Last Meal Request

I was watching a show the other day about a murderer on death row who claimed his innnocence until the day he was executed. On the night of his execution, his last meal request was pizza and soda. Respectable request. I, on the other hand, would have preferred a nice 20oz ribeye steak, medium rare, with a fully loaded baked potatoe, fresh steamed broccolli doused in butter, and a hot fudge sundae to top it all off. The symbolic American steak meal, at least in my eyes. The death row inmate chose a more symbolic meal in terms of simplicity and commonality. Again, in my opinion. But there was one last meal request that rocked the world because of its simplicity, its audacity, and most of all, its symbology: Christ's Last Supper.

When we read Matthew chapter 26, or Mark chapter 14, or Luke chapter 22, we read about Jesus sitting down to his last meal with his disciples. It was the simplist of all meals, both for that time and ours: bread and wine. But the sheer magnitude of its symbolic nature outweighs that of any other last meal on earth. During this meal, Jesus was not just eating with His favored guests right before he was to be crucified. He sending the world a message to be passed from generation to generation. That message was to be our new covenant with Christ when we meet Him again. The bread, representing the body, broken and handed over to us all. The wine, just as red, just as staining as human blood, representing what was to be poured out in sacrifice for the whole world the next day. Jesus was not just eating: Jesus was portraying the sacrifice of His body and blood so that we could memorialize that gift and remember His gift for all ages until we meet Him again.

There is no other final meal in history with such a sucker punch of symbolism. God has asked us to remember Him in a way we can all understand. As we remember this day when Christ ate his last meal, let us remember what it means to us, because come Friday, Good Friday, we will remember what he did for us in the flesh so that we all could live. Just as this is called Passion week, let all of us carry that passion around like a badge of honor; honor for the God we serve and the people we serve. Let's honor Him by remembering the broken and bloodied sacrifice for our sin and the world's sin. And let's not make Good Friday and Easter a holiday we remember once a year.

Remembering the meal,
Jesus Freak Out!