Mat 26:26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
Mat 26:27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.
Mat 26:28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Mat 26:29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
Yesterday I spent a good amount of time reading the Westminster Confession of Faith, and then the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, Article 7 on the Holy Supper, and then several commentaries on Matthew 26:26-29, trying to figure out what is being offered to us in the Lord's Supper.
What does Jesus mean when he says "this is my body"?
A significant clue is in a footnote by RT France: "Since Jesus' Aramaic words would probably have had no expressed verb, any theological deductions drawn from the Greek wording must, in any case, be treated with care." (The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT), p.992, n.24)
Other languages also have verbless copula clauses -- my Russian-speaking students often say, "My name, Tetiana", and I have to keep correcting them and telling them to use "is".
This also reminds me of the Rvwang word ná, which is what you say when you are giving food to a kid: "Ná!" -- here, this is yours; here, this is for you; here, take it!
Maybe what he was saying in Aramaic was, "Take and eat, this [breaks it and gives it to each person], my body". Note that "my body" also means "myself" in Aramaic.
Also, Ulrich Luz comments that the word for "this" in Greek that Matthew used is neuter gender, so it does not agree with the masculine word for bread. Thus, the "this" refers "not to the bread but to the entire process of breaking the bread, taking, and eating." (Matthew 21-28 (Hermeneia), p.378) Luz calls it more than a parable, but rather a "symbolic prophetic action", repeated by the church, in which the members themselves participate by eating and drinking.
Luz argues that it is likely that when Jesus distributed the bread and the cup, he also ate and drank with them. He offered them to drink from his own cup, one cup for many. "And just this points to the reality that Jesus' sacrificial death, his violent death for many, benefits the entire fellowship that participates in this symbolic action."
It's not so important to focus on the bread in the hand and the wine in the cup as it is to focus on the action of breaking and giving and taking and eating, pouring and giving and taking and drinking, from the oneness of the loaf and cup.
One more image: Craig Keener, in The IVP Bible Background Commentary, mentions that the standard Jewish interpretation spoken over the Passover bread was "This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate when they came from Egypt." And since that literal bread that their ancestors ate was long gone, hundreds of years ago, this was an annual reenactment, placing themselves into the story. Jesus added the fulfillment to the story, by saying "Take and eat, this [breaks, gives], my body."
Ná!
