For that reason, bread and wine were also valuable gifts of friendship and hospitality, first from God to man (Psalm 104:15), and then from man to his neighbor (Genesis 14:18; Ruth 2:14). In similar fashion, bread and wine reflected the blessings and curses of God's covenant with Israel.
Communion, also known as the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, is a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper. The bread and wine (or grape juice) used in Communion represent the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Christians remember and participate in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross by taking Communion.
Jesus and the Passover
eucharisteo), and offers it to his disciples. He again connects the bread to his body and the wine to his blood. And he invites his disciples to eat and drink in remembrance of him. In this remembering and giving thanks is the invitation to receive life, just like eating of the tree of life.
At that last meal, Jesus Christ told His disciples to eat bread and drink wine as symbols of His body and blood. "... When He had given thanks, He broke [the bread] and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
Jesus told his disciples the broken bread would remind them of his broken body and the wine would remind them of his blood when he died on the cross. The Brethren view of the breaking of bread is very simple. They believe that the bread and wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus.
The Festival of Passover, the Season of Our Liberation, occurs every year, not merely to remind us of the liberation of our ancestors from Egyptian bondage but also to inspire us to strive for a more significant measure of self-liberation from all limitations and distractions that impede us from the free exercise of ...
Bread is also a gift from God: when Moses fed his people in the desert with food which fell from heaven, and during the last supper, when bread became the body of Christ. When Jesus multiplied the bread to feed the crowd, bread became a sign of sharing. It also symbolised the Word of God which nourished the crowds.
Wine is the gift of God. In it we see the love of God in providing life and joy for all people. But we also see a deeper meaning. In wine we see the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ which removes our guilt, satisfies God's wrath, and saves all who believe.
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor. 11:27–28).
He broke off some pieces, gave them to the apostles and said, “This bread is my body that I am giving for you. Eat this to remember me.” In the same way, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine and said, “This wine represents the new agreement from God to his people.
First, when we are gathered for worship, we take the Lord's Supper to relive the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the Israelites, they underwent and dramatized the escape from death every year. The Passover was the ritual re-enactment of being passed over by God and spared from His judgment.
Good Friday is called "good" because of the religious significance of the day for Christians, who believe that Jesus's death on the cross was the ultimate sacrifice for humanity's sins.
Through the action of God through the priest, the inner reality of the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ, and in the Mass we say that the sacrament “effects what it signifies.” In other words, the bread and wine not only symbolize Christ's body and blood and the unity we share — the ...
Jesus didn't want to reveal that it was He, until the breaking of the bread. This is amazing, because He wants them to recognize Him there, He wants us to recognize Him there, in the breaking of the bread. He wants to become our food in the Eucharist, where His disciples once again gather for a family meal together.
Wine Is a Sign of God's Blessing
Isaac's blessing of Jacob included a petition for an abundance of grain and wine (Genesis 27:28). God gave the Levites the best of Israel's wine as a blessing (Numbers 18:12), and He promised to give Israel wine as a blessing for obedience (Deuteronomy 7:13; 11:14).
Prior to the invention of refrigeration and pasteurization, it was impossible to prevent grape juice from fermenting other than drinking it all as soon as it was pressed. They didn't know about pasteurization and refrigeration. We have good evidence from the Bible itself that wine made in Biblical times was alcoholic.
So, it's clear that the bible says that's it's OK to drink, however — before you shout — there are some conditions around drinking that you need to be aware of: Romans 14:21 says, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak."
In the Passover meal, traditionally four cups of wine were taken as part of the Seder ceremony. At the Last Supper Passover meal, Jesus drank from the first and second cups, but when he reached the moment to drink the third cup of wine (called the cup of redemption), He declined.
When we eat and drink the bread and the wine of the Supper with expectant faith, we thereby have communion with the body and blood of our Lord and receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In this sense, the bread and wine are rightly said to be Christ's body and blood which he gives to his disciples.
Those two elements are the cup and the bread. The cup represents the blood of Jesus that was shed on the Cross for the remission of our sin. The bread represents the body of Jesus that was broken for us. It is very popular to read First Corinthians 11:23–26 during Communion services.
And bread, the staff of life, gives so much more than that. Bread isn't mere food. It's a metaphor, symbol, and summation of a larger journey through life and self-ownership. The breads that puff in their plastic wrappers from store shelves tell us where we've gone wrong.
Passover teaches us about faith; we need to have faith in God, despite being in a difficult situation. Passover also teaches us to embrace and realize the true value of freedom.
This is a festival which remembers the escape of the ancient Israelites from Egypt. Jesus and his disciples were celebrating the Passover meal together. As this was the last meal that Jesus would share with his disciples, he took elements of the Passover meal and made them symbols of his death.
Passover, in Judaism, holiday commemorating the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord “smote the land of Egypt” on the eve of the Exodus.