Summary
Thanksgiving and the Eucharist
On the eve of an American Thanksgiving, kitchens fill with the familiar ingredients of a feast we look forward to every year — turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, and the company of those gathered around the table. Yet beneath that yearly tradition lies a deeper meal of thanksgiving that the Church has been keeping for two thousand years: the meal Jesus Himself hosted on the night before He suffered.
In Luke 22:14-20, Jesus eagerly desires to eat the Passover with His disciples. The Passover was no ordinary tradition; it was commanded by God so that Israel, year after year, would remember being brought out of slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the land flowing with milk and honey. The Seder meal at the heart of that festival was a teaching meal, walking parents and children through what God had done. It included four cups, each tied to a promise from God: the cup of sanctification ("I will bring you out"), the cup of deliverance ("I will deliver you"), the cup of redemption ("I will redeem you"), and the cup of praise ("I will take you for my people").
Jesus, as host of this Seder, proceeds through its sequence — but He also fulfills it. When He lifts the cup and gives thanks, then takes the bread, breaks it, and says, "This is my body, which is given for you," He is doing what the host of the Seder does: teaching and serving His guests. When He comes to the third cup and says, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood," He is taking the cup of redemption and revealing that He is the redemption it always pointed toward. The Passover was a foretaste; Jesus is the substance. The promise made long ago is being made complete in the sacrificial Lamb who is about to go to the cross.
The Greek word behind "gave thanks" in this passage is eucharisteō — the word from which we get Eucharist. The Lord's Supper is, quite literally, the meal of Thanksgiving. And what is Jesus giving thanks for? For the perfect will of the Father, that we would be redeemed. For the Father's provision — the provision of His own Son to drink the cup of wrath so that we might drink the cup of redemption. For the Father who hears every prayer. For the new covenant in His blood, by which sins are fully and completely forgiven. As explored in ":Thanksgiving" 11-26-25, this is the climax of what Christ gives thanks for in the Gospels.
Honest thanksgiving exposes us. We sit down at our tables wanting to be grateful, and instead we find fault — in the stuffing, in the conversation, in the people across the table. And the people across the table find fault in us, often rightly. There is fault within us, in what we have done and left undone. We cannot manufacture true thankfulness from our own resources. But Christ gives thanks for us, and gives Himself to us, knowing the bitter suffering yet to come. His thanksgiving covers our faulty thanksgiving.
To "do this in remembrance" of Him, as the Augsburg Confession teaches, is to remember His benefits and to realize that they are truly offered to us. When the pastor speaks Christ's words — "This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, shed for you" — the forgiveness won at the cross is placed tangibly into our hands and mouths. The bread and the wine, the body and the blood, become a part of us; Christ Himself nourishes our souls with the assurance that the atonement has been accepted and that we are forgiven. Tomorrow's feast is something to savor. But today, at the altar, we feast on the promise that is ours to savor eternally.
Video citations
- :Thanksgiving" 11-26-25 — If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, the 22nd chapter. If you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, this can be found on page 75 in the New Testament. We are in Luke, the 22nd…