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    During His last Passover celebration, Jesus introduced The Lord’s Supper to His apostles. We read about it in the Gospels of Matthew (Matthew 26: 26-29), Mark (Mark 14: 22-25), Luke (Luke 22: 14-20) and Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 11: 23-26). Simply, He took bread, blessed it, broke it into pieces, and gave it to His apostles. He told them to eat the bread as it represented His body. The bread foreshadows His body that would be nailed to the cross. Likewise, He took the cup, blessed it, and gave it to His apostles to drink. He told them the wine in the cup represented His blood, which would be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The wine in the cup foreshadowed His blood that He would shed on the cross. Then, Jesus asks us to eat the bread and drink from the cup to remember Him and what He accomplished by dying on the cross. Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

Interestingly, Jesus did not give a name to His memorial. Man; however, has given names, such as Holy Communion and The Lord’s Supper, to name a few. The early church met together for the “breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7). What is more important than the name is for followers to observe the practice. Further, Jesus did not specify what type of bread or fruit of the vine the cup should contain. The important thing is that they are blessed and set aside for the purpose of remembering Jesus.

    The purpose of The Lord’s Supper, first and foremost, is to remember Jesus. Specifically, the bread and wine in the cup are there for us to remember Jesus’s death on the cross. They are tangible reminders that we see, touch, and taste, strengthening the experience in our minds. We cannot forget that our sin cost Jesus His life. He gave His life that we might have the forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, and eternal life with Him.

The Lord’s Supper is set aside for Christians.

  Jesus did not specify how often we should eat the bread and drink from the cup. He did not tell us how often we should remember Him and think about Jesus why He died on the cross. As an example, I am married. Where is it written how many times I should tell my wife I love her? A companion question is how often does my spouse want to hear, “I love you,” from me? My thought is that Jesus never grows weary of his children telling Him that they love Him. How often you should remember Jesus is up to you. You get to choose. There is no right or wrong.

    Most of us are accustomed to eating the bread and drinking from the cup as part of a worship service. The early church broke bread together in their homes (Acts 2: 46). I have celebrated The Lord’s Supper in a church, where the bread and cup were provided for personal reflection, in a church as part of a worship service, homes, hospitals, nursing homes, hotel rooms, and camps. The common element in most of these locations is that there was where the Christians were. Sometimes I was alone together with Jesus. The Lord’s Supper does not need to be administered by officials of the church; it is Jesus who invites you to eat the bread and drink from the cup. If the bread and cup is there, you may bless it and set it apart for remembering Jesus and partake. My preference, however, is to eat the bread and drink from the cup with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, wherever they may gather.

  My podcast follows from weekly communion meditation that I give every Sunday during the worship service. I have been reading through the Scriptures yearly for the past several years, using the Gideon Bible Society Bible Reading Plan. Each week I seek the Holy Spirit's guidance about what I should share from that week's reading with my brothers and sisters as we assemble to eat the bread and drink from the cup. Consequently, you will see meditations from the breath of the Old and New Testaments as the Holy Spirit leads. I hope the Lord will bless you even more than He has blessed me as you are faithful in remembering Jesus by eating the bread and drinking from the cup, just as He asked us to do.