Easter Weekend Devotional Day 6
DAY 6 – Saturday
Daily devotional
Read
Matthew 17-30, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20, John 13:1-17 (Countdown to the Cross)
Ask
How do you feel about communion? Is it just something we simply do, or is it more?
Reflect
This Passover would go down in history! It was the unfolding of a divine drama written, produced, and directed by God Himself to tell the story of His Son whom He loved and what He had planned all along to reunite us to him. Traditionally Passover is the celebration and remembrance of God’s deliverance for the Jewish people from their oppression in Egypt. After generations of celebration and remembrance we come to this very night. The symbols for Passover were to be songs, storytelling, eating lamb, drinking wine, and eating matzah bread (unleavened bread; leaven was a symbol for sin, so this bread was unleavened, and thus without sin). On this night there would be no lamb shank on the table, just unleavened bread and wine. You see, the sinless Lamb was the One reclining at the table.
Jesus didn’t change the time nor the hour of Passover and by doing this declared with full revelation that he was the Lamb of God and the bread was a symbol of his sinless body, the wine his blood. This was the Last Supper and Jesus told his disciples what He was about to do on the behalf of all mankind. Jesus was instituting a new covenant. The Last Supper brought the Old Testament observance of the Passover feast to its fulfillment. Now he would forge a new covenant in his blood.
Jesus’ words during the Last Supper about the unleavened bread and the cup echo what he said after he fed the 5,000. He said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty—I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world—whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. (John 6:35, 51, 54-55).
Take, eat and remember are the words echoed for generations after this climactic night. When we think of the word remembrance, it is not to simply recall facts, but rather acknowledge the implication of Jesus giving his body and his blood once and for all time. We do not participate in the Lord’s Supper to gain his approval; we take part in it because we have his approval. How do you feel about communion? Do you consider it holy? What do you remember when you take it?