The Body And The Blood

 

I really felt strongly with Passover and the resurrection celebration coming up, to go deeper in regards to what we call the Lord's supper and talk about the importance of the body and the blood.

Now reading from the Holman Christian Bible, starting in verse 17 of Matthew chapter 26.

17 On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do You want us to prepare the Passover so You may eat it?”

18 “Go into the city to a certain man,” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. 20 When evening came, He was reclining at the table with the Twelve.

Now I want to skip down to verse 26.

26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take and eat it; this is My body.” 27 Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way in My Father’s kingdom with you.” 30 After singing psalms, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

When they were on the mount of olives, Jesus was praying, and that is where he was betrayed by Judas, and then the rest of the story of course takes place, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. However, what I want to focus on at this point is the Passover meal.

We know that Jesus was born into the Jewish heritage and genealogy, and Jesus came from the house of David. Joseph, who was Mary's husband, his genealogy was part of the house of David, and it was prophesied that Jesus was going to come from the house of David.

Now the importance of the body and the blood goes all the way back into Exodus. In Exodus chapter 12 verse number 5.

5 You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats.

What they were talking about specifically was a lamb. In the King James it says to have a spotless lamb, and it meant having a lamb with no blemishes on it, almost as perfect as could be found. The lamb was going to be used in this sacrificial meal.

6 You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. 7 They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them.

Now, this was prophetic, because Jesus was going to be shedding his own blood for us and then placing it on the mercy seat.

Now God specifically instructed that they were to place some of the lamb’s blood on the doorpost where they were residing.

Now when Jesus placed His blood on the mercy seat, it cleansed us. Just like when the children of Israel placed the lamb’s blood on the doorposts, and death passed over them, when we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we in turn are placing His blood on the doorposts of our spirit.

See God said He was no longer going to come live in buildings made by man, but He was going to come live inside of man. So with that in mind, our spirit is now the building and when we trust in Jesus, we have taken His blood, because He is now the Lamb, and we placed it on our spirit, where death passes over us, over our spirit.

Now let’s continue.

14 “This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute. 15 You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel.

Now not only was the lamb significant because it was a prophetic telling of the sacrifice Jesus was going to make for us, but they were to also eat unleavened bread. Now unleavened bread is simply bread that is made without yeast.

In the New Testament Jesus related to yeast being like sin. See, once yeast gets into a loaf of bread, it causes the whole bread to be affected, and yeast causes bread to rise. When bread rises it is puffy.

Pride does that. When someone is full of pride, they think too highly of themselves. They think that they are above everyone. The Pharisees in Jesus' time, felt that they were better than any of the Jewish people around them. They even thought they were better than the lowly Romans.

Now getting back to the Passover. Jesus was not only the spotless lamb that was slain for us, shedding His blood for death to passover us, but He was also the unleavened bread. Jesus even referred to Himself as being the Bread of life.

So because there was no sin in Jesus, He could be the spotless lamb, perfect, for us, and He could also be the unleavened bread, perfect, sinless, for us.

Now take this back to the Lord’s Supper. Jesus broke the bread and told His disciples that the bread was a symbol of His broken body, which was spoken about in Isaiah 53:3.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon him;

and with his stripes we are healed.

This is the importance of the broken bread during the Lord’s Supper. By His broken body, we now can live without guilt, and condemnation, and we can live in peace and good health.

The cup of wine, or as we often take a cup of juice, was the symbol of His blood being poured out for us, just like the lamb’s blood at Passover, and now because we have His precious blood that was poured out for us, we are cleansed and death no longer has a hold on our spirit.

So I encourage you to take the Lord’s Supper as often as you can, and remember all of what our precious Jesus did for us.

Just like the Israelites were set free from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, we have been set free from the bondage of sin.

God Bless.

Shalom