Matthew 26:17-30
The Last Supper
17 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
20 When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21 And while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”
22 They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”
23 Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
25 Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?”
Jesus answered, “You have said so.”
26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
John 15:9-17
No Greater Love is to Lie Down One's Life for Their Friends
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Some say that the only Way to Jesus is through His death on the cross...So this means suffering will happen in life, if we must go to the cross and remember our Divine Savior...From the verses above we learn Great Lessons...Drinking and remembering Him we see that the wine He poured during His Last Supper was for the forgiveness of our sins - this is the Blood of the Covenant...Jesus asks us to remember His Death when we eat and drink and He teaches us that their is no greater love when we lay down our lives for a friend or our friends...
Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote: “If then Death was the supreme moment for which Christ lived, it was therefore the one thing He wished to have remembered...He did not ask that men should write down His Words into a Scripture; He did not ask that His kindness to the poor should be recorded in history; but He did ask that men remember His Death...And in order that it’s memory might not be any hap-hazard narrative on the part of men, He Himself instituted the precise way it should be recalled...The memorial was instituted the night before He died, at what has since been called “The Last Supper.”...Taking bread into His Hands, He said: “This is My body, which shall be delivered for you,” i.e., delivered unto death...Then over the chalice of wine, He said, “This is My blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.”...Thus in an unbloody symbol of the parting of the Blood from the Body, by the separate consecration of Bread and Wine, did Christ pledge Himself to death in the sight of God and men, and represent His Death which was to come the next afternoon at three...He was offering Himself as a Victim to be immolated, and that men might never forget that “greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” He gave the divine command to the Church: “Do this for a commemoration of Me.”...