It's clear that when Jesus instituted the ordinance of the Lord's Table that He was pointing to His own actions and words to be understood in the light of the Passover. Not only was the Passover a celebration of the release of the Israelites from bondage, but it also calls our attention to the way that release was accomplished: the angel of death "passed over" the houses protected by the sacrificial blood, while all the other homes in Egypt lost their firstborn. Moreover, this miraculous exodus set the stage for the inauguration of the Sinai covenant. So when Jesus takes bread at a Passover meal and says, "This is my body given for you" and when He takes the cup and says, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" one hears more than overtones from the old covenant ritual. This side of the cross, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Jesus sees His own death and the shedding of His own blood as the God-provided sacrifice which averts the wrath of God; that He Himself is the Passover Lamb of God par excellence; and that His death establishes a covenant with the people of God by releasing them from a darker and deeper slavery than even what the Israelites experienced.
Give some extra thought this coming week to our Lord's words: "Do this in remembrance of me." It's interesting that this command should even be necessary - in the same way that a commemorative rite like the Passover should have been necessary. But history shows how quickly the people of God drift toward peripheral matters, and end up ignoring or denying the center. By a simple rite, Jesus wanted His followers to come back to His death; His shed blood; His broken body - again and again and again.
And amazingly the Lord's Table is also an anticipatory rite in that it looks forward to the consummated kingdom, when the Passover and the Lord'sSupper alike find their fulfillment. We eat and drink as He prescribes "until He comes again," when commemoration and proclamation will be swallowed up by the bliss of His presence!
Pastor John