• ‘Discerning What We Are’—At Memorial Time
    The Watchtower—1990 | February 15

    • “This Means My Body”

       5, 6. (a) Jesus did what with a loaf? (b) What sort of bread did he use?

      5 We have read what Paul “received from the Lord” as to the Memorial. There are also accounts by three Gospel writers, one of whom was present when Jesus instituted this celebration. (1 Corinthians 11:23; Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19, 20) These accounts say that Jesus first took a loaf, prayed, and then broke it and distributed it. What was that loaf? Correspondingly, what is used today? What does it mean or represent?

      6 On hand were items from the Jewish Passover meal, one being unleavened bread, which Moses called “unfermented cakes, the bread of affliction.” (Deuteronomy 16:3; Exodus 12:8) This bread was made with wheat flour without using leaven, salt, or seasonings. Being unleavened (Hebrew, mats·tsahʹ), it was flat and brittle; it had to be broken to eatable size.​—Mark 6:41; 8:6; Acts 27:35.

       7. What do Jehovah’s Witnesses use for bread during the Memorial?

      7 Jesus used unleavened bread in the Lord’s Evening Meal, so Jehovah’s Witnesses today do likewise. Regular Jewish matzoth serve this purpose if they are not made with added ingredients, such as malt, onions, or eggs. (Matzoth containing those supplements would hardly match the description “bread of affliction.”) Or the congregation elders may have someone make unleavened bread from a dough of wheat flour and water. If wheat flour is not available, unfermented bread can be made with flour from barley, rice, corn, or another grain. The dough is rolled thin and baked on a lightly oiled cooking sheet.

       8. Why is unleavened bread an appropriate symbol, and what does partaking of it signify? (Hebrews 10:5-7; 1 Peter 4:1)

      8 Such bread is appropriate because it does not contain leaven (yeast), which the Bible uses to represent corruption or sin. Paul counseled concerning an immoral man in a congregation: ‘A little leaven ferments the whole lump. Clear away the old leaven, that you may be free from ferment. Christ our passover has been sacrificed. Let us keep the festival, not with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unfermented cakes of sincerity and truth.’ (1 Corinthians 5:6-8; compare Matthew 13:33; 16:6, 12.) Unleavened bread is a fitting symbol of Jesus’ human body, for he was “loyal, guileless, undefiled, separated from the sinners.” (Hebrews 7:26) Jesus was there present in his perfect human body when he said to the apostles: “Take and eat this [bread], it means my body.” (Matthew 26:26, A New Translation of the Bible, by James Moffatt) Partaking of the bread means that a person believes in the benefit of Jesus’ sacrifice in his behalf and accepts it.