I remember speaking with someone about the Lord’s Supper—Communion––one time. And we were specifically talking about a once immensely popular evangelical pastor/preacher because he had just released a video not too long before that conversation. In that video—he made some sweeping statements about Communion that revised what actually happened in church history. And it’s funny, because he actually prefaces it with, “I’m not making any grand statements but…”
 
…He says that for the first 1500 years in church history [which means since Christ died/rose from the grave]—everyone believed that the bread was truly—literally—the body of Christ –and the wine—the blood of Christ…Which is an incredibly erroneous overstatement that fails to consider the nuanced development of the understanding of the Lord’s Table and the elements that has occurred since the first century—particularly the overstatement that everyone had a woodenly literal understanding and believed that when Christ said, “this is my body” and “this is my blood” he meant that they literally were in substance and in property.That’s certainly not true if you read the writings of the early Church Fathers.
 
He continued to say that also, it wasn’t until 1500 years—and by this mark he’s referring to the Protestant Reformation—that the Lord’s Table—Communion was replaced as the central element of a church worship service/gathering—with a pulpit and a preacher.
 
And that’s patently not true either according to early church witness—the pulpit part—sure—there’s nothing inherently holy about a wooden podium from which to preach. And yet as misguided as this preacher was in his massive overstatement/oversimplification, I appreciate what he was trying to say regarding the importance of Communion—even if he is dead wrong on it being in history and should be today—the central focus of our Christian corporate worship—And especially wrong in saying everyone in church history believed the bread/wine were literally the body and blood of Christ and we should adopt that position today.
 
I appreciate that he is trying to emphasize—misguided as it is—the significance of the Lord’s Table—Communion—for Christians, the church—the body of Christ—because it is of critical importance in our lives and worship. In fact, we’re told by our Lord Jesus himself—commanded actually—to do it in remembrance of him—both his substitutionary victorious death in our place and that he’s coming again to complete the final and eternal victory.
 
And that’s what we see this morning in our text. We see how Jesus uses the unique opportunity of the Jewish Passover, to transform its meaning altogether to something greater, a new Passover. The Last Supper becomes the Lord’s Supper, in which the bread and wine symbolize Jesus’ giving of himself—his entire being—his blood—his life—poured out to ransom and redeem sinners—inaugurating a new covenant—with a new people of God.
 
Jesus on Passover becomes our Passover lamb sacrificed once and for all, and we remember and proclaim his first victorious coming and that he’s coming back to make the victory complete, every time we celebrate Communion together.