After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
Paul is retelling what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper — the final meal he shared with his disciples the night before his crucifixion. A "covenant" in biblical terms is a binding agreement between God and people, traditionally sealed with a sacrifice. The Old Covenant — the agreement God made with the Israelites through Moses — involved animal blood and a system of religious law. Jesus is announcing something radically different: a new covenant sealed not with animal blood, but with his own life. The instruction "do this in remembrance of me" uses a Greek word (anamnesis) that means far more than simply not forgetting — it means actively bringing a past event into the present moment, making it real and alive again rather than merely historical.
Jesus, you took something ordinary and made it a doorway. When I hold the cup, help me actually arrive — bringing the weight of my week, my failures, my gratitude — and find you already there. Thank you for a covenant I didn't earn but desperately need. Amen.
Every culture has rituals to hold memory. We visit graves, light candles, make the same dish our grandmother made — and somehow she's in the room again. Jesus understood that memory fades and grief without ritual goes thin. So he took a cup — the most ordinary object at a table, something every hand reaches for without thinking — and made it into a door. The word he used wasn't "don't forget me." It was closer to "bring me here." The new covenant he announced wasn't a new set of rules or a spiritual upgrade. It was a new kind of closeness: not earned by perfect obedience, but offered freely in blood. There's something quietly radical about Jesus choosing an ordinary cup. Not a throne, not a temple altar. A cup, after supper, among friends who were about to fail him spectacularly. That's the table you're invited to — not because you've arrived, but because he hasn't left. The next time you hold that small cup in church, let it be more than a symbol you observe. Let it be the moment you actively bring Jesus into the room — into the specific week you've just lived, the specific fear you're carrying right now — and say: I remember what this cost. And I'm still here.
What's the difference between "remembering" someone who is gone and the kind of active remembrance Jesus seems to be describing with the word anamnesis? Why does the distinction matter?
Are there rituals in your life — sacred or otherwise — that help you hold onto things that matter? How do they function for you, and what makes them work?
The "new covenant" replaced an old one built on law and animal sacrifice. What does it mean to you personally that your relationship with God is grounded in this new covenant rather than in your performance?
How does regularly taking communion change — or fail to change — the way you live toward other people during the week?
What would it look like to approach communion this week with the deliberate intention of "bringing Jesus present" into your specific circumstances, rather than simply participating in a church ritual?
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.
Exodus 24:8
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
Jeremiah 31:31
For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
1 Corinthians 11:23
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Matthew 26:28
I am that bread of life.
John 6:48
And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 9:15
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
Hebrews 13:20
Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Luke 22:20
In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant [ratified and established] in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in [affectionate] remembrance of Me."
AMP
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
ESV
In the same way [He took] the cup also after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of Me.'
NASB
In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
NIV
In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
NKJV
In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people — an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.”
NLT
After supper, he did the same thing with the cup: This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you. Each time you drink this cup, remember me.
MSG