Communion and the Passover

The Sacrament of Communion has a deep connection to the Jewish Passover. It is within the context of the Passover festival that Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper as a frequent practice for His followers. Communion is not merely a symbolic memorial service of Christ's sacrifice but a sacrament where we receive Christ as a means of grace.

The Context of the Passover

The Passover is a Jewish feast that was instituted by God during the Exodus as the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt. After nine grueling plagues against the Egyptians, Pharaoh still refused to let the Israelites go and it became time for the tenth plague; Every firstborn son in the land of Egypt would die. It is important to note that the Lord intended to be indiscriminate with His wrath in the Tenth Plague. This was not a plague targeted only towards Egyptians such as the Fifth (death of livestock), Seventh (Hail), and Ninth (Darkness) plagues where Israel did not experience them. Rather, God intended to move all across the land and against all people therein. A fitting symbol that all are deserving of God's wrath.

But, through the idea of substitution, God provides a way for the salvation of His people. We read in Exodus 12:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 

⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

God then commands the Israelites to keep a memorial of this day forever. The Israelites obey the Lord and smear the blood of the lamb around the doors of their homes and that night, the wrath of God moves across the land and smites the firstborn of each household that is not covered in the blood of the sacrificial lamb.

God repeats the command keep the Passover in Deuteronomy 16:

“Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. ² And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. ³ You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.⁴ No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. ⁵ You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, ⁶ but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. ⁷ And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. ⁸ For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it."

 Alterations in the Liturgy

Before our Lord was betrayed and crucified, He desired to celebrate the Passover one last time with His apostles and sent Peter and John into the city to find and prepare a place for Him. During this meal, Jesus alters the liturgy of the Passover meal and institutes what is commonly called The Lord's Supper.

Instead of requiring a lamb to be sacrificed, Jesus utilizes the unleavened bread and the wine for this new liturgy. This is done because the sacrificial lamb is no longer needed in this New Covenant where Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes our place in a substitutionary atonement on the cross. Instead, He opts to make the bread His body in this liturgy. Much like the body of the lamb was given up for the Israelites and then eaten, the body of the Lamb of God (spiritually present in the bread) is broken and given up for God's people and then eaten. Likewise, the cup has the spiritual presence of the Lamb of God's blood that is shed for us for our salvation from God's wrath and we partake in this cup as a sign.

Symbolic, Spiritual, or Physical

The Lord's Supper is not merely symbolic in gesture but reflects the realities of the Passover meal where each part of the original liturgy provided a means of grace for God's people. Christ is spiritually present in the bread and the wine but not physically. 

When discussing the Eucharist with Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther angrily shouted, "hoc est corpus muem," meaning, "This IS My body!" Luther's argument was that Jesus would not call the bread His body and the wine His blood if He did not mean that in some actual way and therefore it could not be symbolic. However, Luther was also against the Roman Church's idea of Transubstantiation where the bread ceases to be bread and literally becomes Jesus' body and likewise the wine ceases to be wine and literally becomes Jesus's blood. 

The reason that Jesus' body and blood cannot physically and literally be present in the bread and wine during Communion is because that would confuse the divinity and humanity of Jesus. Jesus was fully man therefore His physical body cannot be in two places at once. If two churches in two distant cities celebrate Communion at the same time how can Jesus's physical body be present in both places? This would be communicating divine attributes to human form. Therefore, Jesus must be spiritually present in the bread and the wine because, God being spirit, and Jesus being fully God, has this omnipresence required to be with two churches celebrating Communion simultaneously. 

Let us come to the Lord's Table in Thanksgiving that God's grace is communicated to us through the sacrament of Communion! 

Have a Blessed Passover and Easter, Friends.