Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (I Corinthians 5:8).
Recently, I had the opportunity to teach a class of 5th and 6th graders about communion, as a result, it made me think that it is important for all to understand. A couple of points about communion that are important for Christians to understand are what the elements were that Jesus used to institute the memorial and why.
When Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper he used a couple of the elements of the passover meal that he and the disciples were eating (Read Matthew 26:26-29). The bread that Jesus used was unleavened bread. Leaven, throughout the Scriptures, is symbolic of sin. The Jews were to search out all leaven in their houses and dispose of it at this time. The spread of leaven is subtle, but it always spreads. It is symbolic of sin's influence, relentless and malignant.
The contents of the "cup" that Jesus used was nonalcoholic wine, "fruit of the vine." I say this with confidence that what was used to celebrate the Passover, and what Jesus used to institute his memorial was not wine as we think of it today. Making wine with alcohol required yeast, otherwise known as leaven. The same leaven that makes the bread ferments the wine. It would not have been on the passover table.
The body that was broken for us and the blood that was shed for us was without sin. The emblems that are used in this memorial should not be that which contain the symbols of sin.
Our Father's Love,
Tom
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