Read Luke 22:1-62
“Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.”
The disciples had shared many meals with Jesus. They had watched Him break bread. They had celebrated Passover, recalling the Lord’s mighty act of deliverance from Egypt. But this meal would be different.
When Jesus breaks the bread, He says it is His body. When He gives them the cup, He says it is His blood. In that upper room, Jesus teaches His disciples that He Himself is the Passover Lamb.
On a night when they thought they were remembering God’s saving acts of the past, the Lord’s salvation is sitting in their midst.
Before the night is over, the Passover Lamb will be betrayed and arrested—only hours from His sacrifice for our redemption. Yet before He goes to the cross, our Lord gives His Church a sacred meal to be celebrated again and again. A new covenant. A gift for forgiveness. A gift for strengthening faith. A gift that unites us in Christ and gives us a foretaste of the feast to come.
As Arthur Just writes, “Its greatest significance lies in what it bestows: the real presence of Christ, his very body and blood, offered up in death on a cross and now given with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins and life eternal.” (A. Just, Luke 9:51-24:53 (St. Louis, Mo: Concordia Publishing House, 1996) 838.)
Here, the sacrifice and the supper meet. The Lamb who will be slain gives Himself to us even before the cross.
Prayer: Blessed Savior, in this sacred meal You give me Your very body and blood for my forgiveness. Gather me with my brothers and sisters in Christ to receive this gift often—remembering, confessing, and proclaiming Your holy cross, passion, and death. Strengthen and preserve me in faith until the day of Your coming, that with all the saints I may feast in Your eternal kingdom. Amen.