My Walk Through the Book of Mark by Annette Godtland

Jesus Institutes the Lord's Supper (Mark 14:22-26)

22And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."

23Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. 25Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

26And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

In my church just a couple weeks ago we celebrated Easter. Part of our preparation for Easter was to take part in a symbolic Passover meal at our friend's church. I had something dawn on me that night that I hadn't thought of before. We often refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God. When I think of someone as being a lamb, I think of them as being peaceful and mild mannered, a precious child of the parent. But as we shared that Passover meal and I read the words of the last supper, I saw a much more meaningful reason for Jesus being called the Lamb of God.

The first Passover meal was served just before the Israelites were freed from Egypt, the night they were to mark their door posts with the blood of a lamb, so their household would be passed over by the last plague, the death of the firstborn sons of the Egyptian families. Jesus is the Lamb sent by God, whose blood would be shed to save us, not just from a plague, but for eternal life. We are not to just mark the door post of our homes with this blood, but to drink His blood to mark the doorway of our hearts. Jesus did this to create a new covenant with us. The wages of sin is death -- God has never wavered on that. We are all sinners. In this new covenant, Jesus did the hard part for us. He paid the wages of death for our sins so we could have eternal life. We must never forget what He did for us. We are reminded of this every time we have communion in church. By eating of His body we are reminded of His death, by drinking of His blood we are reminded of the new covenant, the forgiveness of our sins and the everlasting life He is giving us.

Jesus said He would no longer drink of the fruit of the vine. I assume he means wine. I wish I knew the culture of the time better so I could better understand what He meant by this. Was wine a typical part of every meal, meaning this would be Jesus' last meal? Or was wine reserved for celebration, meaning He will not celebrate again till He is in the kingdom of God? He will drink it new in the kingdom of God. Will it be a new wine? He is making a special point of saying what will happen in the future. He emphasizes its importance by starting it with the words "Assuredly". It seems there is some significance here in this statement of Jesus' that I am missing. I wish I understood it more.