To begin, we need to begin with Passover itself. Passover, though a feast of the Lord, is not a sabbath:
Lev 23:5 In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD's passover.
Num 9:2 Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season.
Num 9:3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it.
Num 9:4 And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover.
Num 9:5 And they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at even in the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.
It of course has it's origin in Israels flight from Egypt:
Exo 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
Exo 12:6 And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Exo 12:7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
Now as you know, this is a clear type of the sacrifice of Christ.
This ceremony was performed every year, once a year, on Passover....sometimes. However, Passover is so important that God said that the Passover could be taken again if someone could not take it the first time:
Num 9:6 And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:
Num 9:7 And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of the LORD in his appointed season among the children of Israel?
Num 9:8 And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what the LORD will command concerning you.
Num 9:9 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
Num 9:10 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the LORD.
Num 9:11 The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Num 9:12 They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.
So there are two times a year when God said that the Passover could be taken. BTW, this may explain why God created passover as a holy day, but not as a sabbath.
The main point is that each person took it ONCE a year.
God could have just as easily have commanded each person to observe it every day, or every week, or every month, but he didn't. It was (then) a reminder of an event that happened at a certain date in God's timetable.
Fast forward:
Mar 14:16 And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.
Mar 14:17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.
Mar 14:18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
Mar 14:19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?
Mar 14:20 And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
Mar 14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Mar 14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
Mar 14:23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.
Mar 14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Once again, we find the Passover being taken once a year. However, Jesus, the messiah, now gives new instructions about HOW to celebrate not only passover, but his death.
1Co 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this.
So the precedent for Godly remembrance of events is once a year, on the anniversery of the event. We do that today for practically all major events. Recently we had the 5 year "remembrance" of 9/11. There were public ceremonies that are not held except at the yearly remembrance. Christ is asking us to commemerate his death, on the holy day that he died on, Passover.
If you forget that some churches take "communion" whenever basically that they please, then the logical conclusion from reading scripture and understanding the holy days of God would be that the passover is taken once a year.
Now about this verse:
(KJVR) For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come.
This doesn't mean "Take it as often as you want", "eat it as much as you can". If it did, then the proper course of action would be to constantly be eating the passover. It means, "every time you take it".
"The Message" puts it quite nicely:
(MSG) What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.
Or:
(GNB) This means that every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
When the passover is not taken at the proper, God ordained time, then it ceases to be the passover that God commanded and instead becomes a manmade tradition, prone to being taken unworthily.
I hope this helps....
Thank you Douglas.....very succinct and well thought out.
Christians do not celebrate the passover. We celebrate the Lords' Supper on apostolic authority. That's what Paul called it after all. If he wanted to use the word "passover" to describe the gathering of baptized Jewish and gentile believers around the bread and wine, he would have done so.
Of course that would have been confusing, since God commanded that old covenant passover be celebrated by the shedding of the blood of animals. He also specified that uncircumcised gentiles were not allow to participate in the passover. (Speaking of Matt. 5:17,18, there is no command from God to allow uncircumcised gentiles to partake of the passover.)
So Paul was not so confused as modern judaistic worshippers, and he understood from the Lord Himself that what the church was doing was not a Jewish passover, but a Christian Lord's Supper, made universal and appropriate for people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
"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 (gr. hosakis) you drink it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." (1 Cor. 11:25,26)
The practice of the early church was to do this frequently, certainly more often than once a year.
"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42)
"Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." (Acts 20:7)
When Paul conducted the Lord's Supper in Acts 20, it was nowhere near the date of passover as far as we can tell.
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16)
It was typical of the early church that whenever they came together to receive instruction from the apostles and elders, to engage in the Lord's Supper and prayer. This is the simple pattern of gospel worship.
Christ is our passover (1 Cor. 5:7). We no longer observe in the shadowy pracitces of the old covenant, since the reality of Christ's finished work and the new covenant as dawned. We live in the age of Messish, the "age to come". We have put off the older fleshly worship forms, and worship Christ anew in the simplicity of the gospel.
Tell us how you conduct a "passover" without introducing manmade traditions like the apostate rabbis?
First, I want to thank you for having taken the time on my behalf to adress the question I posed to Buggman. It is appreciated.
I am quite familiar with the citations you posted (as I would hope you would have surmised), however, they are all particular to Pesach, about which we have no differences. Still, the post did not address my understandings of the citations I posited as to how they might be incorrect or the general coherence of the conclusion they incorporated. Indeed, one can easily take a quite different logical inference from some of it than what you have concluded, sic,
This ceremony was performed every year, once a year, on Passover....sometimes. However, Passover is so important that God said that the Passover could be taken again if someone could not take it the first time:
IOW, it is so important to accomplish the purpose of the sacrament, that its date is less important than the necessity of its accomplishment. Please hold that thought.
In my post positing the question, I hadn't made the comment that it is quite possible that the Sabbath is still to be celebrated as originally, but that communion was to be celebrated independently. From what I can discern from the history, such would explain the origins of "the Lord's Day" in the first place.
At the time of the early church, it is quite clear that Christians (both Jewish and Gentile) were meeting in existing synagogues. As other have pointed out, the Gentiles had to meet the normal standards for Gentile purity as are cited in Acts. It would not surprise me a bit that the desire to celebrate a kiddush and hamotzi in the name of Y'shua would have bred division and contention within a Synagogue, indeed, it would be an eventual demarcation as Gentile Christianity grew. Thus, in the name of using an existing facility, the latter might celebrate it on some other day, the Lord's Day.
If I had to guess at the single issue that gradual split of Christianity from Judaism in Rome and elsewhere within the First Century Diaspora, that would be it, just as it is today. Such is indication both of the existence of the practice, and the point of divergence. Obviously by the mid Second Century, the practice of celebrating the Lord's Day independently had been inculcated into Christianity as we know it now, with the Sabbath and the Law tragically falling into disuse. I have no idea whether this is a historically accurate conclusion, but the circumstantial evidence would seem to confirm the early existence of the practice of communion more frequently than on just Pesach.
Were what you suggest a true restriction during that apostolic period, one would think that someone would have taken issue with the practice. Of such I can find no record, which, given Paul's Pharasaic background is an equally strong indication.
When the passover is not taken at the proper, God ordained time, then it ceases to be the passover that God commanded and instead becomes a manmade tradition, prone to being taken unworthily.
Obviously not, although I would not have used a word such as "unworthy;" we all are, but I somehow don't think that the practice of the deed is sufficient to qualify the heart.
Thanks again.