The Sacrament of Thanksgiving

How is the Passover celebration like our Thanksgiving holiday today?

How did the early church celebrate Thanksgiving (the Eucharist)?

How does the Lord’s Supper anticipate the eternal Kingdom of God?

A celebration of thanks to God is deeply embedded in the Christian faith, back to the times of Israel. The early church regularly celebrated the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, seemingly immediately after Jesus died or within a short amount of time. The Apostle Paul spoke of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a remembrance, not unlike how the Jews remembered Yahweh’s deliverance by celebrating the Passover meal. The Lord’s Supper Thanksgiving is a public declaration of faith in God’s ultimate plan of redemption: His greatest act of deliverance at the cross and his greatest act of provision when he returns to usher in the Eternal Kingdom of God.

Jesus sees the Lord’s Supper as an anticipation of the marriage supper of the lamb–the eternal feast in the Kingdom of God. The act of sharing the bread and cup unites believers as one body in Christ–it is a sacrament of communion where we come together in thanksgiving.