“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;” (1 Corinthians 11:23, NASB)

A fact we do not hide

We bristle at betrayal and think ourselves to be beyond taking or being taken but John the Baptist and all the disciples were handed over to hostile powers and were victims of broken trust. God’s sovereign wisdom locks betrayal into the central memorial of Messianic priorities. Feeling to remember Christ’s death and future coming can be a fatal flaw. In the betrayal of Christ and in his institution of the memorial supper we come face to face with two powerful meanings of the word deliver (paradidômi)

All out in the open

We can go down that road and ruin our witness by failing to recognize that our mingling at the Lord’s Table recalls both transmission and betrayal. We can pretend that the world did not need Judas, but Scripture stands unbroken.

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered (PARADIDÔMI) to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed (PARADIDÔMI) took bread;” (1 Corinthians 11:23, NASB)

Our narratives may tag the passion of Christ as an evil episode, but he voluntarily suffered and died. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32, NASB)