So by his words Jesus did not mean the bread and wine were his own flesh and blood, any more than the apostle Paul meant that a literal rock was Jesus by his words: “They drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:4, Dy)

The same way the Memorial emblems merely symbolized or stood for Christ’s body and blood.

In this way they gather together to be reminded of the significance of the Memorial emblems of unleavened bread and wine.

And it was on Nisan 14, 33 C.E., that Jesus instituted the memorial of his death, he dying later on that very day.

So, even though the sun may set late in certain northern latitudes, the time of the actual passing of the Memorial bread and wine should be after sundown.

As we approach another Memorial season there is no question about what the small remnant must do, but the question all these other sheep now entertain is, Shall I participate in the bread and wine with the remnant?

Similarly, the table on which the unleavened bread and the cup of wine are put for the Lord’s evening meal may be called “the table of Jehovah.”

The spiritual Israelites who partake of those Memorial emblems are thus having communion with him.

● Some religionists claim that the wine in the Memorial cup was unfermented grape juice.

“Each year I arranged to celebrate the Memorial of Christ’s death in the best way I could.

Of course, I had no way to obtain the emblems, the bread and the wine, and the warders refused to give such things to me.

Since the contents of the Memorial cup represented “his kind of death” in vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty, Jesus fittingly said that the wine meant “my blood” and he gave it to his disciples to drink.

By the first century C.E. the Jews had accepted the use of wine in the Passover meal.

Some persons claim that Jesus was speaking not of wine but of unfermented grape juice.

No, the record of how Christ instituted the memorial of his death, or the Lord’s evening meal, does not state that he himself ate of the loaf of unleavened bread and drank of the cup of wine.

We have a somewhat similar case at Memorial season relative to the bread and wine upon the table.

For the “other sheep” who are outside of Christ’s body to eat the Memorial bread and drink the Memorial wine at the Lord’s evening meal it would mean to say the bread and wine represented merely Jesus’ personal flesh and blood which he sacrificed as a ransom.

As for the wine, this should, first of all, be fermented wine.

These were sacred feasts where certain parts of the animal were used on the idol-altar and certain parts were used by the offerer, and thus the eater at such events was a partaker or sharer with the idol or the demon god the idol represented; just as the Israelites were partaking at the altar of Jehovah when they ate part of the animal sacrifices they offered at the temple, and as Christians thereafter were partaking at the table of Jehovah when they used the bread and wine at Memorial.

17. (a) Why should all who have the goal of life meet with God’s people on March 24? (b) What do we note about the 1985 Memorial celebration?

¹⁷ March 24 after sundown is the time for Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide to observe the 1986 Memorial of Jesus’ death.

However, those partaking of the Memorial bread and wine, symbolizing Jesus’ human body and blood, numbered only 9,051.

So, on the Passover night before his death on Friday, Nisan 14, 33 C.E., he started a memorial of his sacrificial death.

When he took the Memorial wine cup, he said to his eleven faithful apostles: “Drink out of it, all of you; for this means my ‘blood of the covenant,’ which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins.’” (Matt. 26:27, 28)

Many scholars believe that wine was introduced into the Passover much later, perhaps in the second century B.C.E.b

In any event, the use of wine in this meal was common in the first century, and Jesus did not object to it.

This is a celebration of the memorial of the death of Jesus Christ.

Notice the bread and the wine that are to be passed.

He had just introduced a memorial for his approaching death, in which he used the wine in the common drinking cup to represent his blood that was to be shed the next afternoon.