Communion is more of an Easter moment than we usually stop to realize.
In Matthew 26, Matthew brings Jesus into the last portion of his life before the cross. He shows us how Jesus was clearly preparing his disciples for his death and, as well, his resurrection. Jesus has spoken about his death throughout his life, but it is in the last supper with them that Jesus makes a way for them to remember the significance of both his life and his death through everyday things – the cup and the bread.
First, let’s understand the tension that is in this story.
There is a wonderful braided thread of theology that is woven through this telling of Jesus’ last meal with his twelve disciples. That thread brings together two opposing feelings about Jesus – love and hate.
• Go back to the beginning of this chapter and you’ll hear the whispered plots of the chief priests and elders to kill Jesus and be done with him once and for all, something Jesus had just warned his disciples about. (Read verses 3-5) It was an act of hate, born out of anger and jealousy and ignorance.
If we look at the story that precedes the Last Supper, we’ll see the anointing of Jesus by a woman while he was resting in the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany. Listen to the narrative – (Read verses 6-13).
• A woman (John says it’s Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha) comes in, uninvited, breaks a flask of expensive perfume (worth a year’s wages – today about $10,000) and pours it over Jesus’ head and feet. It is an act of love for who he is, what he has done, and because she believed his time on earth was drawing to a close.
• The disciples are outraged at the extravagant “waste” of perfume that could have been sold to supply plenty for the poor (John says it was Judas who naturally raised this objection). This act was the final straw for Judas who immediately sold Jesus out to the Pharisees for thirty pieces of silver. (Speculation – was this added to what he’d been stealing from the disciples’ treasury to buy that piece of land where he hung himself ?). Could there be a more deplorable act of hate, spawned by Judas’ disgust that Jesus was refusing to be the vengeful Messiah Judas the Zealot wanted him to be AND his own greed.
Then we come to the scene of the Last Supper, carefully arranged by Jesus so that he could have one last teaching moment with these men he loved so much, upon whose shoulders he would place the burden of ministry. We see how Jesus loved these men and it was in the name of that love he wanted to prepare them for what was about to transpire – betrayal, capture, and crucifixion. And it was in love that Jesus set before them a living memorial that would remain with them after he was gone – “This is my body...This is my blood...”
At that moment, as he took the loaf of bread and broke it then took the cup of wine and blessed it, Jesus completed the braiding of those two strands together – love and hate were irreversibly twisted together, and tied with the divine knot of Jesus’ sacrifice (body broken...blood poured out) and promise (with you in my Father’s kingdom).
To love Jesus is to hate the sin in oneself.
To hate Jesus it to love the sin in oneself.
To love Jesus is to hate the world.
To hate Jesus is to love the world.
It leaves us with an undeniable option doesn’t it?
And that is what Jesus has given to us.
The disciples had lived closely with Jesus for three years, learning from him; relearning about God; looking deep inside themselves and finding out more than they cared to know.
This was a scary moment for those twelve men.
Jesus was changing them forever and they weren’t sure how to handle it.
He was changing them as surely as he was changing that loaf of bread into the bread of life and that cup of wine into the cup of redemption.
They would not forget what they had heard and seen that night, and that is exactly what Jesus wanted.
“Whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me.”
Those men watched as Jesus created a memorial – not of stone or of wood, but of bread and wine; not a building, a shrine or a sanctuary but a memorial that can be smelled, tasted, felt, swallowed and made to be part of oneself.
Later, they would see Jesus broken and bloody, hanging on a cross, dying a death he did not deserve and they would return to Jesus breaking that loaf of bread, the staff of life, and hear him say, “This is my body.”
They would see his blood pouring onto the ground beneath that cruel cross and their minds would find him lifting that cup toward heaven and bringing forth a new, unbreakable promise with them to be sealed by his own blood.
After the cross they scattered but after the resurrection they gathered, and I believe it was in that gathering that they chose to return to the memorial of the Last Supper; that they sat at a meal and remembered together what Jesus had said because now it all made sense.
“This is the bread of life, broken for us.”
“Yes! We remember.”
“This is the cup of redemption, poured out for us.”
“Yes! We remember.”
It all made sense.
Jesus was broken and poured out.
Like the flask of expensive perfume, that beautiful gift of love, used for anointing our Lord, Jesus was broken and his love was poured out as an anointing to us all – “You are mine! You are mine! You are mine!”
Jesus was broken and poured out.
Like that loaf of bread made without any impurity and broken to be shared with others, Jesus was without sin and was broken to be the sustenance of many.
Like that cup of wine, fruit of the vine and symbol of God’s righteousness, Jesus became the new covenant between God and humankind, a promise sealed by his blood, a promise of redemption.
Ordinary things – bread and wine, but Jesus made them special.
We are ordinary but Jesus has made us special.
This bread and cup stand as a living memorial to the offer of new life and redemption from sin that Jesus offers to anyone and everyone who believes.
This bread is for you – it is Jesus.
This cup is for you – it, too, is Jesus.
This life is for you, this redemption is for you.
Take, remember.
No longer are we bound to sin; no longer are we held hostage by life; no longer do we live by man’s standards.
We are free to live because of God’s great love for us, shown to us by Christ.
We are drawn back to that love every time we come to this table, and it is a love that goes both ways.
At this table Jesus says, “I love you.” When you accept the bread and the cup in faith believing, you are saying back to him, “I love you, too.”
With that in mind, let me close with this poem by Gloria Gaither.
His Love ... Reaching
Right from the beginning God’s love has reached, and from the beginning man has refused to understand. But love went on reaching, offering itself.
Love offered the eternal ... we wanted the immediate.
Love offered deep joy ... we wanted the thrills.
Love offered freedom ...we wanted license.
Love offered communion with God Himself ... we wanted to worship at the shrine of our own minds.
Love offered peace ... we wanted approval for our wars
Even yet, love went on reaching. And still today, after two thousand years, patiently, lovingly, Christ is reaching out to us today. Right through the chaos of our world, through the confusion of our minds. He is reaching ... longing to share with us ... the very being of God.
His love still is longing, His love still is reaching, right past the shackles of my mind.
And the Word of the Father became Mary’s little Son. And His love reached all the way to where I was!
Come. Be given life. Be given redemption. Take and remember.
