How The Lord's Supper Echoes Deuteronomy

Karen Pennington
Oct 6
2 min read

The year is approximately 1400 BCE. A large tribe of wanderers, now nearing as many as twomillion people, is finally about to cross into the land God has promised their ancestor Abraham as an inheritance over 500 years earlier. It has been a long road for these people, including famine, hundreds of years of slavery to Egypt, and finally 40 years of wandering in the dessert, a fate caused by their own hard-heartedness.

But even through the wanderings, God has provided for their daily needs (doing what they cannot do), God has guided them, and God has offered both forgiveness and a way forward. On the precipice of both his own death and the move into this long awaited Promised Land inheritance, Moses repeats this one word message throughout the book of Deuteronomy: remember.

Remember where you were, and where God has brought you from. Remember God's provision and guidance, always doing what you cannot. Remember God's grace, and your utter dependence on that. The key to the Israelites' success and long term wellbeing or failure will hinge on remembering, accepting and living by these truths that God provides.

Fast forward a millennium and a half. For the Israelites, Rome is the new Egypt. Though they now technically live in their own land, many once again feel enslaved by the rein of a foreign power. They are looking for a strong leader to once again usher in a time of freedom, a newly lived our promised.

On the precipice of both his own death (and resurrection) and the move into this long awaited new promised kingdom of hope that extends beyond this world (Luke 22:14-22), Jesus echoes this one word message that Isrealites have been called to do since their first move from slavery to freedom: remember.

Remember where we were, and where God has brought us from. Remember God's provision and guidance, always doing what we cannot. Remember God's grace, and our utter dependence on that. Every time you eat or drink, remember Christ, the living God who came to do all of this for us, through both his example and his blood, when we could not do it for ourselves.

The key to our success and long term wellbeing or failure will hinge on remembering, accepting and living by these truths that God provides.

Scriptures: Luke 22:14-23; the book of Deuteronomy