Rights Reserved By HDM For This Digital - The Wesley Center Online

"What is your business, if I may ask? Maybe you're a saleswoman or something?"
"Well, in a way, yes."
Just about that time our host announced that dinner was ready. We gathered around the
table. There were about thirty of us. The rabbi, our host, went into the kitchen, got a bowl of water
and girded himself with a towel. Then he came to each of us. First, he dipped his hands into the
water and washed them. Then we dipped our hands into the water and washed them. He dried
them. He took the place of a servant.
How it reminded me of Another who did the same thing. The New Testament tells us that
as He was washing Peter's feet, Peter said, "Lord not my feet only, but also my hands and my
head." The Lord Jesus became a servant to us. The Son of God, a servant! How sweet this makes
the communion! It also teaches that we must be clean before we come to the Lord's table. We must
be clean before we can handle the elements. How many will have to answer at the judgment for
eating unworthily!
After he had washed our hands, the rabbi raised a plate on which were three squares of
unleavened bread, called matzo. Each one was separated from the other by a white linen nap kin.
As he raised this plate, he quoted from the twenty-second, twenty-third and twenty-fourth Psalms.
In the twenty-second is the story of the crucifixion! In the twenty-third is the story of Christ's being
in the grave and enduring death for us after having gone through the valley of suffering. The
twenty-fourth tells the story of His glorious, triumphant resurrection as the King of glory.
After he had asked the blessing on the unleavened bread, the three matzos, he reached
between the napkins and pulled out the little matzo. Not the top one, not the bottom one, but the
middle one. Why the middle one?
"Why not the top one, Rabbi?" I asked him. "Why not the bottom one? Why did you pull out
the middle one?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know. This is tradition, perhaps."
"I know. It's tradition."
I have asked many rabbis, many Jews. Nobody knows. It is a tradition that has been handed
down, but it is certainly one that has been inspired of God because in it we can see the triune
godhead. As the rabbi pulled out the middle matzo I could see that it beautifully pointed to the
second Person of the triune God, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose body was broken for us. The rabbi
then passed around a portion of this broken matzo for all to nibble on. Again, inspired of God, this
ritual shows that all of us must partake of the broken body of Him in whom is no leaven at all. In
the Bible leaven is spoken of as the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, as sin, that which ferments and
causes spoilage in the literal sense. The rabbi took the other half of that which was broken and
wrapped it in a white linen napkin.
"Rabbi," I asked him again, "Why do you do this?"