The Lord’s Supper

The meal the Lord gave

On the night he was betrayed, at the Passover meal, Jesus took bread and cup and gave them a new meaning. Paul hands it on as what he "received from the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:23):

The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

1 Corinthians 11:23-24

Paul calls it "the Lord’s Supper" (1 Corinthians 11:20). Because Jesus gave thanks over the bread (eucharisteō (εὐχαριστέω)), it is also called the Eucharist, the thanksgiving; others call it Holy Communion, or the Mass.

The Supper looks three ways. It looks back to the cross: "do this in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:19). It looks forward: "you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26). And it joins believers now to Christ and to one another:

Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17

‘Participation’ is koinōnia (κοινωνία), sharing in common, which is why the meal is called communion. When Paul says "Each one must examine himself" (1 Corinthians 11:28), he does not turn the imperfect away but calls them to come in repentance and faith. Augustine saw the church's unity in the elements themselves: "Bread is made of many grains, wine is produced out of many berries. Herein the Lord Jesus Christ signified us, and hallowed in His Own table the mystery of our peace and unity" Augustine.

How the church has kept it

The first believers devoted themselves "to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42). The Didache, from about 100, preserves thanksgiving prayers for the Eucharist Didache 9–10, and around 155 Justin Martyr describes Christians meeting on Sunday to hear Scripture and pray, then giving thanks over bread and wine, which only the baptised received, and not as common bread and drink Justin Martyr, First Apology 65–67. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins its definition where every tradition can begin:

The Lord's Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 96

At the Reformation the Protestant churches together rejected the teaching that the Mass is a sacrifice offered for sins, but they divided over how Christ is present. At Marburg in 1529 Luther and Zwingli agreed on fourteen articles and most of the fifteenth, yet parted over the bodily presence of Christ in the Supper The Marburg Articles.

Where the traditions differ

All hold to the words "This is My body" (1 Corinthians 11:24) but read them differently. The Catholic Church teaches that at the consecration the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation) Council of Trent, Decree on the Eucharist, and that the Mass is a true sacrifice, the one sacrifice of the cross offered without the shedding of blood Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass. The Orthodox also confess a real change but leave its manner a mystery. Lutherans confess that Christ's true body and blood are present in, with and under the bread and wine; this is often called consubstantiation, though Lutherans prefer to speak of a ‘sacramental union’. Reformed and Presbyterian churches confess that Christ's body is in heaven, yet the Spirit unites believers to him so that by faith they truly feed on him (spiritual presence). Many Baptist and free churches, in a view commonly linked with Zwingli, see the Supper as a meal of remembrance and confession (memorialism).

Protestants, pointing to Christ's sacrifice offered "once for all" (Hebrews 10:10), do not accept the Mass as a sacrifice for sins. Churches also differ on how often to celebrate the Supper and on who may come. Yet all confess that Christ commanded this meal, that it proclaims his death, that it is received by faith, and that those who share one loaf are one body. See the lesson Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and What are baptism and the Lord's Supper?