Still we must suppose that the expression, _"This do in
remembrance of me,"_ had come to the ear of Luke from some disciple
who was present. What did it really signify? It is a prophetic and
an affectionate expression. Jesus is a Jew, sitting with his
countrymen, celebrating their national feast. He thinks of his own
impending death, and wishes the minds of his disciples to be prepared
for it. "When hereafter," he says to them, "you shall keep the
Passover, it will have an altered aspect to your eyes. It is now a
historical covenant of God with the Jewish nation. Hereafter, it
will remind you of a new covenant sealed with my blood. In years to
come, as long as your people shall come up to Jerusalem to keep this
feast, the connection which has subsisted between us will give a new
meaning in your eyes to the national festival, as the anniversary of
my death." I see natural feeling and beauty in the use of such
language from Jesus, a friend to his friends; I can readily imagine
that he was willing and desirous, when his disciples met, his memory
should hallow their intercourse; but I cannot bring myself to believe
that in the use of such an expression he looked beyond the living
generation, beyond the abolition of the festival he was celebrating,
and the scattering of the nation, and meant to impose a memorial
feast upon the whole world.
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