I was reading in Leviticus this morning and noticed that part of the sacrificial system was that some of what was brought as a sacrifice was for the priests to eat. Part of the animal was burned and part of it was (sometimes) saved for eating. The death of the animal was both a cleansing for sin and a life-provision in the form of food.
When we remember Christ's sacrifice, we celebrate his sacrifice through eating bread in communion, not meat, as a representation of his body. It might be a bit more accurate if we used meat instead of bread as a remembrance, but we do not.
Here is one reason why bread over meat was used: if we used meat in our celebration of communion, it would require death (an animal would have to die). But death is no longer necessary, for payment for sin or for the remembrance of that payment. Hebrews says that Christ's death was "once for all" (Heb. 10:10) and thus even to remember His death by needing to shed blood would confuse the reality of the actual full satisfaction of His death. Christ's death eliminated the need for an animal to be slaughtered in payment for my sin. In the very celebration of communion, in the form of using bread, rather than meat, we are acknowledging the reality that the payment for sin through the shed blood of Christ fully and completely paid for sin and no more blood needs to be shed.
