that they shared together each year. And, interestingly, the initial menu for that meal was selected by God himself!
Now when you and I think about some different traditions that we enjoy in our families, we might be hard-pressed to remember how this or that tradition got started. Was it deliberate and conscious, or did it just evolve over time? We sometimes say of our traditions that “we’ve always done things that way,” but of course that's not literally true. The tradition started somehow. Do we know how?
In the case of ancient Israel, they knew how their tradition got started. It began deliberately and divinely. The Israelite families had a particular meal together one night, and the Lord told them that they needed to keep having that same meal together every year on that same night. He set the menu in the first place, and he insisted on the continued observance of the tradition.
Israel's traditional holiday meal, of course, was the Passover. This week's Old Testament passage recounts the story of how that tradition began. It may be very familiar background information for some of our folks, but it may be brand new to others.
Meanwhile, this week's gospel lection features Jesus and his disciples observing that traditional holiday meal together in Jerusalem. We don’t know how many times they may have done that, but we remember this specific occasion because it becomes what we, as Christians, remember as the Last Supper.
Interestingly, the traditional Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples shared that night has given rise to a new tradition. Like the original Passover meal, this new tradition was established by the Lord himself. And, like the Passover meal, certain menu items were stipulated by him. And so, in our assigned epistle passage, we find the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians in Corinth about their observance of that new traditional meal inaugurated by Jesus — the Lord’s Supper.
All of which combines to bring us to this night. On Maundy Thursday, we have all three of these passages in view. We look all the way back to the passage from Exodus to give us an understanding of what is happening in John. And we look to John in order to understand the background for what Paul was writing to the Corinthians. And, finally, we look to 1 Corinthians as a guide for us — for our understanding and for our observance — of the sacrament that we celebrate and share on this holiday together.
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
Ancient Israel was famously aniconic. While all of the people groups that surrounded them on every side cherished images of their gods, Israel was not to make or worship any such thing. And yet, the absence of images is not the same as the absence of symbols. The fact is that Israel’s spiritual life was highly sensual and filled with meaningful symbols.
When I say “sensual,” I don’t mean it in the sexual sense that the word has come to connote in our day. Rather, I mean quite literally that Israel’s worship life filled their senses. There were sights to see, fragrances to smell, food to taste, and more. And much of what the Lord prescribed for them was also highly symbolic — that is to say, the things that they were apprehending with their senses also communicated meaning to their minds and hearts.
Which brings us to the Passover meal. The Lord is preparing his people for the moment that they have been longing for and anticipating for four hundred years, and yet see what those preparations involve. A meal. The Lord is prescribing for them a certain meal to be eaten in a certain way: that is his surprising priority for these slaves that are about to be set free.
While the necessity of eating a very particular meal before departing Egypt may not have made immediate sense, we see the long-term significance. Such a meal can be repeated. They will never need to be set free from slavery in Egypt again, but they can eat that same meal year after year for generations. And as such, the meal becomes a celebration, a holiday, and a recurring reminder to the people of how God had saved them, delivering them from their bondage.
We know that, over the course of generations, the Jewish Passover meal came to feature a number of highly symbolic elements. The looks and the taste of the different components of the Passover menu all served to convey reminders of their salvation. In terms of the original instructions from the Lord to that first generation, the key elements are these: a lamb, unleavened bread, and a certain posture and apparel for the meal.
The lamb, which was to be without blemish, was not merely the featured item on the menu, for its most important contribution was not its meat but its blood. The blood, each generation from Moses onward knew, was the peculiar catalyst for their deliverance. Presumably the Lord could have chosen anything by which the children of Israel would mark their homes that fateful night: significantly, he chose the blood of a lamb.
The bread, meanwhile, was to be unleavened bread. It was sometimes reckoned as “the bread of haste.” And the absence of leaven served eventually to represent not only the hurried nature of the meal but also the impurities that the people of God must be vigilant to clean out and keep out of their lives.
Finally, there was the strange wardrobe requirement for this meal. We know what it is for a special dinner invitation to offer some guidance for appropriate dress — casual, cocktail, semi-formal, white tie, etc. Well, if the Israelites had received a printed invitation to the Passover, the dress code might have read, “Hurried.” Imagine being told to eat your dinner with your coat on and car keys in hand. A friendly hostess in our day might say, “Take off your coat and stay a while.” But the Lord, as host of the Passover meal, was saying to his people, “Put on your coats and get ready to leave!”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The introduction to this passage is easily overlooked. We may be inclined to hurry to the substance and subject of this lection — and, rightly so, for that is at the heart of the occasion for which we gather on this night - - yet we must give the introduction it's due. For in a sense what Paul says in the first part of verse 23 is as central to our faith as is the content that follows.
Paul says that he received and that he passed on. Therein lies the key both to our beliefs and to our mission. For ours is of faith, you see, that is handed down. The gospel message is one that we receive and one that we pass on.
The truths of God’s saving work in the world do not begin with us, and they must not end with us. We have received the testimony ourselves from parents, from Sunday school teachers, from youth leaders, and from preachers. And then it becomes incumbent upon us also to pass on God's word
The specific tradition and truth that Paul has passed along to the Corinthians, and which he necessarily reminds them about now, is the account of Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples. We recognize, of course, that the meal they were sharing was already a meaningful one; but then Jesus added new meaning to it. Now the bread was not only a reminder of the beautifully hurried meal that Moses’ generation ate in Egypt: now it spoke of Jesus' own body. And now, suddenly, the wine spoke of Jesus' own blood.
Blood, of course, was a familiar and important feature of the original Passover. The blood of a lamb was painted on the door frames of the Israelites’ homes, and so they were saved that night by the blood. And now Jesus has introduced his blood into this newly symbolic meal.
In the context of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the apostle has genuine concerns about how the church there is experiencing the Lord's Supper. In this passage that recalls its origins, however, there is nothing explicitly connected to how the Corinthians are mishandling the occasion. Except, perhaps, for this brief but crucial line: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
I have served several churches that have had those words carved into the front of the communion table. It is an important word to keep before believers’ eyes. And it was an appropriate word to write to the Christians in Corinth. For the best way to ensure that we partake of the Lord's Supper properly is surely for us to be mindful of him as we do it.
Finally, Paul concludes this section with a definitive statement about the meaning and purpose of the Lord’s Supper. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,” he writes, “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The meal that came on the night before his death presaged his death. And, ever since that week, the meal has been a reminder of his death. The bread and cup call to mind his offered body and his poured-out blood. And so, our partaking in the Lord’s Supper recalls — indeed, proclaims! — his death.
Until he comes. This meal not only looks back, you see; it also looks forward. For his death is unlike any other human being’s death inasmuch as he is still alive. If we were to eat some meal in remembrance of anyone else who had died, the focus would necessarily be entirely on the past. But not so with Jesus, for he is alive, and he is coming back!
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Apostle Paul refers to the night of the Last Supper as “the night when (Jesus) was betrayed,” and so it was. But we note in the gospel lection that it was also the night when Jesus washed his disciples' feet. And it was also the night when he gave them a new commandment. Indeed, it is that latter point which gave rise to the moniker “Maundy” Thursday.
All four gospels report Judas’ betrayal in one way or another. John, however, is the one who so closely associates Judas’ act with the devil. We see that, prior to the supper, “the devil (had) already put into the heart of Judas” to betray Jesus. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus obliquely refers to Judas as “a devil” (6:70). And then, disturbingly, John reports that when Judas had taken the morsel of bread at this supper, “Satan entered into him” (13:27).
Whatever the issues with Judas were, it’s clear that Jesus was unsurprised by what Judas did. He was fully aware prior to the betraying kiss in the garden. It makes one wonder just how far in advance Jesus knew. Perhaps even from the very day that Jesus called Judas to follow him? It invites us to consider the familiar issue of the relationship between foreknowledge and free will. It also prompts us to marvel at the grace of God that chooses us in spite of past, present, and even future failures.
Meanwhile, this was also the night that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. No other gospel records this event, although it is certainly consistent with both how Jesus is portrayed and what he teaches throughout the gospels. This act is clearly meant to be an object lesson for his followers.
An important principle tucked within the foot-washing event is the nature of cleanness. Some people need only to have their feet washed; others, however, may need a more thorough cleaning. In either instance, it is Jesus who provides the cleansing that you and I need.
Jesus famously told his disciples that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life. My dad, meanwhile, used to say that most of us will not have the opportunity to lay down our lives all at once, but we routinely have the opportunity to lay down our lives fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. On Friday afternoon, Jesus laid down his life all at once. But on Thursday night, he laid it down in this partial way of humility and service.
Finally, as a natural companion to that act of humble service, this was also the night that Jesus gave his disciples the new commandment. At first blush, of course, there was nothing at all new in a commandment to love. The command to love one’s neighbor as oneself, after all, was as old as Leviticus. The newness of this commandment, however, was the standard of love. Rather than “as you love yourself,” now the instruction is to love “as I have loved you.” And if we want to know what that love looks like, we need only look back a few verses to the foot washing and then look ahead a few chapters to the cross.
Application
I’m suggesting that our Maundy Thursday theme be “Our Three-Course Meal.”
The first course was served in Egypt. It marked the occasion of God’s deliverance of his people from their centuries of bondage. It was a meal marked by symbolism, and the meal with its symbols were to become annual reminders to God’s people.
A generation later, when Moses was saying farewell to the people (in the Book of Deuteronomy), he urged them repeatedly to remember and warned them about the risks of forgetting. The specifics of what they were to remember (and not forget) varied. God’s laws, his acts of salvation and providence, the wonders they had seen, the consequences of their faithlessness and disobedience along the way — these were some of the matters that Moses sought to impress upon the children of Israel. To remember such things would strengthen their faith, guide their living, and deepen their relationship with and love for the Lord. Forgetting the things of God, on the other hand, would compromise and undermine all of those things. The Passover meal, therefore, was one of the several, meaningful ways that the people of God would be helped to remember the things of God.
The second course was served in Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples were eating it together. They, like generations of their people before them, were celebrating and remembering God’s deliverance. The Passover meal spoke to them of the initiative of his grace, the magnitude of his power, and the beauty of their salvation. And, just as elements in the meal of Moses’ generation were deliberately symbolic and designed to be reminders, so now with the bread and the cup of the meal that Jesus shared with his disciples.
Meanwhile, just as the original Passover meal immediately preceded Israel’s deliverance, the Passover meal that the disciples ate with Jesus that night in Jerusalem also came on the eve of salvation. Once again, God’s people would be saved by the blood. And once again, subsequent generations would be encouraged to eat the meal in remembrance.
Finally, the third course was being served in Corinth. Paul wrote to the Christians there to guide and inform their eating of that meal. We don’t know how much it resembled either Moses’ menu or Jesus’, but we know that it had at least two elements: the bread and the cup.
That, then, is the three-course meal we will share with our congregations this night. Each course complements the one before it. And so, we will have the most well-founded experience of the sacrament tonight if we enjoy together of each of those courses: celebrating God’s deliverance of his people, remembering the events of that epochal Thursday and Friday in Jerusalem, and remembering Christ’s body and blood as we partake of the bread and the cup.
Alternative Application(s)
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 — “Precious Memories”
At a minimum, we recognize that there is a connection between the Passover meal in Egypt, Jesus’ Last Supper, and our sacrament because each is built upon the one before. But the resonance goes deeper than just sequence. Each meal is about God saving his people. Each meal is marked by symbolism. And, perhaps as a natural result of the first two points, each meal is about remembering.
The Lord was explicit about that point with Moses and the Israelites. They were to celebrate the Passover meal each year on the same day in remembrance of what he had done for them in Egypt. Generations later, even when the participants would be hundreds and miles and hundreds of years removed from Egypt, still it was designed to be for them a reminder of when and how God had saved his people.
So it was that, more than a millennium after Moses, Jesus and his disciples were eating that meal together and remembering. But then Jesus added new symbolism and meaning to what they were eating and drinking, and then he instructed them to keep eating that bread and drinking that cup “in remembrance.” That, of course, is where we come in tonight.
I have lived long enough to have discovered this phenomenon: what we don’t deliberately remember, we accidentally forget. How many things did you and I learn in this or that class in school years ago, only to lose track of information or know-how that was once so familiar? Or I think of places I have gone back to visit years after moving away, and I have been shocked to discover that I didn’t know my way around anymore. Roads and directions that were back-of-my-hand familiar now eluded me. I conclude, therefore, that we don’t deliberately remember, we will accidentally forget.
So it is that the Lord instructs his people to deliberately remember. The children of Israel were taught to be deliberate in reminding themselves about how the Lord had delivered them from their bondage. And Jesus instructed his followers to be deliberate in reminding themselves — in reminding ourselves — about his body and his blood; about his cross; about his grace; and about how he has saved us.
We know what it is to sit around with friends and loved ones and share memories together. Certain memories are precious to us, and so too are the times that we spend remembering those memories together. Perhaps that ought to be our recipe on this Maundy Thursday. What we do tonight, you see, we do in remembrance. So let’s share together the good, the lovely, and the profound things that we are instructed to remember.
We have, for example, a standard menu each Thanksgiving. We all know what will be served on that holiday together, and we all look forward to it. Of course, not every dish is each person’s favorite, but we would all be disappointed if anything was missing!
Similarly, we have some traditional things that we eat together on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. There's one particular meal that I request each year on my birthday. And so it goes, year after year.
Well, the family of Israel also had a traditional meal. It was an annual tradition: a holiday meal that they shared together each year. And, interestingly, the initial menu for that meal was selected by God himself!
Now when you and I think about some different traditions that we enjoy in our families, we might be hard-pressed to remember how this or that tradition got started. Was it deliberate and conscious, or did it just evolve over time? We sometimes say of our traditions that “we’ve always done things that way,” but of course that's not literally true. The tradition started somehow. Do we know how?
In the case of ancient Israel, they knew how their tradition got started. It began deliberately and divinely. The Israelite families had a particular meal together one night, and the Lord told them that they needed to keep having that same meal together every year on that same night. He set the menu in the first place, and he insisted on the continued observance of the tradition.
Israel's traditional holiday meal, of course, was the Passover. This week's Old Testament passage recounts the story of how that tradition began. It may be very familiar background information for some of our folks, but it may be brand new to others.
Meanwhile, this week's gospel lection features Jesus and his disciples observing that traditional holiday meal together in Jerusalem. We don’t know how many times they may have done that, but we remember this specific occasion because it becomes what we, as Christians, remember as the Last Supper.
Interestingly, the traditional Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples shared that night has given rise to a new tradition. Like the original Passover meal, this new tradition was established by the Lord himself. And, like the Passover meal, certain menu items were stipulated by him. And so, in our assigned epistle passage, we find the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians in Corinth about their observance of that new traditional meal inaugurated by Jesus — the Lord’s Supper.
All of which combines to bring us to this night. On Maundy Thursday, we have all three of these passages in view. We look all the way back to the passage from Exodus to give us an understanding of what is happening in John. And we look to John in order to understand the background for what Paul was writing to the Corinthians. And, finally, we look to 1 Corinthians as a guide for us — for our understanding and for our observance — of the sacrament that we celebrate and share on this holiday together.
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
Ancient Israel was famously aniconic. While all of the people groups that surrounded them on every side cherished images of their gods, Israel was not to make or worship any such thing. And yet, the absence of images is not the same as the absence of symbols. The fact is that Israel’s spiritual life was highly sensual and filled with meaningful symbols.
When I say “sensual,” I don’t mean it in the sexual sense that the word has come to connote in our day. Rather, I mean quite literally that Israel’s worship life filled their senses. There were sights to see, fragrances to smell, food to taste, and more. And much of what the Lord prescribed for them was also highly symbolic — that is to say, the things that they were apprehending with their senses also communicated meaning to their minds and hearts.
Which brings us to the Passover meal. The Lord is preparing his people for the moment that they have been longing for and anticipating for four hundred years, and yet see what those preparations involve. A meal. The Lord is prescribing for them a certain meal to be eaten in a certain way: that is his surprising priority for these slaves that are about to be set free.
While the necessity of eating a very particular meal before departing Egypt may not have made immediate sense, we see the long-term significance. Such a meal can be repeated. They will never need to be set free from slavery in Egypt again, but they can eat that same meal year after year for generations. And as such, the meal becomes a celebration, a holiday, and a recurring reminder to the people of how God had saved them, delivering them from their bondage.
We know that, over the course of generations, the Jewish Passover meal came to feature a number of highly symbolic elements. The looks and the taste of the different components of the Passover menu all served to convey reminders of their salvation. In terms of the original instructions from the Lord to that first generation, the key elements are these: a lamb, unleavened bread, and a certain posture and apparel for the meal.
The lamb, which was to be without blemish, was not merely the featured item on the menu, for its most important contribution was not its meat but its blood. The blood, each generation from Moses onward knew, was the peculiar catalyst for their deliverance. Presumably the Lord could have chosen anything by which the children of Israel would mark their homes that fateful night: significantly, he chose the blood of a lamb.
The bread, meanwhile, was to be unleavened bread. It was sometimes reckoned as “the bread of haste.” And the absence of leaven served eventually to represent not only the hurried nature of the meal but also the impurities that the people of God must be vigilant to clean out and keep out of their lives.
Finally, there was the strange wardrobe requirement for this meal. We know what it is for a special dinner invitation to offer some guidance for appropriate dress — casual, cocktail, semi-formal, white tie, etc. Well, if the Israelites had received a printed invitation to the Passover, the dress code might have read, “Hurried.” Imagine being told to eat your dinner with your coat on and car keys in hand. A friendly hostess in our day might say, “Take off your coat and stay a while.” But the Lord, as host of the Passover meal, was saying to his people, “Put on your coats and get ready to leave!”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The introduction to this passage is easily overlooked. We may be inclined to hurry to the substance and subject of this lection — and, rightly so, for that is at the heart of the occasion for which we gather on this night - - yet we must give the introduction it's due. For in a sense what Paul says in the first part of verse 23 is as central to our faith as is the content that follows.
Paul says that he received and that he passed on. Therein lies the key both to our beliefs and to our mission. For ours is of faith, you see, that is handed down. The gospel message is one that we receive and one that we pass on.
The truths of God’s saving work in the world do not begin with us, and they must not end with us. We have received the testimony ourselves from parents, from Sunday school teachers, from youth leaders, and from preachers. And then it becomes incumbent upon us also to pass on God's word
The specific tradition and truth that Paul has passed along to the Corinthians, and which he necessarily reminds them about now, is the account of Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples. We recognize, of course, that the meal they were sharing was already a meaningful one; but then Jesus added new meaning to it. Now the bread was not only a reminder of the beautifully hurried meal that Moses’ generation ate in Egypt: now it spoke of Jesus' own body. And now, suddenly, the wine spoke of Jesus' own blood.
Blood, of course, was a familiar and important feature of the original Passover. The blood of a lamb was painted on the door frames of the Israelites’ homes, and so they were saved that night by the blood. And now Jesus has introduced his blood into this newly symbolic meal.
In the context of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the apostle has genuine concerns about how the church there is experiencing the Lord's Supper. In this passage that recalls its origins, however, there is nothing explicitly connected to how the Corinthians are mishandling the occasion. Except, perhaps, for this brief but crucial line: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
I have served several churches that have had those words carved into the front of the communion table. It is an important word to keep before believers’ eyes. And it was an appropriate word to write to the Christians in Corinth. For the best way to ensure that we partake of the Lord's Supper properly is surely for us to be mindful of him as we do it.
Finally, Paul concludes this section with a definitive statement about the meaning and purpose of the Lord’s Supper. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,” he writes, “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The meal that came on the night before his death presaged his death. And, ever since that week, the meal has been a reminder of his death. The bread and cup call to mind his offered body and his poured-out blood. And so, our partaking in the Lord’s Supper recalls — indeed, proclaims! — his death.
Until he comes. This meal not only looks back, you see; it also looks forward. For his death is unlike any other human being’s death inasmuch as he is still alive. If we were to eat some meal in remembrance of anyone else who had died, the focus would necessarily be entirely on the past. But not so with Jesus, for he is alive, and he is coming back!
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Apostle Paul refers to the night of the Last Supper as “the night when (Jesus) was betrayed,” and so it was. But we note in the gospel lection that it was also the night when Jesus washed his disciples' feet. And it was also the night when he gave them a new commandment. Indeed, it is that latter point which gave rise to the moniker “Maundy” Thursday.
All four gospels report Judas’ betrayal in one way or another. John, however, is the one who so closely associates Judas’ act with the devil. We see that, prior to the supper, “the devil (had) already put into the heart of Judas” to betray Jesus. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus obliquely refers to Judas as “a devil” (6:70). And then, disturbingly, John reports that when Judas had taken the morsel of bread at this supper, “Satan entered into him” (13:27).
Whatever the issues with Judas were, it’s clear that Jesus was unsurprised by what Judas did. He was fully aware prior to the betraying kiss in the garden. It makes one wonder just how far in advance Jesus knew. Perhaps even from the very day that Jesus called Judas to follow him? It invites us to consider the familiar issue of the relationship between foreknowledge and free will. It also prompts us to marvel at the grace of God that chooses us in spite of past, present, and even future failures.
Meanwhile, this was also the night that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. No other gospel records this event, although it is certainly consistent with both how Jesus is portrayed and what he teaches throughout the gospels. This act is clearly meant to be an object lesson for his followers.
An important principle tucked within the foot-washing event is the nature of cleanness. Some people need only to have their feet washed; others, however, may need a more thorough cleaning. In either instance, it is Jesus who provides the cleansing that you and I need.
Jesus famously told his disciples that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life. My dad, meanwhile, used to say that most of us will not have the opportunity to lay down our lives all at once, but we routinely have the opportunity to lay down our lives fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. On Friday afternoon, Jesus laid down his life all at once. But on Thursday night, he laid it down in this partial way of humility and service.
Finally, as a natural companion to that act of humble service, this was also the night that Jesus gave his disciples the new commandment. At first blush, of course, there was nothing at all new in a commandment to love. The command to love one’s neighbor as oneself, after all, was as old as Leviticus. The newness of this commandment, however, was the standard of love. Rather than “as you love yourself,” now the instruction is to love “as I have loved you.” And if we want to know what that love looks like, we need only look back a few verses to the foot washing and then look ahead a few chapters to the cross.
Application
I’m suggesting that our Maundy Thursday theme be “Our Three-Course Meal.”
The first course was served in Egypt. It marked the occasion of God’s deliverance of his people from their centuries of bondage. It was a meal marked by symbolism, and the meal with its symbols were to become annual reminders to God’s people.
A generation later, when Moses was saying farewell to the people (in the Book of Deuteronomy), he urged them repeatedly to remember and warned them about the risks of forgetting. The specifics of what they were to remember (and not forget) varied. God’s laws, his acts of salvation and providence, the wonders they had seen, the consequences of their faithlessness and disobedience along the way — these were some of the matters that Moses sought to impress upon the children of Israel. To remember such things would strengthen their faith, guide their living, and deepen their relationship with and love for the Lord. Forgetting the things of God, on the other hand, would compromise and undermine all of those things. The Passover meal, therefore, was one of the several, meaningful ways that the people of God would be helped to remember the things of God.
The second course was served in Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples were eating it together. They, like generations of their people before them, were celebrating and remembering God’s deliverance. The Passover meal spoke to them of the initiative of his grace, the magnitude of his power, and the beauty of their salvation. And, just as elements in the meal of Moses’ generation were deliberately symbolic and designed to be reminders, so now with the bread and the cup of the meal that Jesus shared with his disciples.
Meanwhile, just as the original Passover meal immediately preceded Israel’s deliverance, the Passover meal that the disciples ate with Jesus that night in Jerusalem also came on the eve of salvation. Once again, God’s people would be saved by the blood. And once again, subsequent generations would be encouraged to eat the meal in remembrance.
Finally, the third course was being served in Corinth. Paul wrote to the Christians there to guide and inform their eating of that meal. We don’t know how much it resembled either Moses’ menu or Jesus’, but we know that it had at least two elements: the bread and the cup.
That, then, is the three-course meal we will share with our congregations this night. Each course complements the one before it. And so, we will have the most well-founded experience of the sacrament tonight if we enjoy together of each of those courses: celebrating God’s deliverance of his people, remembering the events of that epochal Thursday and Friday in Jerusalem, and remembering Christ’s body and blood as we partake of the bread and the cup.
Alternative Application(s)
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 — “Precious Memories”
At a minimum, we recognize that there is a connection between the Passover meal in Egypt, Jesus’ Last Supper, and our sacrament because each is built upon the one before. But the resonance goes deeper than just sequence. Each meal is about God saving his people. Each meal is marked by symbolism. And, perhaps as a natural result of the first two points, each meal is about remembering.
The Lord was explicit about that point with Moses and the Israelites. They were to celebrate the Passover meal each year on the same day in remembrance of what he had done for them in Egypt. Generations later, even when the participants would be hundreds and miles and hundreds of years removed from Egypt, still it was designed to be for them a reminder of when and how God had saved his people.
So it was that, more than a millennium after Moses, Jesus and his disciples were eating that meal together and remembering. But then Jesus added new symbolism and meaning to what they were eating and drinking, and then he instructed them to keep eating that bread and drinking that cup “in remembrance.” That, of course, is where we come in tonight.
I have lived long enough to have discovered this phenomenon: what we don’t deliberately remember, we accidentally forget. How many things did you and I learn in this or that class in school years ago, only to lose track of information or know-how that was once so familiar? Or I think of places I have gone back to visit years after moving away, and I have been shocked to discover that I didn’t know my way around anymore. Roads and directions that were back-of-my-hand familiar now eluded me. I conclude, therefore, that we don’t deliberately remember, we will accidentally forget.
So it is that the Lord instructs his people to deliberately remember. The children of Israel were taught to be deliberate in reminding themselves about how the Lord had delivered them from their bondage. And Jesus instructed his followers to be deliberate in reminding themselves — in reminding ourselves — about his body and his blood; about his cross; about his grace; and about how he has saved us.
We know what it is to sit around with friends and loved ones and share memories together. Certain memories are precious to us, and so too are the times that we spend remembering those memories together. Perhaps that ought to be our recipe on this Maundy Thursday. What we do tonight, you see, we do in remembrance. So let’s share together the good, the lovely, and the profound things that we are instructed to remember.
