Ex 12:17, 'You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. 
This passage brings us to an aspect of our Christian life that needs constant attention and dedication. It is the matter of our observation of the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist as it is sometimes called, or the communion. This is where we find its roots in the Old Testament. Even as it was given by God and to be observed throughout each generation of those who were rescued from slavery in Egypt, so it is carried forward in living detail for us in Jesus Christ. 
There are vast aspects and overwhelming significance involved in this, our observation of communion in obedience to the commandment of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to partake together in remembrance of all that God has done in Christ Jesus, through His death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb. As a result,  we need to be very careful and look at it in some depth. I will be presenting an assortment of scriptures as well as a number of commentary quotes in order to lay as full a foundation as possible with regard to the vital nature of our partaking of communion with reverence and with hearts that value all that it represents. I pray that you will bear with me in this somewhat detailed approach.
As a fellowship, we recently began to give our communion time a more significant place within our worship service. We are seeking to give it more prominence and better pleasing to the Lord. Rather than just a casual manner of serving the emblems as almost just an afterthought or as a matter of just bringing worship to an end, we need to take care in the way in which we deal with these emblems. We desire to give Him utmost thanksgiving and honor. Because of this, we have been serving communion at 10:15 every Sunday morning. It is a time that we have set aside in order to very preeminently search our hearts and minds with respect to that which would more fully bring forth His praise and adoration from us, His redeemed people. In that light, let us go forward, for a number of weeks, with the detailed consideration of this, our due service of obedience to the commandment to honor the Lord in our partaking of the Communion Table.
Initially, there is a direct comparison to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or the Passover feast, as it became called and our partaking of communion. It is held in the very reason that the Israelites had the unleavened bread ready to go when the Lord lead them forth in their exodus from Egypt. Warren Wiersbe highlights some tremendous aspects of comparison in the following observations. 
Quote - The nation of Israel wasn't rescued from Egypt by cleaning their houses and getting rid of yeast. They were delivered by the power of God because of the blood that had been sprinkled on the doorposts of their houses. Sinners aren't redeemed by getting rid of their bad habits and "cleaning up" their lives, but by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for them on the cross. However, one of the characteristics of a true child of God is a changed life. "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim 2:19, NKJV). "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1). Anyone who professes to belong to Christ who doesn't seek to conquer sin and become more Christlike in daily conduct is making a false profession (1 John 3:1-10).
In 1 Cor 5:8, Paul compared the life of the local church to "keeping the feast" of Passover. The church doesn't "keep the feast" literally because it has been fulfilled in Christ our Passover Lamb who was sacrificed for us…. But like the Jews on Passover night in Egypt, we are a pilgrim people, ready to be called out, and we must not be encumbered by sin. The Jews ate the Passover feast as families and each local church is a family of God, feasting on Jesus Christ through the Word and waiting for Him to call His people out of this world. Like Israel of old, we must remind ourselves that we were once slaves of sin, in bondage to the world…, and God delivered us by sending His Son as the sacrifice for our sins. When we observe the Lord's Supper (Eucharist), we remember His death and look forward to His return. 
For Christians today, Passover speaks of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world…. Those who trust Him are redeemed from sin … and may claim their spiritual inheritance in Christ…. During the last Passover feast with His disciples, Jesus inaugurated what we call The Lord's Supper (Eucharist, Communion) to encourage His people to remember Him. This supper reminds us that Christ gave His body and shed His blood for our redemption… and that He will one day come again to receive us…. End quote. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.)	
We must ever keep in mind the truth that as we are identified with Christ, so do we need to live in accordance with what is now the reality of our lives. We belong to God in Jesus Christ. He has called us unto Himself. He is the One Who has made every provision for us to come into this living relationship in and through and with Jesus, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our everything. As with the Israelites, we are utterly hopeless and unable to do anything to bring about any measure of our eternal life. It is all at the Omnipotence and the Omniscience of God, Almighty. He has called us out of darkness and into the marvelous light of His Salvation freely offered in His Only Begotten Son. 
Accordingly, our lives are to manifest who we now are by the grace and the love and the mercy and the wisdom and the power of God. He is to be honored in the manner in which our lives reflect His indwelling presence at all times. Therefore, as we partake of the communion together, we do so with the desire and the attitude that it matters to Him how we conduct the every interaction of our walk on this earth. It is to be manifested in the way in which the source of who we are and how we live shows forth more and more of the revealed glory of God in our every sphere of influence. 
Not only is this to be in evidence in our day to day interactions at work or at school or at home, but it is to be seen within our interactions with our brethren. We will be required, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, to treat each other with love and with patience and with understanding and with wisdom and with discernment and with honor and with respect. We do so because we realize that we are all of the same nature and the very same need for The Savior, Jesus Christ. 
None of us has any standing before God apart from Jesus. We may think that we do. Our economic status may try to infest our thoughts with the lies that we have some measure of greatness that should be recognized. But the fact is that we are all sinners and we are all without hope in this world apart from Our Savior and Our Lord. No amount of money, or fame or education will make even the slightest iota of difference when we are face-to-face with God. Only the fact of Jesus as our covering will determine our eternal destiny. Rich or poor, free or slave, male or female, young or old, healthy or sickly, all that matters is the salvation covering of the blood of Jesus Christ. 
Sadly, it was dissension among the saints within the Church at Corinth which caused the Apostle Paul to address the manner in which they were partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Please open your Bibles to the first letter to the Corinthian Church, Chapter 11. We want to read this tremendous passage together in order to highlight some of what needs to take place in our solemn and reverent participation together in the Lord’s Supper. 
1 Cor 11:23-32, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 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." In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. 
The believers at Corinth were not giving the Lord’s Supper the proper reverence and decorum and prominence that it required. They were excluding those who were poor and looking out for only their own self-interests. Rather than a true communion with one another, recounting the glory of God in Jesus Christ, they were lording their position and their wealth and their status over each other to the detriment of the entire community. The Apostle needed to bring to their attention the fact that the Lord’s Supper was to be cherished and to be considered with veneration and amazement and respect for both the Lord and for the very ability to share together in all the goodness and the grace and the beneficence of the union that we have because of Jesus’ death on the cross. He died for you and for me and made us partakers together of His life. 
Let it be very clear, that the solemnity called for is earnestness and serious consideration and remembrance of Our Lord and all that He has done. It is not at all a matter of not enjoying our time together. Rather, we are to fully appreciate and rejoice and give utmost thanksgiving to God for what He has done in Jesus Christ. Our reverence and our earnestness and our regard for the value of this communion time is to stem from the fact that God has made Himself known to us in a living relationship. He deserves the praise and adoration for this miraculous working of His grace and mercy. We do this together, as one people, one heart and body who enjoy and celebrate our life in Jesus Christ. 
The Apostle emphasized this earlier in this letter. Let us read together 1 Cor 10, verses 13-17. 1 Cor 10:13-17, No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread. 
This is what we need to keep in mind as we share together in the eternal bounty of the Lord’s provision of love and grace and mercy, as signified in these emblems. They represent the fullness of all that Christ has done, not just for you and for me, but for all of His creation. His saving work covers the spectrum of humanity in its scope and breadth and history. Therefore, we need to check our hearts, as we will continue to emphasize again and again. We must never discount nor discredit nor besmirch the Omnipotence and the Omniscience of God by, in any way, devaluing what He has done.
The Writer to the Hebrews gives us something to ponder in terms of just how serious a matter this is in the very heart of God. We must be extremely diligent to be utterly respectful and reverent of all that God has established in and through His Only Begotten Son. 
Heb 10:29-39, if you would please read along with me. Heb 10:29-39, How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge His people." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. 
We never want to put ourselves under the course of having God deal with us so severely as in this passage and the one in 1 Cor, where our entire fellowship is subjected to the discipline and the punishment those deserve who trample under foot the Son of God. That can be so easily done with our indifference toward and our casual treatment of the Lord’s Supper as but just a ritual and a habit. It must ever and always be foremost in our hearts as wholly honoring and joyously celebrating God’s so great love to redeem such as you and me unto Himself through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son. So be it!
'You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. Amen

This morning’s benediction is Ps 135:1-3. Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord; Praise Him, O servants of the Lord, You who stand in the house of the Lord, In the courts of the house of our God! Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; Sing praises to His name, for it is lovely. Amen.