Remember Me
1 Cor 11v23-26 - the Breaking of Bread
Last Sunday I was in India, and I was sorry to miss remembrance Sunday. I did have my poppy with me though, which caused quite a few questions; people asked what it was, what it was for, and it gave me a good opportunity to tell them the history, the reason for the poppies and the reason that I always wear one at this time of year. It is, after all, a symbol of remembrance. A symbol that proclaims gratitude for those who gave their lives on our behalf.
Today I’d like us to look together at a much older symbol, with much deeper meaning. A symbol that proclaims gratitude for the greatest act of sacrifice imaginable. And maybe, as I had opportunities to explain the poppy remembrance to people who didn’t understand it, we will have opportunities to tell people why we remember Jesus, who took bread and wine, and said “Remember Me”.
Where is the best place to look when considering the breaking of bread, the communion which from the earliest times was part of the cornerstone of the Church (Acts 2v42)? We could look at the institution of it in Matthew, Mark or Luke; concentrating on the similarities and differences in the way that the gospel writers present Jesus’ words at the last supper.
I’d like to frame it by looking at the way that the apostle Paul presents the breaking of bread to the Corinthian Christians in 1 Cor 11v23-26, as this puts it in the context of the early church practice. Of course, the precise context at Corinth wasn’t too encouraging!
Paul is writing 1 Corinthians to address serious problems in the Corinthian church. One of those issues is their behaviour at the Lord’s Supper, which he certainly doesn’t commend. In fact, their behaviour was appalling, and in the middle of this section we have four verses which set out the practice which we know as the breaking of bread, or communion.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
I’d like us to think together about the bread, about the wine and about our Lord Jesus, and I’d like to summarise it in three statements.
Fellowship with saints. Forgiveness of sins. Following our Saviour.
Fellowship with saints
Let’s think about the bread first. In each gospel account we see Jesus take bread, give thanks and break it, and then gave it to his disciples. All of them say “this is my body”, but this was not in a literal, magical sense. It was a metaphor, representing his body. It was to be a tangible reminder. Luke has the extra element of explanation where Jesus says that it is “given for you” and the extra element of instruction where Jesus says “do this in remembrance of me”.
Bread, broken and shared reminds us of Jesus’ body taken out to the cross. Beaten, whipped, brutalised. As Isaiah 52 prophetically puts it “marred beyond human likeness”. Jesus’ body “given for you”.
We must never lose sight of the fact that Jesus went to the cross willingly for us. He looks at us, not just as a sea of humanity but as individuals, and he loves us.
You may be familiar with a rather charming children’s story about little nut brown hare and big nut brown hare. ‘How much do you love me? Asks little nut brown hare. “I love you as high as I can hop” says big nut brown hare. And so the conversation grows, each trying to think of more superlative examples as little nut brown hare gets more and more tired, eventually falling asleep as he says “I love you as high as the moon” and big nut brown hare whispers “I love you up to the moon... and back”.
I love the poster that says “I asked Jesus, 'How much do you love me?' And Jesus said, 'This much.' Then He stretched out His arms and died.”
Whenever we doubt how much God loves us. Whenever we doubt whether we are worth something. We need to look back to the cross, and remember that Jesus put a price on our head. He decided to show us how much He valued Us. How much He values You. “My body, given for you”.
There is another association with the bread though, mentioned one chapter earlier in the letter to the Corinthians. 1 Cor 10v16-17 says “… And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”
The word that the NIV translates ‘participation’ here is actually koinonia, more frequently translated ‘fellowship’. Is not the bread that we break a fellowship in the “body of Christ”. This body is a metaphor which Paul uses elsewhere in this letter to illustrate the body of believers. When we all share in a bit of the one bread, it is a tangible reminder that we are all drawn together in fellowship with each other as believers, as members of Christ’s body, the church.
It is something we do together, not in our separate homes, not in individualistic boxes.
So in a very real sense, the shared bread reminds us of Jesus body sacrificed for us, and of the fellowship which he has made possible between all the saints, all the believers who comprise his body, the church.
Fellowship with saints. Forgiveness of sins. Following our Saviour.
Forgiveness of sins
Next I would like us to think about the cup of wine. In each gospel account Jesus takes the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them. Mark and Matthew say “This is the blood of the Covenant”. Luke says “This is the new covenant in my blood” which is the terminology which Paul uses here in 1 Cor.
So what does this talk of Covenant mean? A Covenant was a binding promise between two parties. Way back in the beginning of Genesis God makes a covenant with Noah that he will never again destroy the world with a flood. We see God making a covenant with Abraham about the future he promises. As far as the Jewish nation were concerned the most fundamental and fully detailed covenant is the one which God made with the escaped Israelites in Exodus, the place where we find the 10 commandments, amongst much else.
Unfortunately, obedience to an external law proved harder than the people expected, and the people of Israel continually fell away from their promises, their side of the covenant which had been made by God with them. Fast forward several hundred years to the point in time where the nation is split and in exile; and a particular phrase comes to the prophet Jeremiah.
Jer 31v31 says “The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”
I don’t know about you, but that sounds amazing. Israel broke the covenant by their disobedience, and God’s response is to propose a new covenant, an unbreakable one, because it isn’t going to be about conformance to an outside principle, it isn’t about obeying external laws, it is something that God will put on their minds and write on their hearts.
And what about that last line? “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”
The new covenant which Jeremiah foretold is realised in Jesus. It is the very thing which Jesus is referring to when he initiates the Lords Supper. The cup of wine at the breaking of bread represents the new covenant in His blood, which is poured out for us, and is for the forgiveness of sins.
To understand more about the relationship between the blood of Jesus, the old covenant and the new covenant, I recommend you look into the letter to the Hebrews – especially chapters 8, 9 and 10. The study notes in the bulletin will help you get into that, and it is well worth looking into further!
But it is pointless to consider this as a mere academic exercise. Again we are drawn back to look at the cross. This new covenant does not come about by mere decree. Blood was central to the old testament sacrifices, and the dark red of the wine reminds us of the appearance of rich, arterial blood, reminds us that blood flowed from our Lord’s nail pierced hands and thorn crowned brow.
Gods law can be written on our hearts, we can know forgiveness of sins, if we are but prepared to look at the cross of Christ, see in our minds eye Jesus hanging there, and recognise that he died for me. He has to be not just ‘a’ sacrifice, but my sacrifice. As Romans 10v9 succinctly puts it “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”.
Fellowship with saints. Forgiveness of sins. Following our Saviour.
Following our Saviour
“Do this, in remembrance of me”. There are relatively few direct commands which Jesus gives, and this is one of them. Like Bernard was saying a few weeks ago, this isn’t something we need to wait for guidance or conviction about. The intention is quite plain. Jesus just expects us to do it.
The background is helpful for us to understand the context and references to what Jesus is doing when he instituted this ‘breaking of bread’ but it must remain just that… background. The foreground must, always, be devoted to Jesus himself.
It is all about him.
It is serious, and not frivolous, because we are contemplating the fact that Jesus, the person who loves us more than any person ever has, willingly gave his life to save us.
Americans driving over the ‘Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge’ across the Potomac in Washington may remember the reason why the bridge was renamed after a terrible airliner crash in the winter of 1982. Six people managed to escape onto the tail of the plane as it was sinking into icy water. Each time the rescue line came down a middle aged man handed it to someone else, and made sure they got to safety. Five times the helicopter came back and rescued someone. The sixth time it came back and the man who had unselfishly ensured the safety of strangers was gone. It was quite some time before they could even discover who he was, but now a bridge, a school in his hometown and at least one foundation are named after a man who selflessly gave up his own life so that five others could live.
How much more inspiring is the willing sacrifice that Jesus made for billions? For you? How seriously do we want to take our act of remembrance?
It is serious because, in the words of v26, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Our act of remembrance proclaims the truth about Jesus; the fact that he really died for us, the fact that his blood was poured out for us, for the forgiveness of sins; and yes, the fact that he was raised from the dead and will come again.
This is why every time we have a communion service we will read one of the Bible passages which talk about the breaking of bread, we pray and give thanks for the bread and the wine with prayers that reflect on aspects of the death of Jesus, we invite all those who know and love Jesus to take part in fellowship with us. We proclaim to one another the reality of all that Christ has done, in loving obedience to him, in order that we might encourage each other.
And each of us, in our own hearts, is given the opportunity to contemplate again what Jesus has done for us, and talk with him about it.
Because it isn’t a sterile ceremony at a memorial to persons long gone. We have fellowship with a living, loving Saviour!
And by remembering him in the way that he asked, we demonstrate our love to him.
Fellowship with saints. Forgiveness of sins. Following our Saviour.
Alex White