For some reason, I’m really passionate about the topic of communion (eating the bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus). If you don’t understand it fully, it is easy to halfheartedly take communion at church on Sunday. But it’s so deeply rich in symbolism, and I hope you fall in love with it like I have!

Let’s start at the beginning… no, I’m not talking about da Vinci’s image of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper (we’ll come back to that). In order to understand communion, we need to go further back—to the second book of the Bible—Exodus.  

We have to understand that the Last Supper occurs during the celebration of Passover. That is the dinner Jesus and his disciples are having when he breaks the bread and pours the wine.

So what is Passover?

Briefly, Passover celebrates the night when the Spirit of God passed over the Hebrew homes (those that painted the blood of the lamb over their doors) and spared every firstborn son from death, which was the fate of every firstborn Egyptian son.

But this final plague in Egypt foreshadows a greater biblical truth, one that connects the Jesus of the New Testament with Moses’s laws in the Old Testament. Hebrews 9:22 says, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Sound familiar? Jesus’s blood was shed on the cross so that those who believe in him might be cleansed with blood and forgiven—we need the blood of the lamb to save us from eternal death just like the ancient Hebrews needed it to save them from death.

That is the scene Jesus and his followers were remembering when he commanded his disciples to eat the bread, which is his body, and drink the wine, which is his blood of the covenant poured out for the forgiveness of sin.

With that in mind, let’s take a deeper look at the bread and the wine.

Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” 
-Matthew 26:26

There are a couple amazing points here:

Jesus relates his own body to broken bread. Most obviously, it foreshadows that he is going to be physically beaten. It draws attention to the fact that he is Emmanuel (God in flesh). But amazingly, it also foreshadows the torn curtain in the temple. At the moment that Jesus dies on the cross, the curtain that previously separated God from humanity was torn from top to bottom, symbolizing that his Spirit was no longer confined to the temple and that he is no longer separated from us. His Holy Spirit lives inside our hearts. We are the new temple.Seeing the bread, the disciples no doubt remembered the times Jesus miraculously fed the crowds with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish. Though they didn’t understand it at the time, Jesus had told them that he was the bread of life, that whoever goes to him will never be hungry. He told them that just as manna was sent from Heaven to give life to the Israelites in the desert, he was sent from Heaven to give life to the world. Jesus not only provides for our physical hunger, he provides for our spiritual hunger too.

Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
-Matthew 26:27-28

A couple amazing points here as well:

Blood was not a novel idea to Jesus’s Jewish disciples. They were under the Mosaic covenant, which required blood to atone for the sins of humanity, because sin requires death and blood represents life. As previously stated, the wine Jesus is pouring is supposed to represent the blood of the lamb from the Exodus Passover. Jesus was making it clear to the disciples that his blood shed on the cross would fulfill every sacrifice ever needed. He is the ultimate and final lamb. He says that because of his blood, God is forging a new covenant with humanity, making the Mosaic covenant void.The disciples were probably also reminded of Jesus’s first miracle: turning water into wine at a wedding. This being his first miracle highlights the importance of Jesus as the husband of the church. And the whole point of marriage is to parallel the oneness/intimacy we are to have with God. Every time we drink communion wine, Jesus’s blood becomes one with our body, and we remember we are one with Christ (Holy Spirit in us).

When you look at all these symbols behind communion, it shows the true beauty behind our relationship with Christ, who is God in flesh. He is our husband who sacrificed himself to die in our place so that we could live with him forever.

I hope that the next time you take communion, you think about some of these images, and it helps you gain a deeper understanding of what Jesus did on the cross and that you appreciate the depth of his love for us.

“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
-Hebrews 10:16-22