It is noticeable that none of the synoptists use the particular word 'broken' in the same way Paul does when he introduces it into his statement. However, all three tell us that the Lord gave the blessed and broken bread to the apostles with the words, 'this is my body', and Luke uses the word 'given'. But although they do not record the fact which Paul reveals, His body was evidently broken in His hands and theirs. It was a marvellous lesson, even if at that time they did not fully apprehend it. Soon His beaten, bruised and bleeding body was to hang disjointed and cursed upon the cross. But He did not give them that body. He gave them the body which was sitting in full view before them, whole and vigorous and sinless. Yet, according to the truth He came to impart, there it lay symbolically broken by His own hands in their sight. This then is the first of the great lessons we must learn from Him about Communion. Just previously they had together kept the final feast of the old order. The Passover lamb they had eaten had been dismembered and wholly consumed according to divine command. Its bones, said the Lord, must on no account be broken — disjointed, lacerated, cut or torn asunder it may be, but its frame must be retained whole. And that is exactly how it was with Jesus in the end at Calvary. The observant John faithfully tells us this in recording what he saw at the cross when the soldiers came to Jesus hanging in the midst of the two thieves. Intending to hasten the death of all three and about to break Jesus' legs in the customary manner, they found Him already dead. Unable to believe it, one of them plunged a spear into His side, and out flowed blood and water. He was dead all right. He needed not to have His legs broken — He had died and was buried whole. The scripture was fulfilled. Neither man nor devil nor sin, nor all that these together could do broke Jesus. He took all and at the end could still offer Himself, as unbroken as He was spotless, to God for us.