So much of our lives revolve around the meal, hunger is the body’s internal alarm clock reminding us that we need nourishment and goes off regularly determining the rhythm of our day. Food is something we look forward to, when you know you are going out to eat in the evening you anticipate it. Family gatherings revolve around food. My Grandma made the ultimate biscuits and gravy. Any time I see or eat biscuits and gravy, it takes me back to that Missouri farm where she live. Food transports us, it anchors many of our memories, and it provides many of our most important relational connections.
Does popcorn bring you back to movie night with your family? Summer barbecues? Thanksgiving? Christmas? When you were sick? Food creates and expresses intimacy. Wanna grab a bite? This is a question of friendship, it is reserved to those close and trusted. Throughout the story of Scripture, the significance of a meal is evident.
Meals in the Bible
Listen to what scholar, Craig Blomberg says about meals in biblical times:
“Meals appear in many contexts for many different reasons throughout the Bible. They may reflect the typical intimacy of a family, often including neighbors and friends. In other cases, meals ratify covenants; celebrate military victories; accompany the anointing of kings and the establishment of their reigns; celebrate special family occasions, such as birth, marriage and death; and accompany prescribed festivals that memorialize key events in the salvation history of God’s people.”
The Lord’s Supper is one of the most important meals in the Bible. I want to deepen our appreciation of what this is all about. To get at this, we are going to look at four types of meals in the Old Testament that inform what is happening in the Lord’s Supper.
Covenant Meal
Exodus 24:8-11
“Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.”
There are three important points to be drawn from this text: 1) They saw God and ate with him; 2) They saw God and ate with him and; 3) They saw God and ate with him! God has just made a covenant with Israel, the leaders are invited to the top of the mountain—note that the text says “he did not lay a hand on them”— they actually survived this encounter. Moses is helping us understand that entering into the presence of God is dangerous. The book of Exodus tells us later that “no one can see God’s face and live.” That is unless God shelters and protects them—in the presence of the God who is a consuming fire, who is transcendent and majestic—they ate with God.
Covenant is about promise—the promise that God will be our God and we will be his people. This meal is about his faithfulness and his presence with his people—here we see that a covenant meal is an incredible invitation. God is calling, “come and eat with me, you are welcome at my table.” Covenant is how a holy God can meet with us at the table.
Passover Meal
Exodus 12:7-8, 27
“Then they shall take come of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the house in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.”
The Passover was the pivotal moment in Israel’s history, the entire Jewish calendar was built around this moment. Every year the Passover meal would be eaten by Israelite families—the host of the meal would retell the story. At the heart of this story was a slain lamb, its blood covered the doorposts and its meat consumed by the family.
Passover is about sacrifice, substitution and rescue from God’s judgment. It is about receiving and consuming the provision of God—they literally ate the sacrifice that rescued them from judgment. Here God invites us to a table by demonstrating that he himself will absorb his judgment in a substitute, rather than pouring it on us, and that receiving his sacrifice is necessary to commune with Him.
Sacrificial Meal
Deuteronomy 12:6-7
“You shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”
The sin offering and the burnt offerings were two variations of sacrifice that dealt with the issue of atonement for iniquities and transgressions. The peace offering or the fellowship offering was an offering where the worshipper was allowed to eat most of the animal sacrificed (Lev 7:15-18). Vern Poythress hits it on the head when he sums up the significance of this offering, “To an Israelite this procedure would signify that the worshiper enjoys a meal in the presence of God and with the special blessing of God.”
The sacrificial system existed to deal with sin. The sacrificial meal communicated that fellowship with God was the end goal of sacrifice and substitution. The sacrificial meal communicates that God makes a way for forgiveness, a way for reconciliation. Through sacrifice God does more than prepare a table in the presence of his enemies, he prepares a table for us and invites us to it.
The Ultimate Meal
Isaiah 25:6-8
“On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces.”
The Old Testament hope looked forward to a time where death, sorrow and tears would give way to joy, laughter and feasting. The end of history is the beginning of the greatest feast ever. This passage answers with a yes to the question: will there be food in heaven, on the new earth? We are talking about graduating from the kids table to the adult table, this is the ultimate meal.
The ultimate meal pointed to final rescue, hope realized, death defeated and life everlasting. God’s provision of a seat at his table, forever.
The Lord’s Supper
Now, with these four anchor points in mind, listen to the account of the Lord’s Supper from Luke. See if you can pick out these themes and how they open your eyes to what is happening here.
“When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:14-20).
This is God eating a meal with his disciples, with his people.
Passover– Jesus is the storyteller, he is the Passover lamb, it’s his body that is broken for us, his blood that covers the door, his death that absorbs God’s wrath so that we are passed over.
Sacrifice– Jesus must suffer, he is the sacrifice, his body must be given up, he is the only way that forgiveness is possible, he is the only way to fellowship with God.
Ultimate– Jesus points to a final banquet twice. He assures us that there is more coming, the meal shared with us is a foretaste of the great banquet to come.
Covenant– Jesus makes it clear that the meal represents the new covenant, to partake of the meal is to partake of that covenant; to receive his promises and to rest in his faithfulness.
We had assigned seats at our dining room table growing up, a place reserved for each of us. There was never a time when my parents looked at me and said: “what are you doing in that chair” I belonged there, it was my place. God has a place at his table for you, a seat with your name on it. That’s what this is all about, this is about God saying, “come, sit, eat, you are welcome at my table.”
Is your heart filled with sin? Is your mouth stained with it, your hands, your mind, your body? Don’t fear, God has provided all that is needed for us to be forgiven in Christ. He has absorbed the judgment for sin. You don’t have to clean up to come to this table, this is a table for forgiveness, for reconciliation. Jesus said to take, eat, drink; this is a place to simply receive. This is broken bread for broken people.
This is a table of great joy, your Creator sitting across the table, delighting in you, eating with you, laughing with you, loving you. This all anticipates the future wedding banquet of the lamb, the great feast that we wait expectantly to share with Him and each other. Have you forgotten Jesus? Come back; remember again. Are you weary on the journey? Come sit, eat and gain energy to keep pressing ahead. Are you wondering about God’s love? Come be reminded. Are you without a seat at the Lord’s table? Come and take your chair. Trust Christ for the forgiveness of your sin. God is communicating all these things through the Lord’s Supper.