An Overview of the Lord's Supper (Part One)

An Overview of the Lord’s Supper (Part One).  Our Lord Jesus established two, enduring ordinances for the church to observe in perpetuity: water baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion (also called by some, the Eucharist). 

Water baptism happens once, usually marking the beginning of one’s Christian journey as a testimony of faith in Jesus as Savior. Communion, however, happens often with an unspecified frequency but a certain purpose: “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 1:26). The central imagery for the Lord’s Supper is the shared meal. Christ’s table is set. God’s children are all invited to gather around. Communion is a family meal. 

Significant and sober but not necessarily somber, the meal looks back—“Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19)—and looks ahead—”For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18). This meal is the rallying point for the church, its rehearsed center, and default setting.

In the Synoptics, the history-shifting ceremony was placed in its historical context (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). Jesus commandeered the Jewish Passover Feast, which was quite a feat, since it unilaterally belonged to the Lord. “You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord” (Exo. 12:14). Jesus personally fulfilled Passover and reforged it as the ceremony of his New Covenant. “For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).

Instituted on the last night before his crucifixion, the Lord’s Supper was later infused with explanation. In his first epistle to the church at Corinth, Paul delivered a stinging rebuke for the misuse and misunderstanding of the Communion meal. “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse” (1 Cor. 11:17). But their errors gave occasion for a clarification of the Communion, which has ironically edified the church in every generation since the Corinthians botched the Communion.

They were using the Lord’s Supper at Corinth as a wedge to divide the church. The Lord’s Supper should unite the church, not further entrench factions within the church. To this grievous error Paul gives his sarcastic retort: “When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat” (1 Cor. 11:20). Call it something other than Communion, Corinthians, because there is neither communion with God nor community with one another. 

They were cliquish, which probably indirectly referred to a separation between Jews and Gentiles during the meal or to political parties in the church: “I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ’” (1 Cor. 1:12). But they were also selfish, cutting in line, overindulging, disallowing some to participate. “For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk” (1 Cor. 11:21).

Paul added a final application for the Corinthians with a very sharp edge. “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27). Communion is about communion! If you mess with it, you mess with God at your own peril (see, 1 Cor. 11:30).