‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent (eternal) ordinance. Exodus 12:14.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
As we close these Life Lessons, although you will be partaking of this memorial meal forever, I want to address the question of “Why receive communion?” To some it has just become a meaningless ritual. That should never be. If it does, it means you never understood in the first place who you are receiving and what you are doing. It means you do not understand Covenant, and particularly not your Covenant with Me by way of Covenant with Jesus.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. Revelation 3:20-21.
When you receive Jesus, you receive Me, for when you receive Him, you receive the One who sent Him.
“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. Matthew 10:40.
I began redemption with a meal, and I sealed it with a meal. The ordinance of the Passover meal of remembrance. And it was at the celebration of that meal as I ordained that the true sacrifice that is forever was offered and sealed in the body and blood of My Son.
When My people were in the furnace of affliction in the cruel slavery imposed upon them by the pagan Egyptians, I told them the way to freedom. And it was a most unusual strategy to overcome their oppressor.
I commanded My people to each take a lamb for themselves, a lamb for each household. The lamb was to be an unblemished male a year old. They were to keep it as their own for four days and then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel was to kill their lamb in the evening. They were then to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they were going to eat it. They then partook of the meal that same night, which became the Passover seder, roasted with fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were not to leave any of it over until morning.
And I also directed how they were to eat it: with their loins girded, their sandals on their feet, and staff in hand. Ready to depart from their oppressors as free people. I called it My Passover because I executed judgement against the enemy for My people that night, against all the pagan gods of the Egyptians, but the blood was a sign for each of My covenant people on the houses where they dwelt that I would pass over their homes and no plague would destroy them when I struck the land of Egypt in judgment for sin.
This was a shadow, a sign, and a type, teaching and preparing My people for the one true sacrifice of My unblemished Son who redeemed you from your sins by His blood and opened to you the freedom of My children. His blood shields you from the judgment for sin, since I put the judgment on Him, and takes you out from under the slavery of sin and death.
And I directed that My people were to remember this redemption that had taken place by the body and blood of an unblemished lamb every year as a memorial. And they were to again sacrifice a lamb for each household, read the history of the first Passover, and eat the meal like their forefathers had done so that the generations to come would know the freedom and benefits that belonged to them as My Covenant people. Benefits I would enforce by My mighty hand as I had throughout Egypt and at the Red Sea. And this celebration was to be a perpetual memorial as a permanent ordinance. Exodus 12:1-14. Now the blood of an earthly creature, a lamb, no matter how pure, was not an eternal sacrifice, it was a substitute for the time until My Son came to institute the memorial of the permanent ordinance of which I told Moses.
Remember what Jesus told the Pharisees and religious leaders?
For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. John 5:46.
The Passover memorial was not optional. It was a commandment. And anyone who did not celebrate this feast would be cut off from the people.
But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and yet neglects to observe the Passover, that person shall then be cut off from his people, for he did not present the offering of the LORD at its appointed time. That man will bear his sin. Numbers 9:13.
And it was so great a sign that later, on the way to the Promised Land, I instructed Moses for the offerings in the Tabernacle to offer an unblemished lamb, unleavened bread, and wine every morning and every evening as a burnt offering to take away sin and protect the people from divine justice falling upon them for sin in their journey through life. And I continued this ordinance in the Temple built in Jerusalem as well.
In the offering for sin in the Tabernacle of Moses, I instructed the sinner who brought the unblemished lamb to lay his hand on the head of the lamb, thereby transferring his sins to the lamb and the lamb’s purity to him. I was teaching you the way to forgiveness of sins, not by your works, but by the sacrifice of the perfect unblemished Lamb who came to take away the sins of the world, for He alone, because of Adam’s sin that corrupted the seed, had an eternal life in the flesh to give to pay the debt you owed divine justice.
And that is what you are partaking of in this perpetual ordinance. Your redemption, your sanctification, and your way to eternal life. And by Covenant you are being incorporated into His body and blood, and His into you so that you are healed and strong in Me. And He is joining you with His body, the church, of which, in Covenant with Him, you become a member of His body and bride.
What you are partaking of is spiritual food, not natural food. It is sustaining you by feeding your spirit. It is food for the journey, bread out of Heaven for you to eat and NEVER die the death that separates you from Me. Death now is simply a door to the fullness of the Kingdom, and Jesus is the door.
What was the purpose of the Passover seder? It was the memorial meal by which My people partook of the Lamb and drank of the cup to remember—through reading the Word and the physical elements of the meal, they enacted again as if they had been there the Passover. And they were released as well to the freedom of the Promised Land. To My rest. To the abundant life of Eden.
Why do you do the communion meal instituted at the Last Supper’s Passover seder? To remember and never forget the works I have done to save you and that these works done by Jesus are as fresh and real today as when they first occurred in time, for they are eternal. And the substance of bread and wine, at His Words of power, is changed to the heavenly substance of the bread out of Heaven that I have given you to eat and never die.
Partake in remembrance of Him, take the journey of remembrance that I instructed My people to make since the first Passover meal, but now in the fullness of revelation. For the Lamb has been revealed.
The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” John 1:29-30.
Adam and Eve lost their eternal life and the privileges of the abundant life of Eden by eating from the wrong tree. You can have it restored and more by eating from the right tree. The tree of the cross on which hung the Savior of the world. His death became your life.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law (of sin and death), having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:13-14.
What is in this perpetual memorial? Forgiveness, healing, cleansing, and becoming One with Him who made you so that you become one body with all fellow believers in the One your heart loves. But above all in receiving His body and blood you have eternal life, now and forever.
The words of Jesus should be enough for you to desire to receive, for He spoke to you only as I instructed Him to do:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” John 6:53-58.
This was to be a perpetual memorial from the start. He is the Lamb slain since the foundation of the world as the chief cornerstone upon which all things that last are built. He is the center of everything. He is in the very center of My throne—He is My heart for you. And it really has no beginning and no end, for I AM the one who is, who was, and who is to come. There never was a time that I was not there. I AM your reason to be and your eternity.
“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Micah 5:1-2.
Remember, Bethlehem means “House of Bread,” and that is were I designated for Jesus to be born. All is set out from of old, from eternity.
I AM not only your creator, your LORD, and your Father, I AM also your very best friend. I laid down the life of My Son for My friends. I AM on your side, at your side, and inside.
And friends partake of meals together for a special time of fellowship.
I love you. Never forget that and you will be well on your way to the abundant life I sent Jesus to give you. He is My gift to you. Partake of all He is with joy.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which 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.” 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, 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. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.