Passover

Passover and the Lord’s Supper

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There is an integral correspondence between the Christian Lord’s Supper and the Israelite Passover. Like the Passover, the Lord’s Supper is a joyful reaffirmation of the covenant. And like Passover, it recalls the Lord’s great act in the deliverance of a people. But the Lord’s Supper also points ahead to the ultimate destiny of Christians: freedom in the presence of God.

The Last Supper

The tradition that Paul received and put down in writing belongs to the earliest accounts of what took place the night Jesus was betrayed (1 Cor. 11:23–25). This account states that it was at night, that there was a meal, that he took bread and broke it and said, “This is my body which is [broken] for you; do this in remembrance of me.” The same with the cup: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” There is no mention of Passover in Paul’s account, except in a circumstantial way: the breaking of bread in a solemn manner, the drinking of the cup of wine, the reference to the covenant, and above all the paschal overtones. The synoptic account does not differ in essence from the Pauline tradition, except that it represents the Last Supper as a Passover meal (cf. Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7).

The Memorial Meal

Remembrance is the keynote of Passover: Israel is to call to memory what God has done for his people. The whole festival is a remembrance (Exod. 12:14). Jesus followed custom but reinterpreted the Passover in terms of the messianic event: the Messiah took the role of the paschal lamb. It is therefore correct to say that the Last Supper provides Passover with a new content. Henceforth the bread and the wine of the seder become the signs of the Messiah’s sacrifice on the cross. The paschal meal becomes a messianic meal.

The Last Supper and Passover

In the time of the temple, the paschal meal consisted not only of the lamb but also of the special festive sacrifice of which everyone partook (cf. 2 Chron. 35:13). Such eating of the sacrifice was a joyous occasion that gave cohesion to community life. This is to be distinguished from the sin offering that was totally burned and never consumed. For the Israelite, eating the sacrifice never meant eating his God. Participation in the body and blood of the Messiah creates a problem if the Last Supper is conceived in purely sacrificial terms. For this reason, the emphasis in the Lord’s Supper must be placed as much on the covenant as on the sin offering, if not more so. The blood that sealed the covenant is not the blood poured on the altar but the blood sprinkled on the people. There is a correspondence between the Last Supper and Exodus 24:11, which records that the elders of Israel on Mount Sinai beheld God and ate and drank.

The covenant is at the core of the Passover account. On the eve of the Exodus, God revealed himself as the God of the fathers who remembered his covenant (Exod. 2:24; 3:15). On the eve of the Crucifixion, this covenant was reaffirmed by the Messiah’s willingness to shed his blood. The paschal lamb is therefore not sufficient to explain the full meaning of the Last Supper; the covenant intrudes as the overarching theme.

This raises the problem of the meaning of the new covenant: in what sense is it a new covenant? The writer of Hebrews, and sometimes Paul, gives the impression of a radical break: the former commandment is set aside “because it was weak and useless” (Heb. 7:18); had the first covenant been faultless there would have been no need for a second (Heb. 8:7); “by calling this covenant, ‘new’ he has made the first one obsolete” (Heb. 8:13). Those who are in Christ are new creations; “the old has gone; the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Since Marcion, a second-century theologian held to be heretical, there has persisted a tendency to separate the two Testaments and to understand the “new” in the radical sense. From Paul’s exposition of Israel’s destiny (Rom. 9–11), such a break becomes impossible. The Logos doctrine allows no such break; the preexistent Christ spoke already in the Old Testament (cf. 1 Pet. 1:11). The writer of Hebrews bases his argument on the premise that the preincarnate Christ was present in Israel’s history. The new therefore must be understood in connection with the messianic event. The new covenant brings the old covenant to the brink of eschatological fulfillment, but the people of God are one continuum from Abel to this day. Christ as the telos (fulfillment) of the Law (Rom. 10:4) brings in the new era but does not change God’s promises. The new covenant is called “better” than the old (Heb. 8:6) because God in Christ fulfills his promise to write his law on the believer’s heart (Heb. 8:8–13).

The Lord’s Supper therefore continues the Passover theme in the new messianic context: (1) It is a memorial feast of the person and work of the Messiah. The remembrance goes beyond the historical events and becomes a proclamation and confession of faith (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26). (2) It is an avowal of loyalty between master and disciples, expressing the cohesion and the mutual interdependence of the Christian brotherhood. (3) It reaffirms the covenant of old and seals it in the blood of the Messiah. (4) It expresses the joy of salvation and the eschatological hope of the Messiah’s ultimate triumph.

The Christian Exodus

The keynote of the New Testament message is messianic fulfillment; Jesus was the One of whom Moses and the prophets had written (John 1:45). The Messiah, by his life, work, death, and resurrection, accomplished “eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9). This the law had been unable to do, for the Law had made nothing perfect (Heb. 7:19); it only served as a schoolmaster until Christ came (Gal. 3:24). The salvation of Yahweh as demonstrated in the story of the Exodus (cf. Exod. 14:13) was thus only a foreshadowing of what was to come. All God’s acts in the Old Testament point to an ultimate future. A day will come when the Lord will reveal himself as the “warrior who gives victory” (Zeph. 3:17 rsv). The difference between the redemption from Egypt and messianic salvation is not that the one is in time and the other beyond it. Biblical salvation is always rooted in time and in history; this is its most peculiar feature. Also, the distinction is not that the one is physical (or political) and the other spiritual. The distinction rather lies in the area of eschatology; messianic salvation is ultimate. The rabbis regarded redemption from Egypt as foreshadowing final redemption; the New Testament claims it an accomplished fact. Passover is the beginning of the journey the Messiah completes by reaching the goal.

“Eternal salvation” means there can be no other salvation after the messianic event, which is the ultimate salvation. The eternal covenant that God promised to the fathers (Jer. 32:40; 50:5; cf. Isa. 55:3; Ezek. 16:60) has now been established and sealed in the blood of the Messiah (Heb. 13:20). In Hebrews the dissolution of the cult, the change of the priesthood, and the removal of the Law are the consequences of the messianic event. Christ has become the living way (Heb. 10:20) to the inner sanctuary (Heb. 6:19), the new High Priest who by his sacrifice has made possible for humans to draw near into the presence of God himself (Heb. 10:20ff.).

Jesus completes what Moses began but could never accomplish ultimately. True freedom is freedom from sin. No one is truly free who is a slave to sin. Only the one whom the Son makes free is free indeed (John 8:34–36). Paul arrives at a similar conclusion; the fathers were all under the cloud, passed through the sea, were baptized into Moses, ate spiritual food, and drank spiritual drink, yet they perished in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1–5). The Exodus had a limited goal that was not reached until a new generation grew up. It is therefore only a parable of humankind’s journey to its ultimate destiny—the promised land. This journey the human cannot make on his or her own strength. The slave has to become the freedman of the Lord (1 Cor. 7:22), and the emancipation takes place at the cross of Jesus Christ. In him, people become sons of God (Gal. 4:4–6) and enjoy the freedom of the children of God (Rom. 8:2–4). The Exodus from Egypt to the land of Canaan leads beyond history to the “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). Whereas the historic Exodus was limited to the experience of one people, the Christian exodus is open to the nations of the world. Humankind’s ultimate destiny is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the freed (Gal. 4:26).

The Lord’s Supper As Covenant Meal

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The Lord’s Supper, as instituted by Jesus Christ and elaborated in the Epistles, has its roots in the ancient rite of covenant, a practice that predates Abraham. Indeed, the covenant forms the basic structure of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel and is, for this reason, the underlying motif for the establishment of Christ’s relationship with the new people of God.

The cutting of covenants (karat bƒrit) appears to have been a universal practice in the ancient world. Complete covenant documents pertaining to the Hittite peoples, neighbors of the patriarch Abraham, have been excavated in the Near East, and traces of covenant rituals are to be found in ceremonies of the Native Americans of the Western hemisphere. Treaty covenants are known to have regulated relationships among the various city-states and empires of Mesopotamia. The king of a defeated army entered into such an agreement with his conqueror, who specified the terms of the pact. Usually these stipulations included a vow of total loyalty to the great king, or “lord,” as the covenant initiator was called, and a payment of annual tribute.

In some cases, less powerful rulers requested a treaty with a stronger king to secure his protection from invading armies. The weaker king, the vassal or “servant,” agreed to assist the great king in battle, to make no friendships with nor provide safe harbor for his lord’s enemies, and to appear in the courts of the lord at specified times to pay the required tribute.

Terms of the treaty covenant were written in two copies—one for the vassal king to read periodically to his people and the other to be placed in the shrine of the major god of the territory, who acted as a witness to the agreement and also enforced it.

A treaty between two nations was not in force until it was ceremonially ratified, usually with the blood of a slain animal. After cutting the sacrifice into pieces, the parties to the agreement walked between them as an identification with the animal, making the symbolic vow “The gods do so to me and more also if I break the terms of this covenant.” Then they shared a meal of the animal’s flesh and drank its blood in a sealing ritual.

The covenant meal is a frequent occurrence in the Old Testament. Isaac hosted Abimelech and his commanders at a meal that verified an agreement about the use of some wells that had been dug by Abraham (Gen. 26:26–31). Likewise, Laban and Jacob ratified their nonaggression pact with a sacrificial meal (Gen. 31:43–54).

Israel’s covenant with Yahweh followed the prescribed pattern of covenants between tribal leaders. The covenant meal was first eaten in Egypt, when the Hebrews accepted Yahweh as their God and prepared to follow him out of Pharaoh’s clutches and into the Promised Land. At the Passover meal, all Israel ate and drank their commitment to this new relationship: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod. 6:7), and they were commanded to repeat the ceremony in a recommitment to the covenant every year thereafter (Exod. 12:21–24).

At Mount Sinai the terms were written on tablets of stone, which were later deposited in the ark of the covenant under Moses’ direction. As leader of Israel and covenant mediator, Moses read the covenant text to his people (Exod. 24:7) and sacrificed burnt offerings to Yahweh, sprinkling their blood on the people (Exod. 24:8) as a means of identification with the animals. Following this part of the ritual, Moses and the elders of Israel ate and drank in the Lord’s presence (Exod. 24:9–11). Since the drinking of blood was prohibited for the Hebrews, wine was used as a substitute.

This practice of confirming a covenant with a sacrificial meal is the background for the words of our Lord as he sat at the Passover table with his disciples. In his death he would become the sacrifice that ratifies the covenant between God and the new covenant people. Paul identifies Christ as the Passover Lamb who makes possible the feast, or covenant meal (1 Cor. 5:8), an assertion based on the words of Jesus himself. Breaking the bread and offering it to the Twelve, he said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Lifting a cup of wine he continued, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24). Luke records that Jesus said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20, emphasis added). Paul testifies to having received the same from the Lord (1 Cor. 11:23), as he writes to the Corinthian church, “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood’ ” (1 Cor. 11:25).

The concept of Jesus as the covenant sacrifice underlies his “hard saying” recorded in John’s Gospel. The day following Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish, he initiates a discussion with his disciples on the subject of manna. Moses was not the source of that bread, he tells them, but the Lord God was. He then moves the focus of the conversation to his own role as the bread given by God which brings life to the world. “I am the bread of life,” he explains. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). The Jews, overhearing this extraordinary statement, begin to complain, and Jesus becomes even more explicit:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.… Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.… For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. (John 6:51, 54–56)

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus instructs his disciples at the Passover table. But he does not intend the act as a sentimental or maudlin ceremony in which the disciples mourn the loss of their leader. Jesus has just informed them that the bread and wine, his body and blood, comprise the meal that ratifies the new covenant. They are to recall this truth each time they participate in the ritual. In eating the flesh of the sacrifice and drinking the blood these disciples commit themselves afresh to the covenant formula, “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer. 31:33). And in so doing they become the body of the Lord, his covenant people. Paul stresses this truth in his discourse to the Corinthians concerning abuses at the Lord’s Table. In committing themselves to the covenant, Christians must recognize the Lord’s body if they do not wish to incur judgment (1 Cor. 11:29).

The purpose of the Lord’s Supper, then, is to remember his death—not the agony in the garden or the beatings or the crown of thorns or even the nails in his hands and feet. Rather, the recalling is to be of Jesus’ sacrifice, which ratifies the covenant between himself as representative man and God the Great King of the covenant.

For the amazing truth is that Jesus fulfills the symbolism of all parts of the covenant ceremony. As the Son of man, he assumes the role of the servant king who represents the people of God; he is also the covenant lord, or Great King; as the Word of God, he is the covenant text, deposited in God’s temple, the church; he is the sacrifice, which is eaten and drunk, completing the covenant agreement. To be “in Christ,” as Paul says (2 Cor. 5:17), is to be in the covenant he represents. It is this relationship that God’s people affirm when the church eats and drinks with the Lord at his table.

The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament

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Protestants commonly use the term Lord’s Supper for the act of worship that centers on the table of the Lord. The Lord’s Supper originated with Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, in the context of the Passover, and shares with the Passover the theme of the Lord’s deliverance of Israel. As interpreted in the Gospels and by Paul, the Lord’s Supper is symbolic of Christ’s death, a memorial that places the worshiper at the Cross. It is the ratification of the covenant between the Lord and the people of God, an emblem of the communion or mutual participation of all members of the body of Christ. The Supper is a proclamation of the gospel and a symbol of faith in Christ.

Introduction

The expression “Lord’s Supper” (kuriakon deipnon) occurs only once in the New Testament (1 Cor. 11:20), where it refers not only to the special Christian rite of breaking the bread and drinking the cup but also to the “love feast” that accompanied it. The expression “breaking of bread,” found several times in Acts (Acts 2:42; 20:7, 11), may be another reference to the Lord’s Supper; certainly it became so in the subsequent history of the church. Later names for the Supper, such as Eucharist or Communion, are not used in the technical sense in the New Testament. The former, however, is derived from Jesus’ act of thanksgiving (eucharisteō) before offering the cup to his disciples (Mark 14:23) and the latter from 1 Corinthians 10:16, where Paul writes of the “communion” (koinōnia) of the body and blood of Christ.

The Lord’s Supper, by whatever name, began with the Last Supper of Jesus and his friends before his death. The principal texts dealing with this subject are Matthew 26:26–29, Mark 14:22–25, Luke 22:14–20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. Apart from Paul and the synoptic Gospels, the New Testament is virtually silent on the rite of the Lord’s Supper, although allusions to it may be present in John 6:22–59; Acts 2:46; 20:7, 11; Hebrews 6:4; 13:10; 2 Peter 2:13; Jude 12; and Revelation 14:15–20. The early church may have felt a need to keep its central act of worship a “mystery” or secret hidden from the prying eyes of a hostile culture; the general silence of the New Testament could also mean that the Lord’s Supper was well known, at least within the church, and it was unnecessary to mention it except where disorders called for clarification.

The Lord’s Supper and Passover

Whether Jesus’ last supper with the disciples was an actual Passover meal (and there is some question in this regard with respect to the interpretation of the Gospel accounts), his words instituting the new Christian meal were spoken in the context of the Passover celebration and may be understood accordingly. The liturgy of the Passover began as the presiding person (usually the family head) pronounced a blessing (kiddush) over the first cup of wine, which at Passover was always red. After he and the others present had drunk the cup, they took bitter herbs and ate them after dipping them in a fruit sauce (haroset). Next came the explanation of the feast as the food for the meal was brought in. The son asked his father why this night differed from other nights, and the father explained why the different foods were eaten: the Passover lamb because God passed over the house of our fathers in Egypt (Exod. 12:26–27), the unleavened bread because our fathers were redeemed from Egypt (Exod. 12:39), and the bitter herbs because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our fathers in Egypt (Exod. 1:14). After this, the family or group sang the first part of the Hallel (Ps. 113 or Pss. 113–114). Then came the drinking of a second cup, after which the president took unleavened bread and blessed God with these words: “Blessed art thou who bringest forth bread from the earth.” He then broke it and distributed it to the guests. At this point the meal proper was consumed, ending with another prayer by the president, a prayer of thanksgiving for the meal pronounced over a third cup of wine, “the cup of blessing” (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16 nasb). After supper the group sang the remainder of the Hallel, through Psalm 118. The liturgy concluded with a fourth cup of wine, taken to celebrate God’s kingdom.

Jesus’ Words of Institution

It is not possible to be certain exactly what Jesus said when, following the Passover ceremony, he singled out the bread and the cup of wine for special consideration and reinterpretation. The principal texts that relate his words do not agree in every detail and have been translated into Greek from Jesus’ original expressions in a Semitic language. When all sources are woven together, the words over the bread take the following form: “Take (Matthew, Mark), eat (Matthew), this is my body (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul), which is given for you. Do this for my remembrance (Luke’s longer text, Paul).” The saying over the cup is also recorded variously: “All of you drink from it, for (Matthew) this (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul) cup (Luke, Paul) is my blood of the covenant (Matthew, Mark; ‘is the new covenant in my blood,’ Luke, Paul), which is poured out (Matthew, Mark, Luke) for many (Matthew, Mark; ‘for you,’ Luke) for the remission of sins (Matthew). Do this as often as you drink it for my remembrance (Paul).” These cup words are followed immediately in Matthew and Mark by Jesus’ promise not to drink again of the fruit of the vine until he drinks it new with his disciples in the kingdom of God. The same eschatological hope is found also in Paul, though worded differently, and he too places it after the cup saying. Luke, on the other hand, couples the promise not to drink of the fruit of the vine with a similar promise not to eat again of the Passover until its real meaning is fulfilled in the kingdom, and he places both these sayings before the words spoken over the bread and the cup.

Essentially, then, there seem to be two accounts that are independent of each other—that represented by Mark and that of Paul. It is difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, to know which is older, for there are “primitive” elements in each. And despite all the minor differences between the accounts, they are in substantial agreement.

Meaning of the Lord’s Supper in the Synoptic Gospels

A Symbol of Christ’s Death. The bread and wine of the Last Supper are a symbol of the Lord’s body and blood, a symbol of his death: “This is my body given,” Jesus said, “This is my blood poured out.” The verb conveys merely the idea of represents or signifies (as in the interpretation of the parables, Matt. 13:38; cf. John 10:9, 14). It would have been almost impossible for Jesus to have equated the bread with his body and the wine with his blood, and then have asked his Jewish disciples to eat and drink. It is more likely that they viewed Jesus in the tradition of the prophets of Israel and interpreted his words and actions accordingly. As the prophets had predicted future events by symbolic and dramatic actions (1 Kings 21:11; Jer. 19:1–11; Ezek. 4:3), so Jesus broke the bread and took the cup as an acted parable to denote his impending death and to point out its meaning. Several other ideas cluster around this basic symbolism of the Last Supper.

A Substitutionary Death. The Lord interpreted his death as a substitutionary event, one of self-giving on behalf of others, universal in scope: “This is my body given for you”; “this is my blood poured out for many.” This “many” is not to be understood as a limiting expression, in the sense of “some, but not all.” It is a Semitic way of contrasting the many with the one, resulting in the meaning “all” (cf. Matt. 10:28 with 1 Tim. 2:6; Rom. 5:18 with Rom. 5:19).

Ratification of the New Covenant. Jesus further interpreted his death as the means of ratifying the new covenant proclaimed by Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31–34). This may be observed in his words, “my blood of the covenant” (Mark 14:24), which are almost identical with those of Exodus 24:8, where the ratification of the old covenant with Israel is recorded. But the addition of the pronoun my indicates that Jesus placed his blood in contrasting position to that of the covenant-inaugurating animal sacrifice of the Old Testament and that he viewed his death as fulfilling and bringing to an end the old covenant and as the supreme sacrifice necessary to introduce the new and give it permanent validity.

A Means of Forgiveness. There are also elements in the account of the Supper that indicate that Jesus interpreted his death as the consummate act of the Servant of the Lord described in the prophecy of Isaiah. This is particularly clear in Matthew, who adds the words “for the forgiveness of sins” to the saying about Jesus’ blood poured out (Matt. 26:28; cf. Isa. 53:12: “He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”).

Passover Themes: Deliverance, Messianic Anticipation. Perhaps the most obvious meanings attached to the Lord’s Supper are those associated with the Passover, since apparently, the Lord’s Supper originated in a Passover context. In the first century, Passover was in reality a celebration of two events: it looked back to commemorate Israel’s deliverance from the oppression of Egypt (Exod. 12:14, 17; Mishnah, Pƒsaḥim 10.5), and it looked forward to anticipating the coming messianic kingdom (Mishnah, Pƒsaḥim 10.6; cf. Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, Mƒkhilta, Exod. 12:42; Rabbah, Exod. 15:1). Two themes are prominent in the narrative of the Last Supper. Selecting only two elements from the liturgy of the Passover—the unleavened bread and the cup after the meal—Jesus seemed to be saying, “As Israel was spared from death at the hand of the destroying angel and delivered from servitude to Pharaoh by the death of the Passover lamb and the sprinkling of its blood, so you are spared from eternal death and freed from slavery to sin by my body broken and my blood poured forth.” In Jesus’ action, the original meaning of the Passover has been superseded. Christ is the Paschal Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), and by his death becomes the author of a new exodus, the Redeemer of an enslaved people. Such, at least, was the understanding of the early church, an understanding most beautifully expressed in a sermon of Melito, Bishop of Sardis (died c. a.d. 190):

For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil and from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own Spirit, and the members of our bodies by his own blood.

This is the one who covered death with shame and who plunged the Devil into mourning as Moses did Pharaoh.

This is the one who smote lawlessness, and deprived injustice of its offspring as Moses deprived Egypt.

This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood and a special people forever.

This is the passover of our salvation. (Homily, 67, 68)

The cross and the fish are ancient symbols of the Eucharist. The artistic depiction above is from a floor mosaic found in a church at Tabgha in Galilee in the fifth-century a.d. This symbol is rooted in biblical teaching.

The other theme of eschatological expectancy is also present in the Lord’s Supper. It is found in Jesus’ promise not to eat the Passover or drink the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall have arrived. This promise is not a word of despair but a note of joy. Jesus sees beyond the darkness of Calvary to that time when he would share with his disciples the messianic banquet and enjoy with them the life of the age to come (cf. Isa. 25:6–8).

Massey H. Shepherd has summarized the meanings of the Last Supper in these words: “Thus Jesus offered his disciples in the Supper a full participation in the atoning benefits of his own self-offering on the cross—deliverance from the bondage of this world, remission of sins, incorporation into the new people of God, an inner obedience of the heart to the will of God, and the joy and benediction of his presence and fellowship in the age to come.”

Paul’s Understanding of the Lord’s Supper

The disorders at the Lord’s Table in Corinth gave the apostle Paul the opportunity to provide teaching on the Lord’s Supper that appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Paul’s account of it is generally thought to be the earliest in the New Testament by several years. He says he “received from the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:23). This may mean that Paul learned of the events of the Last Supper and its meaning in the same way he says he had earlier received the content of the gospel: not by human teaching, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:12). More likely, however, Paul’s statement should be interpreted to mean that he understood himself to be handing on in unaltered fashion that which had come to him as church tradition. The words he uses for “receive” and “deliver to” are equivalents of rabbinic terms for the normal passing down of tradition. Paul may have meant, then, that he received the story of the Last Supper and its meaning from the Lord through the apostolic witness. For the Lord was not simply a remembered historical figure but a living presence in the church, guiding the community into all truth (John 16:13) and seeing that this truth was transmitted accurately to each succeeding generation.

A Memorial Feast. “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24–25) occurs in Paul and Luke but does not appear in Mark and Matthew. Paul, therefore, understands that the purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus and that this purpose originated with the Lord himself. Here again is a parallel between this new feast and the feast of the Passover. As the Passover was basically a remembrance celebration calling to mind the mercy and greatness of God in delivering his people from Egypt (Exod. 12:14; 13:8–10), so the Lord’s Supper is designed to constantly remind the church of God’s greatest act, that of deliverance from sin through the death (not the teachings) of the Lord Jesus.

But the biblical idea of “remembering” is more profound than our modern conception of it. For the biblical writer, it meant more than simply having an “idea” about something that happened. It also involved action, a physical response to the psychological process of recollection. When the dying thief asked the Savior to “remember” him, he meant more than “Have an idea of me in your mind”; he meant, “Act toward me in mercy. Save me!” There was, then, this closeness of the relation between thought and action. Thus when the Jews celebrated the Passover, they did more than just think about what happened to their forefathers. In a sense, they reenacted that event and themselves participated in the Exodus. They became as one with their past.

There may also be this dimension to the word remembrance as it is used in 1 Corinthians 11. When the Christian partakes of the Lord’s Supper, he or she not only has an idea in his or her mind about a past event; in a sense, the worshiper “recalls” that event in such a way that it can no longer be regarded wholly as a thing “absent” or past, but rather present, and powerfully so. Uniquely in the Lord’s Supper, then, the death of Christ is made so vivid that it is as if the Christian and the worshiping body of which he or she is a part were standing beneath the cross.

A Proclamation of the Gospel. Paul also understood the Last Supper to be a proclamation: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death” (1 Cor. 11:26). The verb proclaim found here is used elsewhere in the New Testament of heralding the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14) and of making known one’s faith (Rom. 1:8). Hence, its action seems to be directed toward humankind rather than toward God. In performing the rite, the celebrant proclaims to all the Lord’s death as victory. The Supper, therefore, becomes the gospel, a visible verbum, as Augustine said.

This idea of the Lord’s Supper as gospel is helpful in understanding the Lord’s presence in the Supper. In the New Testament, proclamation has the character of event. As Edouard Schweizer has said, the Word is never “merely” something spiritual intended for the intellect. Christ himself comes in the Word: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16). In a similar way he comes in the Supper. Christ’s presence is brought about not

“magically by a liturgically correct administration of the sacrament.… It comes to pass where the Lord’s Supper is understood as gospel, whether this gospel is believed or rejected.… This means, therefore, that the real presence in the Lord’s Supper is exactly the same as His presence in the word—nothing more, nothing less. It is an event, not an object: an encounter, not a phenomenon of nature; it is Christ’s encounter with His Church, not the distribution of a substance” (E. Schweizer, The Lord’s Supper According to the New Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967], 37–38).

Communion (koinōnia). The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 are not easy to translate, especially the expressions “communion of the blood of Christ,” and “communion of the body of Christ” (KJV). The word translated “communion” (koinōnia) may also be translated “fellowship,” meaning a group of people bound together in a “communion” or “fellowship” by what they have in common with each other. And the preposition of does not exist in Greek but is an interpretation of the genitive case. It may also be interpreted to mean “brought about by” or “based on.” Translated this way, Paul is saying, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not (does it not represent) the fellowship which is brought about by the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship brought about by the body of Christ?” The Lord’s Supper, then, is understood to witness to the fact that Christians belong to a special family, which includes the Son and the Father (cf. 1 John 1:3) and is marked by unity and love. It is a communion that required the death of Christ to create and that is so close that it is as though believers were one body: “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17 KJV). Perhaps, then, this was the great disorder in Corinth that prompted what little teaching there is on the Lord’s Supper. The Corinthians’ sin was in not “recognizing the body” (1 Cor. 11:29), that is, in failing to understand the oneness of the body of which each person was a part.

In Paul’s day a fellowship meal preceded the breaking of the bread and drinking of the cup. It was not an unimportant part of the Lord’s Supper, and Paul had no desire to abolish it. What he was concerned to do, however, was to correct its abuses. For instead of symbolizing the unity its name intended, the fellowship meal at Corinth had become an occasion for manifesting the opposite. The freemen despised the slave class, going ahead with the meal before the latter had the opportunity to arrive (1 Cor. 11:21). The wealthy scorned the poor, feasting to the point of gluttony while the latter went hungry (1 Cor. 11:21–22). Thus eating and drinking unworthily (1 Cor. 11:27) may have meant for Paul partaking of the Lord’s Supper while holding each other in contempt, neither party striving to live up to the unity that the Lord’s death had brought about.

The word koinōnia has still another meaning. It means also “participation in.” Hence, 1 Corinthians 10:16 may be translated as the Revised Standard Version does: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” If this is so, then perhaps Paul understood the cup and bread to symbolize the worshiping assembly’s participation in the death of Christ. Perhaps by borrowing his vocabulary from the mystery religions he showed that the Redeemer and the redeemed are so intimately bound up with each other that what happened to the Redeemer happened also to the redeemed. Thus when Christ died, the Christian died also, and partaking of the Lord’s Supper symbolizes this participation in the body and blood of the Savior. Such a description of the Supper is Paul’s way of stating what Christ had already said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.… I tell you the truth unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:51, 53).

The Lord’s Supper, though of great importance to Paul, is not all-important. There are no magical qualities to it. It has no more power to communicate life and maintain it than did the spiritual food and drink provided Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1–13). It cannot in and of itself debilitate or bring about death, despite the fact that Paul says that many who eat and drink unworthily are weak and ill and some have died (1 Cor. 11:30). Such sickness and death resulting from the judgment of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:32), not from any magical power of the Supper. The importance of the Supper exists solely in the person it points to and whose redemptive acts it proclaims.

The Lord’s Supper in the Gospel of John

There is no specific reference to the Lord’s Supper in the fourth Gospel. John describes a final meal Jesus had with his disciples (John 13) when he taught them the importance of humble service to others by himself washing their feet. But there are no bread or wine here, no words of institution. Many, however, see the Johannine Eucharist in John 6, the discourse on the bread of life. It is here that Jesus says, “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him” (John 6:55–56). [This possibility is reinforced by the reference to Jesus giving “thanks” in John 6:11, 23, using the Greek verb related to the word eucharist.] If this is so, it appears that for John the Lord’s Supper is spiritual food (cf. John 6:63) that nourishes and strengthens the life of the Christian (cf. Didachē 10.4).

But perhaps John’s primary aim was to discourse, not on the Lord’s Supper but on the meaning of faith. Certainly, this is a subject that is continually being put forward in his Gospel. What does it mean to have faith in Christ? When “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life” (John 6:47) is placed over against “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,” ( John 6:54), it seems that John, in searching for the way to answer this question, has at last found the model he needs. To believe in Christ is analogous to eating him. As one would take food and eat it, so that it is assimilated into the system and becomes one’s very life, so faith is a similar appropriation of Christ with the result that he is at the very center and is the energizing force of the Christian’s life. In any case, this is precisely what the Lord’s Supper is designed to remind us of.

When Was the Lord’s Supper Observed?

One might expect that if the Lord’s Supper developed out of the Passover meal it would be celebrated only once a year, on 14–15 Nisan. There is some evidence in early church history to support this idea. Epiphanius, for example, observed that the Ebionites (an early Jewish-Christian sect) celebrated the Eucharist as an annual feast, like the Passover, in memory of Christ’s death (Haereses 30.16.1). And Christians in Asia Minor in the second century held a special Eucharist as a parallel to and at the same time as the Passover. The mention in Acts of the disciples “breaking bread” every day (Acts 2:42, 46) need not refute this idea, for these meals, which were similar to religious meals elsewhere in Judaism, may have originated in the post-resurrection meals Jesus had with his followers (Luke 24:30–43; John 21:1–14; Acts 1:4; 10:41). Whereas the Lord’s Supper, as described in the New Testament, was a remembrance of Christ’s death, these daily meals of the Jerusalem church were times of joyful fellowship celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and his continued presence with the church.

In time, however, as the church moved out from Jerusalem and the role of Jewish influence in the development of Christian worship was reduced, the two meals were combined into one event. In Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper, the joyful post-resurrection fellowship meal has become the “love feast” element (1 Cor. 11:20–21), and the annual Passover meal has become the Eucharist element (1 Cor. 11:23–26). By this time, the Lord’s Supper was apparently celebrated neither daily nor annually, but weekly, on the first day of the week, the day of the Resurrection, and possibly in the evening, like the Passover ceremony (Acts 20:7; cf. 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10; Didachē 1).

How Was the Lord’s Supper Observed?

The New Testament provides little information about how the Lord’s Supper was observed. However, from 1 Corinthians 11:20–34, it is possible to reconstruct the following order: (1) There was a dinner or love feast, to which each worshiper brought his or her own food (1 Cor. 11:20–22), though the intent was no doubt to share the food among the participants. (2) There may have been a period of self-examination, suggested by Paul’s words “a man ought to examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28–29). However, it is impossible to tell whether the form of this examination was inward, a public confession to the church, or a corporate confession in a liturgical prayer (cf. Didachē 6.14; 14.1). [However, since the burden of Paul’s admonition to “examine [oneself]” is that the worshiper might “recognize the Lord’s body” in the Supper, rather than discover some hidden personal shortcoming, this self-examination may not have been a part of the rite at all, but simply a warning Paul inserted in his teaching on the Lord’s Supper. (3) Finally, the Lord’s Supper proper involved only the bread and the cup, which recalled the death of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 11:24–26). Acts 20:7–11 suggests that some sort of homily may have preceded these actions, forming part of the liturgy of the Supper. The New Testament contains no traces of the eucharistic prayers found in other early Christian literature (Didachē 9.10), nor is there evidence of the ceremony of foot-washing in association with the Lord’s Supper. [Also, the New Testament gives no indication as to which ecclesiastical officers customarily presided over the celebration.]

The Biblical Background to the Christian Festivals

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Emerging from its Judaic background, the Christian church did not continue the observance of the festivals of Israelite worship but developed a liturgical calendar of its own, based principally on major events in the life of Christ.

The Pentateuch mandates the observance of three annual feasts (Exod. 23:14–27; Lev. 23; Deut. 16:1–7): Passover, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, and the Feast of Ingathering, also called the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus and the earliest Christians were familiar with this Mosaic calendar, and the New Testament records occasions when they took part in these festivals. Jesus cleansed the temple during a Passover observance (John 2:13–17), taught in the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:14–39), and instituted the Lord’s Supper during the Passover (Matt. 26:17–30). It was on the day of Pentecost that the apostles, together in Jerusalem, were filled with the Holy Spirit and first preached Jesus as the Christ (Acts 2:1). Paul, on what was to be his final trip to Jerusalem, expressed the desire to be there by Pentecost (Acts 20:16). The Jewish Sabbath was not a festival but a day of rest and of assembling in the synagogue for the study of the Scriptures. The Gospels record Jesus’ participation in the Sabbath service at the beginning of his ministry (Luke 4:16). Later, however, his attitude toward the Sabbath often drew the ire of the Pharisees, for he opposed their rigorous prohibition of all forms of “work” when it would prevent doing good to people, especially healing the sick.

As the church expanded out of the orbit of Judaism, the Jewish festivals were virtually laid aside. The church could not continue their sacrificial aspects, for Christ himself had offered the only efficacious blood sacrifice (Heb. 9:11–14; 10:1–10) and in his death and resurrection had canceled the decrees of the ceremonial law (Col. 2:13–14). The New Testament draws on the vocabulary and symbolism of the Israelite feasts and of the Sabbath to interpret God’s action in Christ. The Lord’s Supper, as the covenant meal of the Christian ekklēsia, partly absorbed the significance of the Passover; however, it was not an annual festival but, apparently, a weekly observance. The Jewish Sabbath was supplanted by the Christian worship on the Lord’s Day.

The New Testament records no liturgical calendar and gives no directives for observing annual feasts. The apostle Paul expresses indifference to the observance of special days; whether a believer keeps them should be a matter of personal conviction, for the purpose of glorifying and thanking the Lord (Rom. 14:5–6). Historically, however, the Christian church has found a special value in the annual festivals as encouragements to the believer’s identification with God’s action of deliverance in Jesus Christ. Within some segments of the evangelical church, there is a growing desire to return to aspects of the biblical festival calendar; some churches and groups, for example, have begun to observe an annual “Feast of Tabernacles,” a time of heightened celebration of the glory and presence of the Lord.

The following is an introduction to the Lord’s Day and to the major feasts of the church. Omitted in this survey are days that have no scriptural foundation, such as saints’ days, events peculiar to one denominational tradition (e.g., Reformation Day or Aldersgate Sunday), or the events of the civil or popular calendar that may be celebrated in churches (e.g., Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving).

The Character of Jewish Feasts in Biblical Worship

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The three major Jewish feasts are associated with three annual harvests; historically each involved the return of a portion of the harvest to the Lord. These offerings symbolized the reasons for the feast itself: God is the source of the fruits of the earth; God’s gifts of produce are for the sustenance and comfort of the people; and because God gives freely, the worshipers must do the same, sharing their benefits with the needy.

The three principal Jewish feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Booths) had an agricultural origin, and their meaning as such did not differ greatly from the meaning of “feast” as just described. The three feasts were connected with the most important harvests in the three productive seasons of the year, and they expressed the deep joy of a people that was led and nourished by its God. Passover celebrated the barley harvest in the spring, Pentecost the wheat harvest in the summer, and Booths the fruit harvest in the fall. In keeping with an almost universally known and attested religious custom, the heart of each feast consisted in the offering of part of the harvest to the divinity. The book of Deuteronomy makes explicit reference to this practice in the cases of Pentecost and Booths, two feasts that, unlike Passover, which has been reread and historicized to a greater degree, allow us to glimpse their original agricultural basis:

Celebrate the Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.… Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.… No man should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you. (Deut. 16:10, 13, 16–17)

What is the meaning of such an offering, which is both the expression and the basis of feasts and their joy? To offer God the produce of the earth is not an act of self-deprivation (renouncing something in order to give it to God) but is an act of self-definition and acknowledgment that the fruits of the earth belong to the Lord and that human beings may use them only as his beneficiaries. This simple action sums up in a symbolic way three basic concepts and attitudes: (1) the produce gathered belongs to God, who is its master and owner; (2) the produce is given as a gift to meet the needs of and to comfort humans; and (3) the fruits of the earth are to be enjoyed not according to the logic of possession and hoarding but according to the divine intention that brings them into existence.

When Israel offered to the Lord part of its harvests in the three important seasons of the year, it was reaffirming this pattern of conviction and choice. Israel professed its belief that the “bread” and “wine” of the Promised Land were not the result of the people’s efforts or of magical practices, but were due to the creative goodwill of God, and Israel renewed its commitment to share these things with others. This accounts for the biblical insistence that on these festival days no one should be in want but all should have and fully enjoy: “Be joyful at your Feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns” (Deut. 16:14). This emphasis on feeding the poor reflects a theological rather than a sociological concern: God intends the fruits of the earth for the enjoyment of all; if the poor, as well as the rich, enjoy them, God’s reign is being brought to pass, and his will is being fulfilled in a concrete way.

Sharing the fruits of the earth is not simply an imperative of social ethics, but is the very heart of the theological directive: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5); here, to “love the Lord” means to obey his will by accepting and doing it within history.

The sacrifice of animals, which had a privileged place in the worship offered in the Jerusalem temple, had at bottom the same twofold meaning as the offering of firstfruits: it was an acknowledgment of God’s lordship over the animal world and a readiness to take nourishment from that world in a spirit of sharing and not of hoarding, that is, as gifts intended for all and not as a privilege of a few.

Israel derived the three agricultural feasts from the surrounding Semitic world. However, it did not make them its own in a purely passive way; it turned them into original creations by enriching them with its own specific spiritual outlook. The name usually given to this process of reinterpretation is “historicization.” By this is meant that the focus of the feast was shifted from events of the natural world to special historical events: the deliverance from Egypt in the Feast of Passover, the gift of the Torah in the Feast of Pentecost, and the enjoyment of the Torah’s fruits in the Feast of Booths.

It is true that Israel “historicized” the agricultural feasts. It is necessary, however, to understand this process correctly: the process took the form not of contrasting the new with the old or ignoring the old, but of further explaining the original meaning and reaching down to its root.

The central event of Jewish history is the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, a single action with three stages: departure from Egypt, the gift of the Torah (or covenant), and entrance into the Promised Land. Israel was liberated from slavery and brought into the “good and spacious land” of Canaan, but the entrance was neither automatic nor taken for granted, for between departure and entrance was Mount Sinai, the place of the covenant where the Torah was offered and accepted. Here is the epicenter and secret of all Jewish history and Jewish originality: the discovery that the land, their own land, would produce “milk and honey” in abundance (Exod. 3:8, 17; Num. 13:27; Deut. 6:3; 11:9), not spontaneously, however, but only if and to the extent that Israel would be faithful to the covenant. This connection between the fertility of the soil and obedience to the Torah is clearly expressed in Leviticus 26:3–6, which is bewildering because the fruits of which it speaks are not the fruits of some special world but the normal production of the trees of any part of our world. Yet if these fruits are truly to bring joy to all and become a sign of communion instead of destruction, a precise, divine condition must be met: they must be cultivated and eaten according to the logic of the covenant, that is, Jews must acknowledge them to be gifts and must consent to their universal destination.

This “historicity” is peculiar to the Jewish situation, but clearly, it does not contradict the meaning of “feast”; rather, it further clarifies that meaning by getting to the root of one of its fundamental aspects. When early human beings offered God part of their seasonal produce, they were recognizing his fatherhood and accepting the produce as his gift. Israel accepted this logic but had a better grasp of its dynamic and its requirement. It realized that if the fruits of the earth are truly to be a gift and a blessing, it is not enough simply to accept them; rather they must be shared through a way of life-based on justice and responsibility. Justice and the fruitfulness of the land are partners in an “indissoluble marriage” in which the two shed light on one another. Israel’s originality lies in its having transcended a purely “natural” view of nature and having connected the abundance of the land’s fruits with its own free choices.