Notice:
I. When the Lord's Supper was first kept, and who kept it. As He was eating, Jesus took bread. He was eating unleavened bread and drinking wine at the Feast of the Passover in the city of Jerusalem. The Last Supper was first eaten at the Passover Supper of the Jews. It was first eaten by Jesus and His Twelve Apostles the night He was betrayed.
II. What did these words mean to those who first heard them? The Apostles did not know what they meant. Jesus was with them at the feast. They could see His body, touch it. His blood was not poured out. But they knew that He spoke no words in vain. The bread was a token from Him, they could but eat it as He bade them. The wine was a token from Him, they could but drink it as He bade them. But after His Resurrection the Apostles began to know a little what was meant by the words which were spoken at the feast. Then they understood that in the body of Jesus Christ God was united to men, men to God. Then they understood that His blood was poured out, not for a few disciples, but for all men in all lands. That blood was the seal of a new covenant between God and men that He would blot out their sins and give them a new life, the life of Him who died unto sin once, over whom death has no more dominion.
III. To us the Lord's Supper is the assurance of the redemption and reconciliation which God has made for us, and all mankind, in the body of His Son. It is the assurance that we are very members incorporate in the body of His Son. It is the assurance that He will give us His Spirit to enable us to do the good works which He has prepared for us to walk in. It is a better and higher feast to us than the Passover was to the Jews; a feast like that which tells us of a God who has broken our bonds asunder; a feast like that which tells us that He is the King over us; but a feast which is not limited to one people, but which is intended for all, because our Lord Jesus Christ is, as St. Paul says, the Head of every man, the Author and Giver of salvation and life to those who have been most tied and bound by the chains of sin and death.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons preached in Country Churches,p. 277.
Reference: Matthew 26:26-28. C. Molyneux, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 225.Matthew 26:26-29. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 359.