Rewind

Why do we have a hard time remembering somethings and other things we remember every detail? I have a black coffee cup with a frog face on it and "Rainforest Cafe" written on the other side. I have had it for about 3 1/2 years. I remember when I got it. My mother-in-law bought it for me. I had ribs for lunch that day. Anna was about 2 and she was freaked out by the monkeys. We recently went back and I remembered the times we had gone there.

There were memories attached to that cup. It was the sight of this object that brought back so much. Do you get souviners when you go away on vacation or take a trip somewhere? Why do we do that? To remember. Mostly we take pictures. But often we will buy something to remind us of a special place and time.

Jesus did the same thing when he instituted the last supper. He said, "This is a new covenant in my blood." The Passover meal was a reminder of what God had done in the past. He delivered them from bondage in Egypt. And now Jesus is attaching a new memory to the old. He said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

Communion is all about memory. That is why we do it so often. We do not want to forget what Jesus did for us. He paid for the penalty of our sin and set us free from bondage to sin.

There were 4 cups associated with the Passover meal. These cups coincided with Exodus 6:6-7. The first was the cup of Sanctification. God was removing them from Egypt. The second was the cup of Judgment. God had sent his judgments onto Egypt. The third was the cup of Redemption, which most scholars believe, that Jesus used this cup in Luke 22:19-20 as the cup of the new covenant. This cup reminded them that by God's mighty works he was bringing Israel out of Egypt. And the fourth cup, which Jesus refused to drink until his kingdom came to earth, was the cup of praise, or restoration or consumation. This was the cup that reminded the Israelites that "they would be his people and he would be their God."

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