Flashback Episode — Remembering His Life and His Death: Luke 22:14-20

On the night Jesus was betrayed, He shares a supper with the disciples and while this supper was officially the Passover meal for Jesus and His disciples that year, Jesus takes this special, yearly meal, and He gives it new significance. This special meal, called the Last Supper, is one of the most symbolic and significant traditions Christianity has kept while moving forward through history.

Let’s read what Jesus does and how He turns this Passover celebration, and points it to His mission. While we could read this event from several of the gospels, let’s read it from Luke’s gospel. Our passage is found Luke, chapter 22, and we will be reading from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 14, Luke tells us that:

¹⁴ When the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table with the apostles. ¹⁵ He said to them, “I have wanted so much to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer! ¹⁶ For I tell you, I will never eat it until it is given its full meaning in the Kingdom of God.”

¹⁷ Then Jesus took a cup, gave thanks to God, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. ¹⁸ I tell you that from now on I will not drink this wine until the Kingdom of God comes.”

¹⁹ Then he took a piece of bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in memory of me.” ²⁰ In the same way, he gave them the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is God’s new covenant sealed with my blood, which is poured out for you.”

What Luke has just described is the foundation of the Last Supper that is celebrated at various times depending on the church. I’ve visited churches that celebrate this as a part of their weekly meeting, and I have visited churches that celebrate the Last Supper only once a year.

There are churches who celebrate this meal with little tiny wafer crackers and half-an-ounce glasses of grape juice, while other churches celebrate this with a larger meal and/or different forms of wine. When the Bible speaks of wine, it simply means that it is juice from grapes, and it makes no distinction here whether this juice was fermented or not. In other places in the Bible, new wine likely refers to fresh grape juice, while old wine likely refers to grape juice that has fermented.

However, what is it about the bread and the wine that makes it special?

Well, first, Jesus tells the disciples that He will not drink this wine again until the Kingdom of God comes. This is an interesting thing to say, because it tells us that Jesus is waiting in Heaven for His return before drinking this drink again. This points us forward to the second coming as being something we should look forward to, and it tells us that Jesus is looking forward to sharing this special drink, and probably this very special meal that will go with it, when He returns the second time.

Between today and when that special meal will happen, we have symbols in both the bread and the wine that we can remember.

The first symbol Luke tells us is the bread, which Jesus gave thanks for, broke it, and gave it to the disciples. Jesus’ body was given as a sacrifice for others; Jesus’ body was given as a sacrifice for you and for me. When we eat the special bread that is prepared for this occasion, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice that took our place. We deserved death while Jesus didn’t. He died our death so that we could live His life.

The second symbol is the symbol of the cup with the wine in it. This wine represents Jesus’ blood, which is poured out for us. On the surface, this second symbol sounds very redundant to the first, because both symbols point to the death of Jesus. However, I believe when we look at what Jesus’ blood represents, we see a greater picture of what He did for us.

In the Old Testament, the blood represented the life of a person or an animal. It was partially for this reason that Jews were instructed to not eat or drink an animal’s blood. When we take this symbolic meaning and see that Jesus poured out His blood for us, we could just as easily say that Jesus poured out His life for us. This is significant because the symbol of the wine draws together both Jesus’ life and His death, and it leads us to the clear conclusion that everything Jesus did, said, or gave was for others. Jesus gave Himself both while He was alive as well as through His death for you and for me!

While the bread symbolized Jesus’ body and Jesus paying the price for our sins, the wine symbolizes the life Jesus lived and the life that He offers to each of us when we accept Him into our lives and our hearts! Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, and He offers to give us His perfect life and His perfect record in exchange for ours. Jesus also offers us a new life with Him in a new heaven and a new earth when sin and death have been destroyed!

This is definitely something I am looking forward to, and I imagine you are looking forward with me to the day Jesus returns and we share the first “Last Supper” together with Him for eternity!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, be sure to seek God first and always intentionally place Him first in your life. Be sure to remember what Jesus has done for you, through His sacrifice, through the life that He gave, and through the life that He offers to each of us. Remember that our reward will last longer than any trial or challenge we face today and that is one reason we keep moving forward with God!

Also, as I always challenge you to do, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn first-hand what God wants to teach you. Pastors, authors, speakers, podcasters, or anyone else for that matter can have ideas worth thinking about. However, with all the conflicting ideas present in the world today, test everything with what you read and study in the Bible. The Bible is the safest foundation to have when times, cultures, and traditions seem to change with each generation.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or drift away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!