Key Passage
While they were eating, Jesus took some bread. Jesus thanked God for the bread and divided it. He gave the bread to his followers. Jesus said, “Take this bread {and eat it}. This bread is my body.”
— Mark 14:22 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
For Jesus and his followers, bread was the “staff of life”—the essence of food and nourishment to people in Jesus’ culture in Jesus’ day. Jesus had already taught his closest followers that he was the bread of life (John 6). Now, Jesus was providing these followers with a way to remember him, his life-giving place in their lives, and the sacrifice he was about to make for them. In addition, he was providing his followers with a way of understanding their role in the world—they were to be his bodily presence. When we take of the Lord’s Supper on Sunday like the early followers of Jesus did, we do so to remember him and to commit to keep alive his ministry to the world as we pledge to be his Body. We must never take this meal for granted.
Prayer
O Father, thank you for leaving us a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice, his life-giving grace, and our responsibility to keep his memory and ministry alive as his Body, the Church. In Jesus name. Amen.
Related Scriptures
The cup of blessing that we give thanks for is a sharing in the blood (death) of Christ, isn’t it? And the bread that we break is a sharing in the body of Christ, isn’t it? (There is one loaf of bread. And we are many people. But we all share from that one loaf. So we are really one body.)
— 1 Corinthians 10:16-17
The teaching that I gave you is the same teaching that I received from the Lord: On the night when Jesus was given to be killed, he took bread and gave thanks for it. Then he divided the bread and said, “This is my body; it is for you. Eat this to remember me.”
— 1 Corinthians 11:23-24
On Sunday, we all met together to eat {the Lord’s Supper}. Paul talked to the group. He was planning to leave the next day. Paul continued talking until midnight.
— Acts 20:7
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