Good Morning Friends,
Blink your eyes and it will be Pentecost Sunday and in preparation to receive its gift I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the events of the Last Supper. So, consider that tradition would have had four cups of wine at the meal and that Jesus refused the last cup and that some think that he drank it on the cross. Consider that the night before the Cross, Jesus takes bread into His hands—ordinary, familiar, Passover bread—and speaks words that have echoed through centuries of worship and debate: “This is my body.” But Jesus spoke Aramaic, a language that did not use the verb “is” the way Greek or English does. His words would have sounded more like: “This—my body.” No philosophical verb. No metaphysical equation. No grammatical room for the debates that would later divide Luther from Zwingli, or shape entire sacramental traditions. Jesus wasn’t giving them a puzzle. He was giving them Himself. And this brings us to today’s question: What Does Communion Mean To You?
Message: To hear Jesus’ words the way the disciples did, we must step into the sandals of a first‑century Jew at Passover. And for them the Exodus was not a mental remembrance, it was participation. For Israel, to “remember” the Exodus was not nostalgia. It was not intellectual recall. It was re‑entering the saving act of God. At Passover, every Jew said: “We were slaves in Egypt.” Not they. We. Memory was participation. Remembrance was identity. The story became your story. So when Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” He is not asking for a moment of reflection. He is inviting His disciples into a new Exodus, a new liberation, a new covenant sealed not with the blood of lambs but with His own. Understanding the Bread of the Presence is the missing key. In the Temple sat something called the Bread of the Presence—twelve loaves placed before God continually. In Hebrew it was literally: “Bread of the Face.” Bread before the Face of God. Bread that signified God’s nearness, God’s fellowship, God’s covenant hospitality. Every Sabbath the priests ate that bread in the Holy Place. It was the closest thing Israel had to a meal with God. Now imagine Jesus, at Passover, taking bread and saying: “This—my body.” He is not merely redefining Passover. He is fulfilling the Bread of the Presence. He is saying: I am the nearness of God. I am the covenant fellowship. I am the Face of God turned toward you. I am the bread that sustains your life in the wilderness.
And So, the disciples would not have heard a philosophical claim about substance. They would have heard a relational claim about presence. The debate came later. When the words were translated into Greek, the language required a verb: estin—“is.” And once the verb appeared, the question followed: Does the bread become Christ’s body? Or does it represent Christ’s body? Luther heard Jesus saying, “This is my body,” and insisted on the real presence. Others heard a metaphor. The Church wrestled, argued, and divided but the disciples in the upper room weren’t parsing grammar. They were receiving a gift. The point was not how Christ is present. The point was that Christ is present. When Jesus breaks the bread, He is saying: I am your Exodus. I am your sustenance. I am your covenant. I am your nearness to God. I am the Bread of the Presence, for you. The Last Supper is not a debate to win. The heart of the Supper is a Presence to receive.
Pray our Lord Jesus draw us into His Saving Story. Pray He be for us the Bread of the Presence, Bread of the Exodus, Bread broken for the life of the world. Pray we are fed in the presence of Your nearness. Pray You let Your presence be our strength, Your sacrifice our freedom, Your table our home. Pray we be a people who remember not with our minds alone but with our lives— living as those who have been brought out of Egypt and brought into Your marvelous light. Amen.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 