Matthew 26:26-35

Matthew 26:26-35 The Passover meal: The first communion/Eucharist

The Passover seder involved a variety of steps.  Participants drank four cups of wine, spread over the course of a meal that lasted several hours.  They ate certain foods that had symbolic meaning.  For example, parsley or other greens were dipped in salt water, symbolizing the early hope the Israelites had when they first came to Egypt (the greens) turning to bitter tears (the salt water) in their period of slavery.  At one point in the Passover meal, the unleavened bread is called the “bread of affliction.”  It is broken by the person leading the seder and passed around.  Matthew 26:17 refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread because in Jesus’s time, the two feasts were celebrated together.

What actually happens in this passage?  What does Jesus actually do?

What is your understanding on the meaning of what happens here?

Background regarding communion/the Eucharist

The Christian denominations don’t agree on what is happening here.  If you are studying this passage in a group, this is not the place to try to convert each other.  Listen to others, humbly share what you believe, and leave it to the Holy Spirit to work in everyone’s heart.  If we don’t treat each other lovingly, even when we disagree, we haven’t grasped what Jesus is all about.

Here is some background for those who have an interest in understanding how different Christian denominations approach the Lord’s Supper:

Christians of all denominations look to this meal as the basis of the ritual they celebrate in their worship services or liturgies.  Catholics call it the “Eucharist” or “communion” and call the service the “Mass.”  Evangelicals and other Protestants usually call it “communion” or “the Lord’s Supper.”  Whatever they call it and in whatever way they celebrate it, the roots of their practice are here in Jesus’s final meal before his death.  Christians don’t just celebrate it yearly the way the Jews celebrated the Passover – but instead celebrate it weekly, or daily, or monthly – because in Luke 22:19, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” or “in memory of me.”

Christians have different ideas about what happens at their worship services or Masses.

• Catholics believe that the bread and wine, when consecrated, actually becomes the body and blood of Christ even though they remain under the appearances of bread and wine.  Catholics call this “transubstantiation.”

• Orthodox Christians believe the consecrated bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, but they do not try to define in dogma the mystery of that transformation and they do not accept the Roman Catholic formulation of “transubstantiation.”  Nevertheless, they share a belief in a literal transformation of the bread and wine that traces back to the earliest writings of Christians (going all the way back to Justin Martyr around AD 155).

• Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are “truly and substantially present” in the consecrated bread and wine but that it is still bread and wine.

• Episcopalians believe that Christ’s body and blood become “really present,” without any need for the consecrated elements to stop being bread and wine.

• Most  other Christian bodies reject the idea that the bread and wine literally “become” the body and blood of Christ.  They generally believe that Christ is present spiritually, but not physically.

Another point separates believers:

• Most Christians believe that the communion service or Eucharist or liturgy is a memorial, or commemoration, or remembrance of the Jesus’s Last Supper, or of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection more broadly.

• Some denominations believe that it goes further: that what Christ did 2,000 years ago is made truly present to us now.  For example, Catholics believe that the Mass is a memorial but also more: They believe that, in the Mass, Christ’s unique, once-and-for-all sacrifice is made present again in our midst.  They are not saying that the Eucharist is a new sacrifice each time – there was only one sacrifice made by Christ on the Cross – but they believe that single sacrifice is re-presented to us and that the Mass allows us to enter now into what happened then.

We are not going to resolve these issues here.  If you are studying in a small group, please accept the fact that Christians disagree, share what this passage of Scripture means to you, listen to others, and avoid arguments, which rarely resolve anything and can undermine the cohesiveness of your group.

How important is communion to you, and why?

Why do we generally have “communion” as a communal event?  We pray individually, but we don’t have our own private moments of partaking of bread and wine.  Why is this something meant to be done together?

In verse 26, what does Jesus say the bread is?

Catholics take Jesus’s words “This is my body” literally, while most Protestants consider it symbolic.  What do the words “This is my body” mean to you?

Even people from the same denomination can bring a richness of personal perspectives and experiences to this question.  As far as doctrine goes, Catholics are the literalists here, whereas sometimes in interpreting other verses of the Bible it is Protestants who insist on more literal interpretations.  God keeps loving us despite our disagreements.

In the Passover seder, one of the cups of wine that the participants drink is associated with the covenant established by God when he gave the Law to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai.  Jesus was incredibly well versed in the Scriptures and may have been thinking about Exodus 24:8, which he referred to “the blood of the covenant” – a sacrifice made by the Israelites as they entered into the covenant with God at Mt. Sinai.  (This is different from the sacrifice of the Passover lambs as the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt.)

In verse 28, Jesus identifies the cup as being a covenant, but this covenant is different from than the earlier covenants God made with Israel.  How does Jesus describe this covenant?

If you were expecting the word “new” in this verse, you are thinking of Luke 22:20, where Jesus says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”  In Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24, Jesus says, “This is my blood of the covenant.”

The covenants in the Old Testament are solemn agreements between God and his people.  How is Jesus’s blood a covenant with us?

In verse 28, what does Jesus identify as the purpose of the pouring out of his blood?

His blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.  When Jesus says this, Jesus is making a connection with Isaiah 53:12, where Isaiah says of the Suffering Servant that “he poured out himself to death, / and was numbered with the transgressors; / yet he bore the sin of many, / and made intercession for the transgressors” (NRSV).

How does this connection of the cup to the forgiveness of sins relate to you?  What difference does it make in your life?

How is Jesus’s new interpretation of the Jewish Passover an additional demonstration of his authority?

At many places in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been reinterpreting the Jewish Scriptures: You have heard it said . . . , but I say. . . .  Now, he has reinterpreted the foundational feast of Passover.  Now he shows that he also has authority over Jewish liturgical practices.

How does the new covenant inaugurated here have power that the earlier covenants did not have?

How do you think Matthew and the believers of his time felt about the Lord’s Supper described here?  What do you think Matthew is trying to tell us?

Note: In verse 29, Jesus says he will not drink wine again “until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”  This statement is usually interpreted as referring to the heavenly banquet that is envisioned for us in heaven.

Notice in verse 29 that even though Jesus knows he is going to die, he knows this is not the end.  He is still thinking about his Father’s kingdom and looking forward to the future.  How can this attitude be helpful to you in your own life’s journey?

In verse 29, Jesus says that he will drink “with you” in the Father’s Kingdom.  That assurance extends to us as well.  What is your reaction to the idea of that someday you will eat and drink with Jesus in heaven?

When you receive communion at church, what is going through your head?

In what ways do you see Christ in the Eucharist/communion and/or see it as a means of becoming more fully united with Christ?

Augustine gave a homily about the Eucharist for new converts who were baptized at Easter or Pentecost around A.D. 408 in which he took the idea that the consecrated bread is the body of Christ and connected it to the idea presented by Paul that we are the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).  Augustine said: “Be what you see; receive what you are” (Augustine, “Sermon 272”).  How do you see the “body of Christ” in communion?

How do you make the most of the experience of receiving communion?

Focus now on Matthew 26:31-35, where Jesus predicts Peter’s denial

Jesus tells them several important things in verses 31 and 32.  What does he tell them (1) about themselves; (2) about himself; and (3) about what will happen afterwards?

He says: (1) They will desert him and scatter.  (2) He will be stricken, but he will also be raised up and he will go to Galilee.  (3) They will meet him in Galilee (going “ahead” of them implies they will go as well).

The Old Testament passage Jesus quotes in verse 31 is from Zechariah 13:7.

In verse 33, how does Peter respond to the claim that they will desert Jesus?

Peter carries forever the stigma of having denied Jesus because we have the full story of his denial.  But what does v. 35 tell us about the other disciples?  In verse 31, Jesus said, “You will all. . . .”  Do you think the other disciples were different from Peter in their denial/desertion?

Peter was not a coward.  He tried to defend Jesus with his sword when Jesus was arrested, and he followed Jesus right into the courtyard of the high priest’s compound.  But in the end, it turned out that he had too much confidence in himself.  We sometimes think our faith and loyalty and courage are greater than they are.  What caution can we take from Peter’s misplaced confidence?

Read Matthew 26:41 and then re-read what Jesus says in verses 31-32.  How do you think Jesus feels about the disciples?  Is he angry?  Embittered?  Lovingly aware?

How do you think Jesus feels when you turn away from him in big or small ways?

How do these verses provide encouragement in difficult times?

Notice that even though Jesus has just told them they will desert him, he also says in v. 31 that he expects to see them later in Galilee.  Do you find that God is also that way with us: that even though we mess up, he never rejects us – instead he just keeps expecting us to show up the next time?  What does this tell you about God?

Take a step back and consider this:

The Passover feast was a celebration of God’s acts of salvation in the history of the Jewish people.  Jesus’s sacrifice of himself ushered in a new covenant that fulfills and transcends the previous covenants God made with his people.  We see these previous covenants in the Old Testament: God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants after the flood (Gen. 8:20-9:17); a covenant with Abraham that established a nation that would be God’s special people (Gen. 17:1-14); a covenant with Moses and the Israelites that gave them the Law (Ex. 19-24); and a covenant with David, through whose line the messiah would come (2 Sam. 7:1-17; summarized again in 1 Chron. 17:11-14).  Later, God promised that he would establish a new covenant that would be for all people (Jer. 31:31-34).   Jesus establishes that new and eternal covenant through his death and resurrection.  In fact, Jesus Christ brings all of the covenants to their fulfillment.

How is God’s relationship with the Jewish people through many centuries important to Christians?

What difference does it make in your life that Jesus has both fulfilled the old covenant and established a new covenant?

A covenant is a solemn agreement between humans and God (or between humans with each other ).  Do you think of yourself as being in a “covenant” relationship with God?  How is it helpful to think about your relationship with God in that way?