In Luke 22 we read a description of the institution of the Lord’s Supper and we see that Jesus refers specifically to two dimensions of time: the present and the future. In our culture, we generally measure the passing of time by referring to the past, the present, and the future. When we look at the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper in the life of the Christian community, we see that it has significance and application to all three dimensions of time.
The Lord’s Supper is related to the past by virtue of its link to the Passover. In addition, what Jesus talked about in the Upper Room has since taken place, so His death on the cross is past to us as well. He tells the disciples that they were to do this sacrament “in remembrance of Him.” To the extent that our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance, the focus is on what took place in the past.
Oftentimes, in the Bible, we see what we call the sacralization of space and of time. That is, we see countless examples where God or His people Israel, gave sacred, holy, and consecrated significance to particular times and to particular events that took place in their world. Consider Moses’ call by God in the Midianite wilderness: “Then he said, ‘Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’” (Ex. 3:5). What God was saying to Moses was, “Moses, this place on the planet is now sacred; this is a holy site.” What made the ground holy was not the fact that Moses was there. It was holy ground because it was a point of intersection between God and His people. If you go through the Old Testament, you will see special places where God met with His people or acted mightily on behalf of His people. In these instances, it was often customary for the people to mark the spot. Usually it was done by building a very simple altar with stones.
For example, when Noah landed on the top of Mt. Ararat and exited from the ark, one of the very first things he did was build an altar there to remember the place where God had delivered him and his family from the deluge. After the children of Israel passed over the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua, they erected a monument. We see this again and again. When Jacob had his midnight vision of God ascending and descending from the heavens as he was on his way to find a wife, he named that spot Bethel because he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16). So he took the stone that he had used for a pillow during the night and he anointed it with oil and placed it there as a marker since God had appeared to him in the dream and had made His promise to him.
In the Bible, time and again, we see the sacralization of space. We do it today as well. A few years ago, there was a tragic and fatal traffic accident very close to my home in which one of the victims was a little girl who was a gymnast. She lived across the street from me, and on my way to work every day, I pass the tree where the car crashed. To this day, there are all kinds of memorials, flowers, and crosses marking the spot where she died. We all have special places in our lives. They may be special for good or bad reasons, but we count these places as holy to us, sometimes with physical markers.
Not only do we have sacred space in Scripture, but we also have sacred time. The festivals of the Old Testament involved the sacralization of time. With respect to the Passover, God ordained for the people of Israel to celebrate annually their redemption from slavery in Egypt by marking a sacred moment on the calendar for the feast of the Passover. This was sacred time.
We mark sacred days on the church calendar as well. We go to church on Sundays to remember the fact that Jesus was raised on Sunday morning. We celebrate the feast of Pentecost. We celebrate Easter and Christmas. We celebrate these things because, as human beings, it is strongly rooted in our humanity to have sacred time. We want to remember those moments that are most important to us in history. We celebrate our own birthdays as if there were something sacred about them. They are sacred in the sense that they’re extraordinary and special to us. It’s good to remember the day in which we came into this world. We celebrate wedding anniversaries because we want to remember the significance of them.
I’m sure our Lord understood this human need to recapitulate and recollect important moments. When He gathered with His disciples in the Upper Room, one of the elements of this institution was His command to repeat this supper in remembrance. “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). In a sense, what Christ said is that “I know that I’ve been your teacher for three years. I’ve done many things, some of which you’re going to forget; but whatever else, please don’t forget this because what you are going to experience in the next twenty-four hours is the most important thing that I will ever do for you. Don’t ever forget it. You are remembering me. You are remembering My death, the pouring out of My blood, the breaking of My body, which will occur on the morrow. Please don’t ever forget it.” And so, for two thousand years, the church has remembered the death of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
Jesus also understood the traditional Jewish link between apostasy and forgetting. Linguistically, that link is found in the very word apostate, which means “a letting go of or forgetting.” An apostate is somebody who has forgotten what he once was committed to. We remember Psalm 103, where David cries,
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits. (Ps. 103:2)
Jesus died two thousand years ago, and not one second passes on the clock that there aren’t people somewhere in this world sitting down, breaking bread, drinking wine, and remembering Christ’s death until He comes.
Ligonier Ministries