Remembering Jesus - The Lord's Supper
BACKGROUND
Remembering Jesus - The Lord's Supper
BACKGROUND
Introduction: The love, grace, and faithfulness of God lie at the foundation of the Lord’s Supper. A study of this subject affords an opportunity to peer into the annals of recorded history and see the infinite providence of a benevolent Father who has supplied the means of redemption to a lost humanity. At the Lord’s Supper we may see, in faith, the gates of heaven opening and the gates of hell closing. We listen and hear a bleeding, yet victorious, Savior saying, “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
This examination of the Lord’s Supper will probe three of its distinct historical developments. First, we will go to the distant past and trace the origins and significance of the Passover out of which the Lord’s Supper emerges. Then, we will examine the establishment of the Lord’s Supper by Jesus and study New Testament texts relating to the Lord’s Supper. The third facet of the study will be a textual examination of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.
Background – The Passover: The place to begin an analysis of the Passover (pesah) is in Exodus 12:1-14. After having read this passage, it is profitable to note two linguistic points: (a) Passover (pesah) is from the verb pasah means “to leap over” (Ex. 12:13), or “to be lame, limp,” (2 Sam. 4:4), because both meanings are derived from the same radicals. If it does mean “to limp,” like the limping prophets of baal (1 Kin. 18:21, 26), then perhaps God could be thought of as having “skipped by” the homes of the ancient Hebrews in Egypt (Ex. 12). (b) Regardless of the exact meaning of the verb form, the noun pesah, which is derived from it, will always be Passover. This, in spite of the fact that some scholars think the verb pasah should be rendered “defend, protect.” In fact, the New English Bible actually gives an alternate reading for Exodus 12:13 as “when I see the blood I will stand guard over you,” instead of the traditional rendering, “I will pass over you.” This is also the NEB translation of this verb form in Isaiah 31:5 where God is pictured as a bird shielding and standing over Jerusalem.
After the institution of the Passover as described in Exodus 12 and 13, the Hebrew Scriptures show the Israelites’ concern for its observance down through the centuries. This is outlined as follows: (a) Numbers 9:1-14 describes the observance of Passover by God’s people during the second year of their exodus. (b) Joshua 5:10-12 speak of the Passover observance as performed at Bilgal near Jericho and the eating of unleavened bread and parched grain the following day. (c) 2 Kings 23:21ff., and the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 35:1-19, speak of a Passover observed during the great reform movement of King Josiah. It was so extensively prepared and carried out that the historians state there had never been one like it since the days of the judges and Samuel the prophet. This, of course, implies that the Passover was being kept during the era of the judges. (d) 2 Chronicles 8:12-13 also mention that King Solomon kept the three annual feasts, which, of course, included the Passover, and followed immediately by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. (e) 2 Chronicles 30 records what is perhaps the most astonishing Passover of all, with but one exception, King Hezekiah was in the midst of his great reforms. He and his counselors decided that the Passover must be kept even though many of the priests were unclean and the people were not coming to Jerusalem for the feast as the law required. The king, therefore, postponed the observance until the 14th day of the second month, instead of keeping it on the 14th day of the first month of Abib/Nisan as the law stipulated. This postponement made it possible for everything to be made ready for the feast. The response to the call for purification and attendance was so overwhelming that after Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread had been kept it was decided to keep the feast for another seven days. That was as unique as would be the observing of the Lord’s Supper for fifteen days in row. (f) Ezra 6:19-22 tell us that ‘On the fourteenth day of the first month the returned exiles kept the passover,’ (v. 19). This was followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, (v. 22). Thus, throughout Bible history the Israelites were called upon to keep their oldest festival – the Passover, followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We have traced this continuous practice from its inception in Egypt. We noted its observance in the Sinai, in Canaan during the days of Joshua, in the days of the judges, during Solomon’s time, in the reform movements of king Hezekiah and king Josiah, and finally, during the restoration under Zerubbabel.
About ninety years after the second temple was finished and the Passover was once again observed in Judea, there is evidence that a colony of Jews on the Nile river island of Elephantine in Egypt was instructed to keep the Passover. This order was issued by the Persian king Darius II in about 419 B.C.
The late Rabbi Isidore Epstein, Jewish theologian and scholar of considerable renown, sees this event as illustrative of the steadfast practice of the Jews in the dispersion to keep the Passover. He affirms this fellowship of the scattered Jews created a spiritual unity which ‘remained unimpaired even after the breaking-up of the unity of the political world of which the Jews were a part, with the destruction of the empire of Alexander the Great about 300 B.C.’
We have traced the history of the Passover from the time of its first observance by the Hebrews in Egypt until the days of Alexander the Great near the close of the fourth century B.C. Then there was the breakup of the old order and rise of the Jewish sects beginning about the middle of the second century B.C., the Pharisees and Sadducees being the most prominent. Oral tradition developed rapidly and with considerable controversy. Jewish religious life became more and more legalistic under the influence of the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. The Sadducees were the ‘conservatives,’ holding to written Torah only as authoritative; the Pharisees were “liberals” who embraced both oral tradition and scripture as binding.
The religious climate produced by this pluralistic and controversial context tended to cause the leading religious figures to be defensive and protective of their own beliefs. One technique for preserving cherished concepts is to set them in ritual form. This happened to the Passover. Early documentary evidence of this is found in the Mishnah. This work consisted of a topical arrangement of the deliberations of the Rabbis concerning the interpretation and development of the Torah. Although originally transmitted orally, eventually the written Torah, its oral interpretations, and expansions, were set to writing at about the beginning of the third century, A.D. In the tractate Pesahim in the Mishnah one finds, in the argumentative style of the Rabbis, and in great detail, how one should prepare for, partake of, and depart from the Passover feast. In spite of this early record of Passover observance, the picture is not entirely clear. Opposing schools of thought, such as those of Shammai and Hillel, are often given without a resolution of the disagreement. However, aside from a few obscure particulars, the following description is adduced from the ancient Pesahim of the Mishnah.
On the night before Passover, the family home was searched to remove all forms of leavened items (hanetz) to insure compliance with the scriptural mandate found in Exodus 12:15. On Passover day the father of the household took a selected lamb to the temple for sacrifice. He slaughtered the animal and the priest received its blood and dashed it against the base of the altar of sacrifice. The parts of the animal to be burned (Lev. 3:3-4) were given to the priest for burning. The remainder was then taken home and roasted for eating.
What followed was “a specific family celebration . . . truly a Lord’s Supper, dedicated to Him on the eve of the holiday. It is based on the family gathering preceding the Exodus (Ex. 12:1-14) when God passed over (hence the name of Passover) the house of the Israelites while punishing the Egyptians” (Leo Trepp, Judaism: Development and Life).
This was the seder (order). It was the most memorable and significant religious family affair of the year. Fortunately, for our understanding, “the seder customs had stylized to some extent by the Second Temple period” (Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud).
As the seder was observed in each house on Passover evening, Pesahim indicates the following: (a) The cup of sanctification (Kiddush) was passed containing wine mixed with warm water. (b) A “benediction” for the cup and for the day was said. (c) Vegetables, including lettuce, were eaten. (d) Bitter herbs were eaten. (e) Unleavened bread was broken, lettuce was dipped in crushed nuts and fruit mixed in vinegar (haroseth), and this was eaten. (f) Portions of the paschal lamb were eaten as a part of the meal. (g) The cup of explanation (Haqqadah) was passed. (h) Children asked questions, starting with “Why is this night different from other nights?” The father answered them, telling the full story of the first Passover, the deliverance from Egyptian slavery, and freedom of God’s people. (i) Songs were sung, probably from the first part of the Hallel (Ps. 113-118). (j) A cup of blessing was passed. (k) A “benediction” over the meal was offered. (l) The consummation cup was passed. (m) The remainder of the Hallel was sung. (n) Benediction was said after the Hallel.
Conclusion: We have traced the origin, history, and significance of the Passover out of which the Lord’s Supper emerged. We have seen that it came in the month of Abib, later called Nisan, which was the first month of the Hebrew religious year. This corresponded to our March/April season. It was “a twofold reminder of the advent of the springtide and of the liberation of Israel from Egypt, and bright with promise of the deliverance which in the future await[ed] Israel and all mankind” (Milton Steinberg, Basic Judaism).
It was the first, and chief, of the Hebrew festivals because it represented the first, and greatest, liberating experience of the Hebrew people. It was a time of rejoicing, freedom, redemption, and commitment. It was all of this, and more, because the Passover was a time of remembering. Without remembering, those precious, providential, events could not have remained real to them. And because one cannot remember what one does not know, the very observance of the Passover was a time of teaching the young (Ex. 12:26-27; 13:8,14ff.).
This accounts for the questions asked by the children in the seder and the telling of the redemption story by the father. This is why, in the Passover seder, the bitter herbs reminded them of the mortar for bricklaying while in slavery. This is why the unleavened bread reminded them of their hasty exodus from Egypt, and the paschal lamb reminded them of God’s preservation of each Hebrew family who took refuge under its blood.
As we look back on all of these distant but meaningful historical events and experiences of the Hebrews, we are made vividly aware of how central to their lives was the observance of the Passover.
Therefore, how laden with deep significance is a little passage tucked away in the gospel of Matthew, which reads as follows: Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?” He said, “Go into the city to such a one, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.’ And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover” (Matt. 26:17-19).
