Most of the churches my wife and I visit are decidedly non-liturgical. There are no set responses at certain intervals in the services, and nothing even remotely resembling tradition.
The exception occurs at Communion, aka The Lord’s Supper, with something sometimes referred to as “the words of institution;” i.e. the words Jesus used to institute what is either — depending on your church’s doctrine — an ordinance or sacrament of the Christian faith.
There, the reading from I Cor. 11: 23ff is obligatory. “On the night Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and… broke it saying, ‘This is my Body, broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.'” (Didn’t even need to look it up.)
But it occurred to me that as English shifts, modern ears might be getting this as “After Jesus was betrayed he took bread…”
I think a better reading would be, “On the night that Jesus was about to be betrayed…”
Or better yet, “Knowing full well that he was just a couple of hours from being betrayed, he took bread…”
Judas was about to exit the building. His scheming mind hatched the plan needed to locate and identify Jesus with the least interference from the crowd, and bring him before the Romans to mete out the death penalty on charges of blasphemy. There would be profit in this, not to mention a place of honor among both Pharisees and Romans alike.
But before he even left, Jesus says, “This is my Body, broken for you.” He is in control. He is giving Himself.
The Wycliffe Version isn’t the translation on Bible Gateway that most bloggers turn to, but its rendering is unique: “Take ye, and eat ye; this is my body, which shall be betrayed for you; do ye this thing into my mind.”
It clears up the verb tense thing as it relates to the order of events, which shall (or will) be broken for you, only it has the surprise element of bringing betrayal in that clause as well: shall be betrayed for you.
Christ’s body was physically broken for us, but his esprit was no doubt broken by the betrayal of someone who He had walked and talked with; someone whom He had taught in the give and take sense of eastern teaching — for three years.
The Amplified Bible is one of the few other translations that addresses the order of events. Note the section I’ve italicized: “For I received from the Lord Himself that which I passed on to you [it was given to me personally], that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was treacherously delivered up and while His betrayal was in progress took bread…”
In a decreasingly-Biblically-literate culture, I think it necessary to sometimes nitpick over details of the story that we just assume that people know. Necessary to clarify, to remove confusion.
But sometimes, in the examination, there is discovery, and the familiar narrative continues to take on shades of depth and meaning beyond anything we’d already considered.
Christianity 201 
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