Just before the events that we now know as the Easter story—Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection—Jesus and his disciples gathered to celebrate the Passover, commemorating the liberation of the ancient Israelites from Egyptian slavery. But Jesus took the time-honored ceremony and radically revised it, lifting it to a demand on his disciples, including those who seek to follow him today, to demonstrate our full liberation from the enslavement of sin, disease, and death. During the meal, Jesus shared a cup of wine with his disciples, declaring, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” And he didn’t just give them wine; he gave them bread, despite the fact that they had just eaten. He said, “Take, eat; this is my body” (see Matthew 26:17–28).

With these actions, the meal was no longer the celebration of a historical event. It exemplified a new way of viewing our relationship to God and our fellow man and the freedom this new view brings us. A little over eighteen hundred years later, Mary Baker Eddy discovered the Science behind Jesus’ teachings, and reminded us of what Jesus had given his disciples. She wrote, “Their bread indeed came down from heaven. It was the great truth of spiritual being, healing the sick and casting out error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 33). On two occasions when Jesus appeared to his followers after the resurrection, he again offered them bread (see John 21:13 and Luke 24:30, 31).

To eat or drink something is to take it in, digest it, make it a part of oneself. This “truth of spiritual being” was the body, the substance, of Jesus’ very being, of his expression of Christ, the true idea of God. Jesus insisted that we eat this bread—that we learn, understand, and practice this truth of spiritual being ourselves, thus drinking his cup of salvation. He said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (John 14:12). The word translated believe in the original Greek had more the meaning of faith, trust, constancy, and firmness (see Science and Health, pp. 23–24). So Jesus wasn’t saying that we just needed to believe in him. He was insisting that we have a firm faith and trust in his teachings, and that anyone who puts them into practice can heal as he did.