Throughout history, human beings have communicated with one another in ways other than the simple use of words. Saying a word in one of the thousands of languages in existence on planet Earth is good, but how we say our words can be more important. For example, we can say “We love you,” and mean that we truly care about the other person; but we can say the same words in a sarcastic tone of voice that really means We don’t love you. We can scream our words, use sarcasm, say them sweetly, sensually, or in a scared manner with a shaky inflection.
Even more effective than words is our body language. We can tense up when touched; grit our teeth; pat someone on the back; give them a thumbs-up; or, to communicate our displeasure, we can give them a swift kick in the pants. Art, whether classical, impressionistic, or simply a cartoon, carries a nonverbal message. These are all ways we communicate that go beyond the words we speak.
So have you ever considered food as a language?
“speaking” with food
What you serve to someone communicates a great deal. Imagine taking an attractive member of the opposite sex to dinner at, say, McDonald’s as opposed to a five-star restaurant. What would an Extra Value Meal communicate to your date when compared to a meal you’d be paying for over a couple months? There’s a reason why fancy restaurants are full on Valentine’s Day and other holidays.
What about inviting a group of people over and serving them five-day-old leftovers instead of ordering fresh pizza, making a salad, and having a cooler full of ice-cold soda?
“Taking guests to eat out has at last become widely acceptable. . . . The choice of restaurant also speaks volumes, wherever it may be,” writes Reay Tannahill in Food in History. She goes on to say that while cultures may change “the basic language of food does not: to offer too cheap or commonplace a meal is insulting; the opposite, ostentatious.”
changing traditions
Jesus was a master communicator, and He used food to teach one of the deepest and most meaningful lessons of His earthly career. The purpose of this meal was to commemorate a historical event and point toward a future one. On the eve of His trial and execution, Jesus gathered His followers to celebrate a Jewish feast called Passover that commemorated the flight of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12).
This meal makes use of two key elements—bread and the fruit of the vine. Jesus blessed both and then changed the traditional meal by infusing some new meaning into it.
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body’ ” (Matthew 26:26). Next He said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (verse 28).
At first blush, this imagery smacks of cannibalism—and many non-Christians have so interpreted it. In fact, some early Christian believers were accused of devouring human beings for this very reason! This, of course, was not true, for God would never condone such an act. He has an entirely different purpose for the symbolism of the bread and fruit of the vine in the Lord’s Supper.
looking back
To understand the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, it’s helpful to keep in mind the purpose of the Passover, from which it is derived. You will recall that God delivered the Israelites from Egypt with ten plagues. The final plague—the one that ushered in an era of freedom for the Israelites—involved the Lord slaying the firstborn child in each Egyptian family. Here’s how Moses explained it to the people: “This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well’ ” (Exodus 11:4, 5). The only way the Israelites could avoid this horrible fate from happening to their own children was to kill a lamb and spread its blood over the door frame.
God said, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you [hence the word Passover]. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exodus 12:13). The sacrifice of the lamb brought salvation and foreshadowed another deliverance from slavery that would occur 1,500 years later when Jesus died on the cross.
When Jesus appeared on earth, John the Baptist declared Him to be the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Additionally, Jesus likened our failure to do what is right and our tendency to be selfish—what we call “sin”—to slavery when He said “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
So Jesus, through the shedding of His blood on the cross—hearkening back to the door frames of ancient Israel—illustrated His act of deliveringus from the power and consequences of our failures and selfishness. Jesus’ death removes us from the path of God’s wrath and ushers us into a new life of freedom.
Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate realization of what the Old Testament lamb represented. The Lord’s Supper represents this through the symbols of the broken bread and the fruit of the vine. Christians call this meal “the Lord’s Supper.” Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the emblems communicate to us what our God has done for us through the language of tradition, ritual, and food.
And there’s more.
an act of cleansing
Before you and I eat a meal—and sometimes afterward, depending on how much of a mess we’ve made as we ate—we wash our hands or clean them off with a napkin. There is an element to remember during the Lord’s Supper that also involves cleaning. During the meal, Jesu “poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:5).
The disciples’ feet were really dirty. After all, they wore sandals and walked around in the dust of a hot desert climate. Proper etiquette required that the host send a servant to wash the feet of his guests. For anyone else to wash the guests’ dirty feet would require a special kind of humility and love, which of course Jesus possessed. Peter became so appalled at seeing his Master perform this servile act that he asked to be excused, but Jesus reminded him that if he did not have his feet washed then he couldn’t be a part of what God wanted to do in his life (verses 6–10).
After Jesus finished this act of service, He said, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (verses 14, 15).
The idea contained in the practice of footwashing, which many still practice as Jesus explicitly told us to, is not simply to come to Him to receive deliverance but to turn around and serve others so that they, too, can be delivered from the selfishness we are all prone to.
We come to our Master’s table to receive a feast of love, where God communicates His plan for us through food, and then challenges us to turn and sacrifice for others. Ultimately, what God really wants us to learn from the Lord’s Supper and footwashing is to bring the lessons of these rituals into our daily lives.
Bible Discovery with Errol Webster
The Lord’s Supper
In 1955 the controversial, surrealist artist Salvador Dalí painted The Sacrament of the Last Supper, which is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The painting is supposedly a picture of Jesus eating His last Passover meal with His disciples. But the painting shows a mystical, shadowy figure where the landscape is visible through His body. Surrealism is a mixture of Freud’s view of the subconscious and an art movement known as “Dada.” Dadaism is an attempt to express the absurdity and meaninglessness of life. This art is characteristic of a postmodern society that has lost its concept of objective moral truth. Yet we yearn for such truth that can give meaning to life.
1. What historical event did the Passover commemorate? Exodus 13:14: “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’ ”
In the Exodus, God acted in real-time history. The Israelites were instructed to take a lamb, slay it, and place its blood on the doorposts of their houses. When God saw the blood, He passed over their houses and spared the firstborn son. In every home in Egypt, the firstborn of both people and animals died.
2. What other historical event does the Passover symbolize? 1 Corinthians 5:7: “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
3. What is the significance of this event? Romans 5:6–8: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
. . . But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
4. What deliverance, greater than the Exodus, did Jesus achieve? Colossians 1:13, 14: “For he 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.”
5. What do the “bread” and “cup” of the Communion supper represent? Matthew 26:26–28: “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ 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.’ ”
When Jesus said “This is my body . . . this is my blood,” He was speaking figuratively about His own death for our sins. The Communion service is a reminder that we are as dependent upon Him spiritually as we are upon food and drink physically. Jesus told us t “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).
6. When did Jesus say He would celebrate this meal again? Matthew 26:29: “I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Paul says that whenever we celebrate the Communion service, we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). John calls this event “the wedding supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).
The Jesus of history is a real Person. Children sat on His knee. Time is divided by His birth. He died, was buried, and rose again in real time. He was seen and touched by His disciples. The story of Jesus can give us the kind of certainty we need.
As the Passover meal pointed back to deliverance from Egyptian bondage, it also pointed forward to the greater deliverance from sin at the Cross. Similarly, the Lord’s Supper points back to Jesus’ death for our sins and forward to the Second Coming when we will feast with Him in the kingdom of glory. All who continue to have faith in Jesus now are guaranteed a seat at that feast then.
