The Kiddush and Yachatz

Luke begins his record of the meal with the blessing of the wine and bread. These two blessings continue to be at the forefront of the Passover meal’s events. There are four cups of wine in the current Passover Seder and Luke doesn’t specifically identify which cup. Most likely, it was the first one, the Kiddush, which begins the current Passover. Basically, it is thanks for God’s provision of wine.

Luke goes on to the blessing of the bread, the Yachatz, as is the case with the Passover blessings. Here, Jesus seems to give the first reference to this representing his body.

These blessings of the wine and bread seem separate from what seems to have been shared later as the initial Lord’s Supper. Here, Luke records an act at the initiation of the Passover. None of other writers deal with any of the Passover, itself. They, too, go to what became the Lord’s Supper. Matthew and Mark speak of a different sharing of the elements during the meal. Thus, they seem to speak of a second expanded comment about the bread being Jesus’s body.