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At the Last Supper, Jesus told the disciples to “keep on doing this as my commemoration.” But after Jesus had left them, early Christians recognized that the supper Jesus shared with his disciples had indeed been his last, and thus was unique. The conundrum was: how do we keep on doing an unrepeatable event?

For instance, if, as seems likely, the Last Supper was a Passover meal, or seder (which means “order of service”), early Christians wondered if they should “do this” only once a year at Passover. Were they to obey his command literally only once a year, according to Jewish tradition? But that would have tended to keep them effectively within Judaism. This solution would have obscured the uniqueness of Jesus and wiped out the reality of the new era Jesus had promised.

On the other hand, if they were to observe the meal more often than annually, how should it be done in a non-Passover format?

The early Christians soon realized they were going to have to be liturgically creative, even daring, if they were to keep on doing an unrepeatable event.

The earliest church decided to adopt a non-Passover meal format that could be observed any time and as often as necessary for the good of the infant church.

Such a format lay close at hand: in the weekly meal held in Jewish homes each Friday evening to hallow the beginning of Sabbath. The Christian meal, though, no longer emphasized Sabbath themes, but Sunday, with its themes of resurrection and a new era in the Messiah, who had consummated both Passover and Sabbath.

Thus, the weekly meal structure was taken from Judaism, but the contents were Christianized and the meal moved to Sunday. This resulted in the first “liturgical rule” for Christians: Lord’s Supper on Lord’s Day. With this step the Last Supper of Jesus modulated into the Eucharist of the church. It was the first way new wine was being poured into old bottles as the earliest Christians strove to obey the Lord’s command.

In addition, the Jewish prayers over the bread and cup were reworked. The words changed from “blessing” God for food and creation to “thanking” God for revelation in “Jesus your child.”

This verbal shift begins in the New Testament. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, Jesus is shown “blessing” (NRSV) the bread; in Luke 22 and 1 Corinthians 11, he gives “thanks.” The shift is complete by the time of the Didache (a Christian document with sections composed about A.D. 60), especially when we compare its prayer formulas with those of the Jewish Seder.

For instance, at the Jewish Sabbath meals, the first of three short prayers said over a cup of wine mixed with water at the conclusion of the meal reads:

“Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, for you nourish us and the whole world with goodness, grace, kindness and mercy. Blessed are you, Lord, for you nourish the universe.”

The corresponding prayer in the Didache reads:

“We give thanks to you, holy Father, for your holy Name which you have enshrined in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have made known to us through Jesus your child; glory to you for evermore.”

Indeed, in the Didache the entire Christian meal is seen as a eucharist (Greek for “thanksgiving”): “About the Eucharist, eucharistize thus.…” The Jewish form remains; the content and vocabulary are new.

As one Jewish scholar has noted, ancient Jewish prayer protocol tended to “bless” God for creation, “thank” God for revelation, and “petition” God for redemption. Thus, when early Christians employed thanksgiving language in their meal prayers, they were highlighting Jesus as the revelation of God.

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