We have four accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. They can be found in these passages:

Matthew 26:20-29
Mark 14:17-25
Luke 22:14-23
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

From these four passages, we have Jesus’ words as follows:
The bread: “This is my body which is given for you.” By speaking of His body, Jesus refers not only to His body on the cross but to His living body. We can see that emphasis in 1 Corinthians 10-11.
The cup: “This is my blood of the new covenant” or “This is the new covenant in my blood.” Jesus echoes Exodus 24:8 in speaking of the blood of the covenant. None of the accounts has the simple statement “this is my blood,” even though most people think that’s what the cup represents. The concepts of blood and covenant were so intertwined that two accounts put one first and two put the other first.
The command: “Do this in remembrance of me.” This is not merely an interesting moment in history. It’s an act that Jesus meant for His followers to repeat.

A few thoughts:

• We need a sense of “mysticism” here, yet we should not only focus on the elements. The meal is more than the sum of its parts.
• Jesus is present not only in the elements; He is present as host and fellow-participant.
• The Lord’s Supper is not the altar; it is not just a remembering of the cross. It is the table after the sacrifice, where we eat and drink in the presence of the risen Lord. We proclaim His sacrifice and the redemption that it brings.
• Our participation in this meal is participation in an unbroken chain that goes back to the Savior Himself. Those that received the bread from His hand later served others who served others… Like the community meals in the Old Testament, our sharing in this meal binds us to one another as well as to God. We stake our claim in these stream of history of God’s people.