". . . As Oft As . . ."

The RSV, typical of most somewhat-reliable English translations of the Greek New Testament of the Sacred-66-Books Judeo-Christian Holy Bible [ and please check the KJV-type translations for accuracy! ] contain the following regretfully-non-edited/lamentably-verbatim [ non-corrected ] words describing the Last Supper event:

Matthew 26:19 And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover.
20 When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples;
21 and as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
22 And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?"
23 He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me.
24 The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."
25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, "Is it I, Master?" He said to him, "You have said so."
26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body."
27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you;
28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
29 I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Mark 14:17 And when it was evening he came with the twelve.
18 And as they were at table eating, Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."
19 They began to be sorrowful, and to say to him one after another, "Is it I?"
20 He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.
21 For the Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."
22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body."
23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.
24 And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
25 Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Luke 22:13 And they went, and found it as he had told them; and they prepared the passover.
14 And when the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him.
15 And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."
17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, "Take this, and divide it among yourselves;
18 for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
20 And likewise the cup after supper, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
21 But behold the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.
22 For the Son of man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!"
23 And they began to question one another, which of them it was that would do this.
24 A dispute also arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

The gospel of John does not contain a detailed description of bread and wine consumption at The Last Supper, but merely refers to that event (evidently) as follows:

John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,
4 rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel.
5 Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

Why a "poured-out cup" and/or the potentially-intoxicating booze therein is equated with a "new covenant in Christ's blood" plus some cup and/or booze poured out is one and the same with "my blood of the covenant" is difficult if not impossible to comprehend . . . but a Guy who has the fabulous and awesome miracle credentials of Christ Jesus can certainly say anything He wants and get away with it. Who cares what probably-allegorical/symbolic/metaphorical pseudo-nonsense He uttered -- being that He was and is "the only game in town?"

From what Christ Himself is said to have stated in the three aforementioned gospels in which The Last Supper Event is historically and (what I assume, in good faith, is) reliably recorded, it seems that what He said was only specifically referring to when Jesus the Lord was with His Twelve Disciples in The Upper Room, and that was the end of it -- with NO indication whatsoever that He intended any theatrical repetition of the event.

The closest Jesus Christ came to alluding to any repeat performance of at least the drinking wine part was the following rather-identical-semantics statements by Christ Jesus Himself:

Matthew 26:29 I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Mark 14:25 Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

Luke 22:18 for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

For Him - NOT us!

Notice that the Lord Jesus never told His disciples to repeat the Last-Supper eating and drinking "often." He never said that word! He even never specifically told them to ever do it again, even though the following is found in Luke's text:

Luke 22:19 And He took bread, and gave thanks and broke it and gave it unto them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me."

After declaring mere bread His body, He then ordered them to do what "in remembrance of Him?"

Eat it? Simply observe and/or fondle it? Absolutely nothing is specifically said by Him about eating it, but perhaps that merely was implied? Don't make Jesus say what He did NOT say! Keep to the exact words of the text without imposing any non-authorized inserts!

And do such eating or fondling when? Then and there only?

The ONLY other direct references of any substantial details about THE Original Last Supper Event are both found in a VERY-tiny segment of only-TWO chapters of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians:

First Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
First Corinthians 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. [ Whatever that refers to ] You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. [ WHAT "table?" Were The Twelve Disciples sitting on the ground or reclining at any four-legged table during THE Last Supper Event? ]

and:

First Corinthians 11:14 Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him,
15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride [ better yet: "glory"? ] For her hair is given to her for a covering.
16 If any one is disposed [ or itching ] to be contentious, we recognize no "other" [ the correct word is: such instead of other in the Greek Text! ] practice [or custom, of allowing a mopheaded woman to regard her erotic indecently-exposed loose long hair in general public view sufficient as a prayer shawl or veil or head covering in a group of mixed-gender congregants ], nor do the churches of God.
17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.
18 For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it,
19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.
20 When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.
21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk.
22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged.
32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another--
34 if any one is hungry, let him eat at home--lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

Oh my.

For the very first time, Paul's inclusion of the wrongly-translated (i.e. mistranslated) English word: "often" is related to suggested facsimiles of THE one-and-only Last-Supper Event of Christ and His Twelve Disciples. Where did Paul ever pull that one out of?

Actually, the correctly-translated-from-Greek-Text word is NOT "often" but is instead: "whenever" or "as many times." But not "often" (whatever "often" would and would not mean).

Intriguing it is that Christ's Last Commission to His Disciples did include baptizing for whatever cause (which The Penitent Dying Thief on a Cross perhaps never underwent) . . . but not on insisting that saints nibble and sip on cracker-and-grape-juice appetizers as Last-Supper-reminiscent facsimile repeats which must occur every hour on the hour, every day, every other day, every Sunday morning, every first Sunday of the month, or even once a year at Passover time during Holy Week.

What really makes it despicable is when church leaders seek to entice parishioners to attend services with free-and-no-cost tasty ordervz [pardon my french] to attend church services, or insinuate that self-or-group atonement for sins is especially made by ingesting the hard-to-swallow tiny tidbits and possibly-choking liquid. Cultic maryolatrous and purgatorial catholics (self-deluded with pseudo-"canonical" apocrypha), of course, suck it all up - as do angelicans, episcopalians, lutherans, and (God forbid!) even some baptists and their ilk.

Not only that, but the meager mini-meal of one wafer and a little cuplette of wine, juice, Coke, or whatever for the teetotalers is supposed to be a whoopie-do catch-all compensation for and complete expression of fasting to pacify their consciences in that area of required religiosity.

WHY Saint Paul (inspired as he was by the Holy Spirit to write the overwhelming lion's share of what he penned regarding - not "concerning" - all the vital morally-important and sensible things he wrote in his other epistles which comprise an arguably substantial part of the entire New Testament) included that VERY-short communion blurb in only ONE chapter of ONLY his first letter to the Corinthians . . . is a disturbing and rather irritating (even obnoxious?) mystery, to say the least. Temptation for presuming "works self-righteousness?" by feeding the big facial holes under noses?

At first, it appears (in that VERY-short piece in ONLY the 11th chapter of First Corinthians) that Paul is just referring to church potluck suppers or picnics, concerning which he expresses disapproval against those who impolitely hog the food, get drunk on the wine, or butt in line without waiting patiently . . . to the discontent, dismay, and deprivation against others in frequent or occasional church gatherings.

But then in verses 23 through 30 of First Corinthians 11, he suddenly goes off into some spooky tangent about equating the joyful-feasting celebration with a somber throwback remembrance of that unique and one-time Christ-With-The-Select-Twelve-Apostles Last Supper Event, with not simply serious mortal-sin warnings but outright-frightening threats if such lethally-dangerous ingesting is fatally mismanaged according to the potentially-death-causing (toxic-poison-equivalent) parameters he mentions for which there is no medical or other redemptive antidote.

In verses 31 through 34, however, he apparently gets off the quite-scary hocus-pocus ritualistic minefield and thankfully returns to summary instructions pertaining to proper protocol for general church-party potlucks, picnics, and the like.

What should be our response of us contemporary Gentile Christians now in the 21st century here in America and not the Middle East not bound by nitpicky talmudic restrictions of ceremonial judaic legalism?

Perhaps the following will help:

Leviticus 23:5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, is the LORD's passover.

Numbers 9:2 Let the people of Israel keep the passover at its appointed time.
9:4 So Moses told the people of Israel that they should keep the passover.
9:5 And they kept the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening . . .
9:10 Say to the people of Israel, "If any man (or woman?) of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is afar off on a journey, he shall still keep the passover to the LORD."
9:13 But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, yet refrains from keeping the passover, that person shall be cut off from his people, because he did not offer the LORD's offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
9:14 And if a stranger travels among you, and will keep the passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the passover and according to its ordinance, so shall he do; you shall have one statute, both for the sojourner and for the native."
28:16 On the fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD's passover.

Deuteronomy 16:1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover to the LORD your God; for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
Deuteronomy 16:2 And you shall offer the passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place which the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there.

Deuteronomy 16:5 You may not offer the passover sacrifice within any of your towns which the LORD your God gives you;
Deuteronomy 16:6 but at the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the passover sacrifice, in the evening at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt.
Joshua 5:10 While the people of Israel were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho.

Once a year. During Holy Week (passover time), during Lent. Preferably on Maunday Thursday. Matzos and Mogen David, with no lambchops. (And Jesus never mentioned "bitter-herb" parsley with the bread and wine, so nor should we).

That's it, and that's all. I guess.