It was a dinner party like none other.
The disciples of Jesus Christ were preparing to celebrate the Passover meal together to commemorate the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish nation from slavery and bondage to Egyptian rule.
But the evening at hand brought a bitter-sweet turn of events.
Jesus sat among his closest companions, 12 men who for the past three years had left everything behind to follow him.
And he told them,
“My time is at hand…and one of you will betray me.”
He was referring to His impending
death and it would be their last
meal together.
And then he did something unusual and bizarre. He took the bread and he passed it around saying:
“Take, eat; this is my body.”
And then he took the cup of wine and passed it around saying,
“Drink all of it;
“For this is My blood of the new
covenant, which is poured for the
forgiveness of sins.” (Matt 26:18-28)
This symbolism of the bread and the wine that Jesus shared with his disciples that night has great significance for you and for me.
- The bread represents His body that was crucified on the cross.
- The wine represents His blood that was shed after He was whipped, beaten, and left for dead having been being nailed to the cross through his hands and his feet.
Jesus’s death became the ultimate sacrifice for us.
But the sacrament of communion is not just symbolic of what Jesus endured, but more, so of what it offers to us who believe.
The prophet Isaiah spelled it out very clearly:
“He was wounded for our
transgressions; he was bruised for
our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon
him, and by his stripes we are
healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)
Jesus’s sacrifice covered every area of our existence. He bore the torment for our:
- Sins
- mental distress
- fears
- worries and anxieties
- as well as our physical pain, sickness, and disease.
Easter is a time when we remember the sacrifice of
Jesus, who died on the cross,
but on the third day, he rose again.
Death did not defeat him, and through Him,
we can obtain freedom, deliverance, and wholeness,
spirit, soul, and body.
I pray that this Easter you will experience the true meaning of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that
we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.
“By His wounds you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)