What is “Remembrance”
At the Breaking of Bread? Luke 22. 14-23
Jesus has ordered the disciples to prepare a place. When the time for the meal arrives, Jesus took his place, and his apostles with him… So, first of all, Jesus is in charge here. Luke tells the story in such away as to emphasise that. With his knowledge of the Gentile Church, he wants to emphasise, Jesus is in charge! The words we usually use at Communion, “I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you….” were written precisely because one of these churches, in Corinth, got so out of hand. We need to be brought back to this: it’s the Lord’s table. Not yours or mine; not our Church’s or our denomination’s. It is the Lord’s table. Here, we affirm, Jesus is Lord!
Secondly, it’s a missionary table. Luke puts it differently to Mark, who simply refers to the twelve. But Luke says Jesus took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. For Luke, travelling with Paul on mission, it was important, to make the point that the twelve who sat around the table with Jesus were “Apostles”. They were sent-out ones. Breaking bread with the Apostles, Jesus stresses the rhythm of prayer and action, rest and work, focussing on God and focussing on people. The table where we remember Christ’s sacrifice is an outward-facing celebration. It is the place where we are nourished for the missionary task, where we are equipped for service reminded that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son …”
Luke records Jesus actually referring to “This Passover”. And that funny thing at the beginning of Luke’s “Last supper” is a cup of wine before as well as one after the breaking of the bread. Nobody else tells us that – because they didn’t see the point. They focussed on the bread and wine as the body and blood. But Luke includes the first cup. Perhaps because he is writing for non-Jewish readers, he feels he needs to describe the scene a bit more fully. In fact, at the passover, there was not just one cup but four.
And Passover in turn was an act of remembrance. It retold the story of God’s people who were forced into slave labour in Egypt; how God sent Moses to rescue them, and struck the Egyptians with ten plagues. The last was an angel of death that took the firstborn of every household, but the Israelites who had put the blood of a Passover lamb on their door-posts, were spared. After the angel of death had visited Egypt, Pharaoh instead of keeping the Israelites as slaves, ordered them to leave. Then after they had gone, he changed his mind, and sent his army after them. The Israelites escaped across the red Sea, the Egyptians tried to follow them and were drowned. then the whole people of Israel crossed the Red Sea and began their journey to their own land. That’s the Passover event. That story was so important that God told the people they had to remember it every year, by having a lamb sacrificed for each household, and by eating bread made without yeast. Yeast takes time to work, and they had to go quickly to escape from Egypt. That's the Passover meal.
So the passover recalled the sacrifice of a lamb for every household, that saved people from death and grief. But the passover also recalled an escape. The whole people of Israel crossed the Red Sea and began their journey to their own land. It’s a wonderful story of God’s power, God’s victory over the forces of evil and oppression; and of Israel’s escape from slavery.
So Jesus is anticipating his suffering, his death. He will not drink wine until he does so in the Kingdom of god. He takes the flat, unrisen passover bread, and said “This is my body” (verse 19) and then took the last cup, and said “this is the new covenant in my blood” (verse 20). He was speaking about the separation of body and blood, in death. Jesus knew he was going to die. When he took the bread and the wine to his disciples, he was saying “I’m the sacrificial lamb”. So when we share bread and wine together, we call to mind his sacrifice.
John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (Jn 1. 29) Jesus himself said he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for (in the place of) many. A ransom is a sacrifice, a massive cost, that pays for someone’s freedom, it pays to save a life. So when he took the passover bread, and said “This is my body” and then took the last cup, and said “this is the new covenant in my blood” he was saying “My sacrifice will be a victory and will set you free”. When Jesus gave his disciples the passover bread and wine, he was saying that his death is the passover: a sacrifice, a victory, and freedom. So when we share bread and wine, we call to mind Jesus’ victory and our freedom.
The night before he was crucified, Jesus does what Moses does the night before the passover. He talks to his people about this meal and what it means. He is saying “Tomorrow you’re going to see a new kind of Passover Event – an new kind of lamb sacrificed to gain an new kind of victory and a new kind of freedom. The Cross story is the new Passover miracle. Jesus is our Passover Lamb. (1 Cor 5. 7), disciples are in a new covenant relationship with God. The breaking of bread is the new Jesus-focussed Passover Meal. “It’s been great to remember the first Passover, the escape from Egypt. But from now on, you do this in remembrance of me. it’s your new Passover.” So how are we meant to “Call to mind” Jesus sacrifice and victory through breaking bread?
Firstly, it’s a feast of Freedom. One of the names for Passover is Hag ha-Herut (The Feast of Freedom). One of the nice more modern Jewish traditions is making sure that there are plenty of cushions on the chairs. When you came to Passover, you were free. You settled into a comfy chair, and you could lounge about a bit, because you were no longer a slave. Remember, Jesus and the twelve didn’t eat sitting on chairs or benches: they reclined. That was the way people ate. Leonardo da Vinci got that all wrong in his painting (and maybe one or two other details as well!) The word Luke uses in verse 14 means not to sit down but “to fall back”. I wonder if we have made our “remembrance” too stiff and starchy and religious and formal. It is a celebration of freedom. So it is right that it is relaxed.
Secondly, it was part of a proper meal. It involved not just symbolic food. The passover Jesus shared included roast lamb. It was a proper meal. You ate the lot; if your family wasn't big enough to eat a whole lamb, you could share with another small family. But you couldn't leave any over for the next day. And in the early Church there is evidence that the Lord’s supper was a calling to mind that took place in the context of – a proper meal. I wonder if we need to rediscover the value and importance of eating together and an expression of fellowship, caring for one another and missional hospitality.
Thirdly, it was a household celebration. This didn’t happen in the Temple or in the tabernacle. It didn’t happen like the feeding of the five thousand, on the hillside. It happened in people's own tents or houses. And when Jesus shared the passover with his disciples, he was constituting them as a family group, a people who belonged together. The household, gathered around a meal, is the basic building block of the Christian Church.
Fourthly, it was inclusive. The modern Jewish Passover has children involved. There must be no yeast in the house at Passover, so the night before, the children search for any. Then on the day, the children ask four questions: that has roots in the what God told Moses before they very first Passover (Ex 12. 26). And at the start, the passover predates the priesthood. At the start, in Egypt, the head of each household had to get a lamb and sacrifice it. There were no priests; there was no temple of tabernacle. There was just God’s people trying OT do what God said and get out of a bad place. So although they went to the “place G
od had chosen” to sacrifice the passover lamb, the passover still emphasised the role not of a priestly class, but of each member of the community. The whole community celebrated together. Old and young, male and female, no priestly class, all together.
And finally, this calling to mind, is more than a memorial. It is Jesus who makes this different from – and better than – the Passover. It is Jesus who makes this better than “remembrance Sunday”. Because Jesus isn't a dead hero whose sacrifice we remember with sadness. He’s the living victor who is present by his Spirit wherever two or three gather in his name. When we break bread, we call that to mind: it’s Self-centred; it’s mission-focussed; it’s an amazing new community – the Church – celebrating our freedom.
© Gilmour Lilly November 2017
