Jesus told his apostles that He
desired to eat the Passover with them because His hour had come (See Luke 22: 15; Matthew 26:18).
It wasn’t an accident that He chose the Passover meal for this final act with
the twelve. It provided the perfect
teaching moment to fulfill the commandment of the old covenant – the law of
sacrifice – by tying its symbols to the parallel ordinance of the new covenant
– the sacrament. God’s people had been offering sacrifice since the days of
Adam. Abraham knew that God Himself
would provide a lamb. The Mosaic Law was
particularly explicit about the requirements of the ordinance – that it be a
first-born male lamb without blemish.
The ordinance of the Law of Sacrifice looked forward to the ultimate
sacrifice of the Lamb of God. The
ordinance of the Sacrament is to be
done in remembrance of His sacrifice.
Christianity has made two
mistakes relative to the Lord’s Supper.
The first came out of the Universal Church: the idea that the
symbols of the Eucharist – the host – actually became Jesus’ body and blood
within the body of the celebrant – a doctrine known as transubstantiation, canonized in 1215 by Pope Innocent III. As bizarre as that may sound to many of us today, if
someone only read the account in the Matthew and Mark, I can see where they
might make such a false assumption (for example: Matthew stated that Jesus
said, “Take, eat; this is my body” – 26:26). Luke alone uses the word remembrance.
I was interested to learn
recently that the earliest written account of the institution of the sacrament
came, not from the four gospels, but from Paul’s first letter to the
Corinthians. Apparently the Corinthian saints
had turned the sacrament from a sacred ordinance into a free meal, with members
stuffing themselves with bread and even becoming drunk on the wine! Paul said, “What? have ye not houses to eat
and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?
. . . shall I praise you in this? I
praise you not” (1 Corinthians 11:
22). He then went on to teach them in no uncertain terms that the
emblems of the Sacrament were to be taken worthily in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice for them. Remembrance
was a key word in the Passover Seder (i.e., the Feast of the Passover). It is also a key word in the Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper.
The second mistake made by some
Christians came out of the Protestant Reformation and was probably a reaction
to the false doctrine of the transubstantiation. That was the mistake of treating the Lord’s
Supper a something nice, but not necessary for worshipping Jesus. I have wondered at this conclusion since that
very chapter of 1 Corinthians 11 I just quoted, speaks of the importance of the
members meeting to partake of the emblems of Jesus’ death and doing so worthily
and with great reverence.
Again, the Book of Mormon adds its testimony alongside the Bible.
Jesus instituted the ordinance of the Sacrament among the
Nephites. He had bread and wine brought
to Him which He blessed and gave to the people.
He said, “Behold there shall one be ordained among you, and to him will
I give power that he shall break bread and bless it and give it to the people
of my church, unto all those who shall believe and be baptized in my name . . .
And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you” (3 Nephi 18: 5, 7).
After giving them the wine, He
said, “And this shall ye always do to those who repent and are baptized in my
name; and ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you”
(3 Nephi 18: 11). Moroni later testified that
the members of Christ’s Church continued in this ordinance when he wrote: “And
they did meet together oft to partake of the bread and wine, in remembrance of
the Lord Jesus” (Moroni 6: 6). Moroni also recorded the specific prayers
that accompany the ordinance, which are the same prayers used in the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today.
If you read them, you will see that key word, remembrance (See Moroni chapters 4 and 5 and
Doctrine and Covenants 20: 27, 29).
Text copyright January 2014, Gebara Education
Pictures:
Lamb from www.forums.familyfriendspoems.co
Last Supper by Leonardo de Vinci
Emblems of the Sacrament from www.cogoaccwordpress.com
Christ initiating the Sacrament among the Nephites from www.stepbystep.alancminer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment