The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record that on the night on which Jesus was betrayed and arrested, he ate the Passover meal with his disciples. The Passover meal was the sacred meal which gave shape and form to Judaism. Passover, and the meal that accompanied it, celebrated God's powerful acts in delivering the Hebrew people from slavery. The meal had elements which reminded those at table of their former slavery and the bitter tears that they shed; of God's command that the Hebrews sprinkle blood on the lintels of their doorposts as protection from the angel of death; and of God's miraculous deliverance which came so quickly that the people did not have time to allow their bread to rise. Finally the meal looks forward to the time when the prophet Elijah would return and the Kingdom would be established.
What the Gospels record however is not this exact meal. Jesus takes the Passover story and updates it. He brings it into the context of his mission and ministry. While it still tells the story of captivity and liberation, the characters have changed. The people held captive are not simply the Hebrews but all of humanity. The people are held captive not to Pharaoh but sin. The one doing the liberating is not God through Moses, but God through Jesus. The lamb which will be sacrificed is Jesus himself. This new "Passover" meal was adopted early on by the church complete with its ritual language. We know this because Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth in C.E. 53 writes this:
"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,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In 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.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." (I Corinthians 11:23-26)
This means that fewer than twenty years after Jesus' death the early church had a liturgy around which the meal was to be conducted…a liturgy which we still use.
It would be nice to assume then that the Lord's Supper was simply passed on and repeated from the upper room until it was received by Paul. Unfortunately the process was not quite that simple. We are made aware of this from the New Testament books of Acts, Corinthians and Jude as well as the writings of some of the other early church fathers. What we discover in those writings is that the church also had a sacred meal called the "Agape" meal or love feast. Paul's writings imply that the church would gather on the first day of the week (Sunday) for a shared meal. This was very much like a pot-luck dinner in which everyone was to share…though the wealthy believers in Corinth did not. Then once the meal was about over the church would use the words from the upper room as a conclusion. This idea of the shared meal continues to be a tradition in many churches in Africa and the Far East.
Even so, over time the Agape feast and the Lord's Supper become two very different acts. The Agape feast became looked down upon and officially discouraged because Christians would eat and drink to the point of gluttony and drunkenness. In other words they were using it as excuse to party like it was 99 (some of you will get the joke here). Church leaders including Augustine wanted the practice stopped. On the other hand the Lord's Supper became a more and more elaborate practice. Early church documents like the Didache (ca. 90CE), and early church Fathers including Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 100CE) and Justin Martyr (ca.130CE) both explain the meal and give instructions as to how it ought to be conducted. Thus the church moved the Lord's Supper out of the meal fellowship and into worship where it remains today.
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