The Last Supper

Luke 22:14-20, 39-46

During the last supper, Jesus uses familiar ingredients to tell the story of what he is about to do. He gives his disciples a tangible way to remember and celebrate him, and a way of bonding them and us together. He uses bread and wine, elements that are already rich in Biblical imagery of wheat and harvest, vines and branches. Since this is also the Passover meal, the bread is unleavened, a sign of the hurry the early Hebrew people were in and the wine, Jesus’ blood, is also the blood of the lamb, a symbol of life and covenant.

For those observing the first Passover in Egypt, death was coming that night. Salvation from that death was immediate, not a promise for a distant future. The Hebrew people had to eat their meal of lamb and bread and bitter herb, prepared in a particular way, that very evening, in order to save their lives, and show their obedience to God. God was done with the various amusing plagues on the Egyptians, this time God meant business.

Jesus’ meal is also close to death—not that very night but soon. His meal comes on the eve of trial. After he shares the bread and the cup, he goes out to the garden to pray, to ask God that the cup of suffering might be removed from him if it would be God’s will.

At the same time of the feast, the high priests are conspiring against Jesus. Judas has already agreed to sell insider information to the high priests who will have Jesus arrested. And Jesus reveals to the disciples that one of them will betray them. As they ask, “is it I, Lord?” Jesus and Judas both know who it will be. And yet, Jesus doesn’t turn Judas away from the table. Instead, he gives him a morsel of forgiveness and a sip of salvation. Jesus’ table is open to everyone, to friends and to enemies alike.

The first group of disciples were far from perfect. They denied Jesus, they fell asleep while he was praying, they brandished the sword instead of resisting passively. Do this in remembrance of me, he says to Judas who will betray him and to Peter who will deny him and pretend to forget.

But when they share the loaf and the wine, they will have the chance to remember Jesus again. Even though this memory is dangerous. Because it is the memory of a man who resisted empire and local religious authorities. It is the memory of a man who did not resist arrest, who did not defend his innocence either physically or verbally, who resisted the entire unjust system that would crucify him on a cross.

Through the celebration of Communion, he invited them to remember all that they saw, and did, and learned when he walked and breathed among them. The fruits of the harvest and of the vine were there to remind them that it had all really happened and to remind them of their ongoing purpose, work, and commitment to make things right in the world—to never stop telling the story of Jesus.

To all of his disciples throughout the centuries, Jesus says: “Remember. I am with you. Even when you can’t see me, even when it seems like I’m truly gone, when you taste bread and drink wine, which you will do every day of your lives, remember me. My flesh, my blood, they live within your flesh and blood. You consume my body, so that you may be my body for the whole world.”

We celebrate our own community of disciples in the shared loaf, the shared body of Christ and in the common cup and common life of service together. Christ is spiritually present in the bread and juice. Christ is physically with us in the hands that give and receive.

We remember the Christ who continues to live and breathe among us. We remember that he was arrested and tried, tortured and killed. And he did this all out of love so that we might live. Amen.