Tonight we celebrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Our Prayer Book calls it the Holy Eucharist. We do it every Sunday as though it is no more exalted than Morning Prayer. We don’t recognize it as the original and everlasting manifestation of God. Scripture can be understood as the history of God With Us in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist.

Just as the history of the American people began in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so the history of the people of God began with the Exodus from Egypt 4000 years ago (give or take a century). Before that the people were not a people, but were slaves of the Egyptian empire. Some of them told campfire stories about some ancestors called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the slaves had been captured from many different tribes of the Near East. Not until their common wretchedness raised up a leader in Moses did they become united. The sign of their unification, the beginning of their relationship with God, was unleavened bread and the blood of lambs.

The same sign was given over and over through the rest of scripture. Once Jesus said: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” Tonight I will just remind you of some stories, and you will see how that initial hasty meal led to and beyond the body of Christ being known in the bread and wine.

Exodus 12.1---12.28     The First Passover Instituted

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: ³Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each household. ⁴⁴If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor. ¹¹This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 14 This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt.

Exodus 16.11---35       Bread from Heaven

¹¹The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ¹²‘I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” ’ 13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’^* For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. ³⁵The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

Joshua 5.10-12   The Passover at Gilgal

10 While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. 11On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. 12The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

2 Kings 22.8---23.23   Josiah’s Reformation The Passover Celebrated

11 When King Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. 21 The king commanded all the people, ‘Keep the passover to the Lord your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.’ 22No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah; 23but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

Ezra 6.1-13  Completion and Dedication of the Temple

6Then King Darius made a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt. So the elders of the Jews built and prospered. On the fourteenth day of the first month the returned exiles kept the passover. ²²With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread for seven days; for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.

Matthew 15.32-38  Feeding the Four Thousand

32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.’ 33The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’ 34Jesus asked them, ‘How many loaves have you?’ They said, ‘Seven, and a few small fish.’ 35Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

John 6.26-36 The Bread from Heaven

  ³⁰So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ ³²Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which^* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ³⁴They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ 35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

Luke 22.2—8  The Preparation of the Passover

2The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus* to death, for they were afraid of the people. The Preparation of the Passover7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8So Jesus* sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.’

Luke 22.19: The Institution of the Lord’s Supper

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

John 18.28: Jesus before Pilate

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters.* It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters,* so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover

Luke 24.13-18  The Walk to Emmaus

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles* from Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 25Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26Was it not necessary that the Messiah* should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ 27Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

John 21.9-14  Jesus Appears to Seven Disciples

9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ 11So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. 13Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Acts of the Apostles 2.41-42 Life among the Believers

41So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. ⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Acts of the Apostles 20.6-12  Paul’s Farewell Visit to Troas

7 On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. ⁸There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. ⁹A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. ¹⁰But Paul went down, and bending over him took him in his arms, and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ ¹¹Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. ¹²Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.

1 Corinthians 11.23-26 23  The Institution of the Lord’s Supper

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for^* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ ²⁵In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 10.16-17        Warnings from Israel’s History