Step 8 of the Abrahamic Covenant:
Eat a Memorial Meal
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Exodus 12:8
The eighth step of the covenant ceremony was to eat together. The meal may have included a banquet with a sacrificed animal.
Under the Abrahamic covenant, the Passover meal became the covenant meal. It was used as a memorial every year to renew the memory of the covenant that God made with the Israelites through Abraham to protect his offspring. At the first Passover in Egypt, the entire nation of Israel partook of the meal as a symbol of participation in the covenant because they recognized themselves as Abraham’s seed.
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years …But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again … Genesis 15: 13,16
Today, we memorialize the New Covenant that Jesus bought with his blood with the communion ritual. Wine is called the blood of grapes and represents His blood. Bread represents His flesh.
We remember His ultimate sacrifice and the new relationship with God that He bought for us with His blood. Every time you take communion, you are saying, ‘I into You and You into me – we are one’.
And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. Mark 14:22-24
In this ceremony that we now claim as the communion, our own covenant meal, have you ever wondered why it says, “Jesus took the cup’? Why didn’t it say that Jesus took a cup?
Jewish families, even today, set an extra place at the passover table. At the place where no one will sit, there is a special cup called the Elijah Cup.
There are also four other cups of wine at the passover table to commemorate the promises of God as He redeemed them from the Egyptians. These four of are drunk from during set times in the ceremony, commemorating the promises of God as He brought them out of Egypt. Cup 1 is the cup of sanctification: ‘I will bring you out of slavery;’ Cup 2 is the cup of deliverance from plagues: ‘I will deliver you from Egyptian bondage;’ Cup 3 is the cup of redemption and blessing: ‘I will redeem you with a mighty hand;’ and Cup 4 is the cup of praise and acceptance: ‘I will take you to be my people (as a nation).’
No one drinks from the fifth cup, called the Elijah Cup. This cup is symbolic, representing hope for the Messiah and the final redemption, as the Prophet Elijah is believed to herald his arrival. This is from the prophecy in the book of Malachi:
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:1
They believe that someday this messenger will arrive. As part of the passover ceremony, they even send their children to the door to check to see if he has come and to welcome him in.
When Jesus took the cup, he took the Elijah Cup, transforming that symbol of waiting for the Messiah into the reality of his own sacrificial act, marking the beginning of the promised redemption and a new spiritual feast.
References:
The Holy Bible: King James Version
The Miracle of the Scarlet Thread by Richard Booker
©2025 Chandra Hronchek