Communion meaning and the Passover meal meaning
Communion, or Holy Communion, is also known as the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist and the Catholic Mass.
What is Communion?
Jesus chose to hold his last supper, where he revealed the New Covenant to his followers, at the Jewish Passover meal.
What was the Passover meal in Jesus’ time?
Did Passover have any significance to Jesus’ Last Supper?
Table of Contents:
Communion meaning and the Passover meal meaning:
1. How is Communion carried out in churches?
Some churches celebrate Communion by the congregation walking up to the front of the church and each person is given a very thin wafer or a piece of bread.
Then this is followed by sipping from one communal cup or chalice.
Here is an example of the prayers that may be said: 1
[Minister]: “We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.”
[All]: “All Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.”
[Minister]: “Draw near with faith. Receive the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which he gave for you, and his blood which he shed for you. Eat and drink in remembrance that he died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.”
[All]: “We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”
Then after receiving the Communion this prayer may be said:
[All]: “Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Through him, we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory. Amen.”
In other churches, the congregation remain in their seats and bread is brought around, either this is already cut into pieces or each person tears off a piece.
Then very small, individual glasses of wine or juice are brought to each person.
COVID-19 has now changed these practices so that the bread and wine are not touched by every person.
2. What is Holy Communion, what is its purpose?
What can the Lord’s Supper teach us?
(a) Holy Communion reminds us of Jesus’ New Covenant
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’
Matthew 26:26-28 ESV
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant*, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
* Some manuscripts have “this is my blood of the new covenant”.
The New Covenant was not just for the Jews, but for everybody, all nations, all races, male and female, slave and free, adults and children.
This New Covenant offers the forgiveness of sins, the inner strengthening and filling of the Holy Spirit, and the knowledge of God written on our hearts.
(b) Communion reminds us that God is working to save us
The Old Covenant (Old Testament) was a set of laws that needed to be obeyed to get God’s blessing:
If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”
Deuteronomy 30:16 ESV
But the Lord also knew that this was for a set time and that He would bring in a new covenant.
The prophet Jeremiah, who lived about 600 years before Jesus, prophesied that there would be a New Covenant:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…
Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34 ESV
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Notice, it is no longer ‘you shall’ (God telling you to obey) but it is the Lord saying ‘I will’ (God doing it in us).
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
Sam Storms reinforces this point:
The Old Covenant that came through Moses was unable to supply the power that people needed to fulfil and obey it.
’10 Things You Should Know about the New Covenant’ by Sam Storms. Crosswalk. 2
The Law of Moses was very clear in stating, ‘Thou shalt not’ or ‘Do this and live’ or ‘Be ye holy.’
But there was nothing in the law itself that could empower the people to obey it.
The Law of Moses told the people of Israel what they should and should not do but it was never capable of supplying them with the internal energy or the spiritual power to obey.”
The Lord Jesus Christ now steps in to be our Saviour and the Holy Spirit enables us to be saved.
(c) The Lord’s Supper reminds us that we are forgiven
The Lord’s Supper uses bread and wine as symbols of Jesus’ body and blood.
It celebrates the fact that Jesus died for us, that he willingly gave his body and spilt his blood as a sacrifice for all our wrongs and sins so that God could forgive us.
For three years, Jesus taught throughout Israel about the kingdom of God and his role as Messiah.
‘Old Covenant vs. New Covenant’ By Jack Zavada. Learn Religions. 3
To support his claim as the Son of God, he performed many miracles, even raising three people from the dead.
By dying on the cross, Christ became the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice whose blood has the power to wash away sin forever.“
On one occasion Jesus showed the Jews that he had the power to forgive sins:
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’
Luke 5:20-25 NIV
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves,
‘Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’
So he said to the paralysed man,‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’
Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.”
(d) How do we feed on Jesus? Communion helps us to be sustained
When we eat the bread and drink the wine it symbolises that we are taking part in Jesus’ life, that we are a part of him and that he is in us by his Spirit.
Jesus said:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
John 6:51 ESV
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
We feed on Christ by believing. Jesus said:
I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
John 6:35 ESV
Our faith needs to feed on Jesus, which means we have a friendship with him, and we feed upon the Bible, God’s Word:
Why doesn’t our Lord just say, ‘Believe’?
‘How You Feed on Christ’ Open the Bible. 4
Christ is telling us that this is what faith does.
Faith feeds on Christ.
Faith is more than knowing that Jesus died and rose.
Faith brings us into communion with Jesus who died and rose.
By eating (or feeding on) Christ, we share fellowship with Him and draw strength from Him.
Christ is our life, our strength, our joy, our peace, our comfort, and our hope.
Believe in Him. Feed on Him.”
3. Jesus’ Last Supper happened during Passover
Why do the Jews practice Passover?
Passover was started 3200 years ago when the Israelites left their slavery in Egypt.
From then until 70AD (about 40 years after Jesus was crucified), the Passover meal was informal:
- Each head of a family would in his own words explain the four Biblical rituals:
- the eating of the paschal lamb
- the bitter herbs
- the eating of matzah which is unleavened bread
- and telling the story of the escape from Egypt.
After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD the Jews were unable to sacrifice the Pascal lambs at the temple, so, the Passover meal had to embrace that
It was home-based and over time became more formalised to a set pattern which became the Passover Seder Meal.
There is an order to the Seder meal and ‘Seder’ means ‘order’.
On the table, they had a lamb bone instead of the Pascal lamb.
The Reform Judaism website describes the history of the Passover starting with the Jews as slaves in Egypt and the plagues that God carried out through Moses:
During the last plague, God killed the firstborn of each Egyptian family, but ‘passed over’ (thus ‘Passover’) the houses of the Israelites (who had marked their doors with lamb’s blood), leaving their children unharmed.
‘Passover: History’ Reform Judaism 5
With this plague Pharaoh finally relented, and let the Israelites go.
They hurriedly packed and left Egypt, without enough time for their bread to rise (hence the holiday’s prohibition on eating leavened, or risen, grain products, and the custom of eating matzah)…
The Torah commands us to observe Passover for seven days. Many Jews in North America and in Israel follow this injunction, but some outside Israel celebrate for eight days. The additional day was added to Passover and other holidays around 700-600 B.C.E. to guard against a possible error… [of having no reliable calendar]
Celebrated in various ways throughout history, Passover incorporates remnants of ancient spring harvest festivals.
When the Temple existed, the holiday was one of three major festivals that required pilgrimages to Jerusalem to bring sacrifices.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, Passover became a more communal, home-centered holiday, with the Haggadah and the seder as we know them mostly finalized around 500-600 C.E.”
4. What happened at the Passover in Jesus’ time?
To understand what Holy Communion is about we need to look back to what happened at the Jewish Passover in the temple during the time of Jesus.
Thanks to the Jewish Encyclopedia for the information on the Passover.6
The daily Tamid sacrifice, (‘the daily burnt offering’) was carried out in the morning (and later in the evening).
The Passover lamb was slain on the eve of the Passover, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, i.e., at three o’clock and eaten that night, the 15th, together with matzah (which is unleavened bread made from just flour and water and baked before it has a chance to rise.)
A Jewish day starts from sunset which is why the two days, the 14th and the 15th, are mentioned above, but we would see it as part of the same day.
In Jewish law, the offering should be eaten on one day.
So, as far as eating sacrifices is concerned, the night (15th) after a sacrifice (on the 14th) is an extension of the day it was sacrificed.
Therefore, the Passover sacrifice, even though it was eaten on the 15th, was considered to be the same day as the 14th.
Only those who were circumcised and clean before the Law might participate; and they were forbidden to have leavened food in their possession during the act of killing the paschal lamb.
When the men filled the court of the Temple, the gates were closed.
While they were killing and offering their paschal lambs the Levites on the platform (“Dukan”) recited the “Hallel” (Psalm 113 to 118), accompanied by instruments of brass.
When the sacrifices were completed each one present carried his lamb home.
It was then roasted on a spit of pomegranate wood.
No bones should be broken during cooking or eating.
The lamb was set on the table at the evening banquet and this benediction was said:
“Blessed be Thou, the Eternal, our God, the King of the world, who hast sanctified us by Thy commands, and hast ordained that we should eat the Passover.”
The meal was then eaten by everyone, including women, boys and girls.
The whole sacrifice had to be consumed entirely that same evening and someone recited the “Hallel” (Psalm 113 to 118.) during the meal.
When the lamb had been eaten the story of the Exodus was told.
5. How did Jesus introduce the concept of the Communion?
To help our understanding of Holy Communion we need to go back 2000 years to the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples and how he celebrated the Passover.
He told his disciples to prepare for the Passover feast:
Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying,
Matthew 26:17-19 ESV
‘Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?‘
He said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man and say to him ‘The Teacher says my time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’
And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover.”
In John’s gospel, we are told that the setting was an evening meal:
The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.”
John 13:2 NIV
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke we are told that it was at a Passover meal with his followers:
I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
Luke 22:15 NIV
These do not contradict each other, because both were true, it to celebrate Passover and it was to be an evening meal.
But did Jesus choose not to attend the temple and not to sacrifice a lamb?
In this scenario, there would have been no lamb to eat at the meal.
Or, because Jesus fulfilled all righteousness and followed the Law of God in the correct sense (but not all the additional laws that the Pharisees had added on), would he have gone to the temple in the afternoon for the killing of the lambs?
Did he bring the lamb back to roast it for their evening meal and offer his new interpretation of the Passover Lamb – himself to his followers there?
That would mean eating the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, as required by the Book of Exodus.
That may be difficult for us to accept that Jesus was following the Law of Moses, the Old Covenant, at the point he was going to establish a new Covenant.
But think back to when Jesus wanted John to baptise Him.
John the Baptist didn’t want to do that.
People went out to him (John) from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.
Matthew 3:5-6 NIV
Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.”
Why should John baptise Jesus, he wasn’t sinful!
It didn’t make sense – the people were confessing their sins and were being baptised.
Yes, Jesus had no sins to confess because he is the Son of God, so why should he get baptised?
Well, Jesus said:
Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’
Matthew 3:15 NIV
Then John consented.”
So going back to the Passover meal that was going to be changed into a Communion meal, Jesus knew that he was going to finish the meal in a different way, but he did say that he wanted to eat the Passover meal with his disciples.
So, in initiating the Communion meal, did God want certain things in this Passover meal to point to the Jews leaving Egypt, but also, and more importantly, to point directly to Jesus?
6. Who was there at this Passover meal?
Talking about who would betray Him Jesus said: ‘It is one of the Twelve’…”
Mark 14:20 NIV
This implies that there were more people present than just the twelve disciples.
There were probably women there and possibly children.
After all, the Jewish Passover does include children in the ceremony.
7. The importance of no yeast at Passover
Jesus sent Peter and John, saying,
Luke 22:8 NIV
“Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
Remember this is initiating the Communion meal.
We may think preparing for this meal is setting up a table and chairs and preparing a meal, but it involves something much more important than that.
It was mainly about getting rid of all the yeast.
It was a deep clean – like in hospitals to remove all the germs.
There mustn’t be a single crumb lying around.
A crumb of bread would contain yeast and yeast makes the bread rise.
It is a symbol of sin, it puffs up.
Regarding the Passover meal, the Lord told Moses:
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
Exodus 12:15-19 ESV
On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day that person shall be cut off from Israel.
On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days.
But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you.
And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.
Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.
In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses.”
Leavened bread involves fermentation which occurs whenever flour or grain comes in contact with water.
Yeast, which causes the fermentation, occurs naturally in the air and will start fermentation immediately.
Jewish law states that any grain product that has been combined with water and sits longer than eighteen minutes before being fully cooked is leavened. 7
Jesus at this Passover Meal, this Communion, held up the unleavened bread and said:
This is my body given for you.”
Luke 22:19 NIV
He was saying in effect that he had no yeast, no sin.
He is sinless, pure, he had not failed in one thought, action, or word, because he is the spotless Pascal Lamb (the Passover Lamb).
Jesus came to set us free from our worldly, self-centred life so that we can live with Jesus and be children of God.
8. Holy Communion and the Passover Meal celebrate freedom
We’ve just seen how Jesus introduced the Communion by having a Passover Meal, and we looked briefly at how the Passover Meal has now become the Seder Meal.
We see what Holy Communion means when we look at the context of Jesus having his last supper with his disciples.
The Passover meal celebrates freedom from the Egyptians and Jesus would certainly have seen this Passover, and the new ceremony of Holy Communion, as a celebration of spiritual freedom, even though he knew that he was about to die on a cross.
The Passover Meal is a picture of freedom – from Egypt:
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table.”
Luke 22:14 NIV
Reclining at the table speaks of being masters, or even conquerors, and not slaves.
The apostle brings this point out in his letter to the Romans:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Romans 8:35-39 ESV
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Passover meal celebrates being redeemed out of Egypt.
Hundreds of years of slavery of hard physical labour, making bricks for their Egyptian oppressors.
Egypt is a Biblical symbol of being ensnared by this world.
So Jesus would certainly have seen this meal as celebrating the release of the Israelites, but also spiritual freedom for all of us now.
Why freedom?
Jesus knows that his sacrifice, his body pierced by nails and a spear would give spiritual freedom to all who believed in him:
the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:7 NIV
So Jesus said a remarkable thing while they were eating.
He took hold of the bread, gave thanks for it, then he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said:
‘Take and eat; this is my body.’
Matthew 26:26-28 NIV
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying:
‘Drink from it, all of you.
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’…”
Yes it was going to be absolutely terrible for Jesus in the next 24 hours or so, but he was looking towards securing our freedom:
For God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Colossians 1:13 NIV
The Passover Meal is full of symbolism of Jesus and the next article looks at this in more detail.
References – open in new tabs:
A good online Bible is at Bible Study Tools
‘Holy Communion Service’ The Church of England. ↩
’10 Things You Should Know about the New Covenant’ by Sam Storms. Crosswalk. Updated 3 October 2019 ↩
‘Old Covenant vs. New Covenant’ By Jack Zavada. Learn Religions. Updated on March 06, 2021 ↩
‘How You Feed on Christ’ Open the Bible. 1 February 2020 ↩
‘Passover: History’ Reform Judaism ↩
‘Passover Sacrifice’ (Hebrew, “zebaḥ Pesaḥ”; lit. “sacrifice of exemption”): By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Jacob Zallel Lauterbach. Jewish Encyclopedia. ↩
‘Leaven and Passover’ by Aaron Eby, Beth Immanuel Messianic Synagogue. ↩