The Lord’s Supper
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:26)
It never ceases to amaze me to think of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory delighting in His people remembering Him. I first started going to the Lord’s Supper as a young Christian, and it was some time before I contributed. However, I did feel what Peter expressed on the Mount of Transfiguration when he told the Lord it was good to be there. The Lord Jesus only asked us to do two things which are expressed physically. One is baptism, which we usually only do once. The other is to remember Him by breaking bread and drinking wine, which we usually do at the beginning of the week. I had been taught earlier in my Christian life that I needed to be baptised, and that the Lord Jesus wanted me to remember Him. Christendom has added centuries of complexity to the holy simplicity of what the Lord asks us to do. A dear brother who taught us so much from the Bible said that in the Scriptures what is most profound is expressed with the greatest simplicity.
It is good to reflect on why the Lord Jesus over 2000 years ago occupied an upper room to institute the simplest supper after the celebration of the Passover. The Passover looked forward to the day when God would, as Abraham explained to Isaac, provide a lamb (Genesis 22:8). John the Baptist announced the fulfilment of the prophetic aspect of those words when he saw Jesus, the true paschal lamb, and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). It was the Lord Jesus Himself who expressed His feelings towards His disciples when He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you” (Luke 22:15). John writes, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). What did the Lord Jesus want us to understand and never cease to remember? He wanted us to remember Him, and to understand the depth of His love for us and the price He paid for our redemption. The Lord conveys what was in His heart in two words, “Remember Me”. And in two everyday and simple foods, bread and wine, He conveys the power, beauty and sacrifice of His peerless life. In doing so, He invites us into His presence as those who He brought to Himself one by one – each with our own appreciation of “the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). He also draws us together as part of the Church of Christ, so that with one heart we can worship Christ who “loved the church, and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
It is a joy to simply remember the Lord. We look back to Calvary and trace the wonder of the God of love. We look up and worship our glorious Saviour in heaven. And we do this looking forward to His promised return to bring us into the Father’s house. When Mary poured her expensive oil in worship upon the Lord, its fragrance filled the house and also rested on those present.
I think it was a conscious decision of the early disciples to remember the Lord Jesus on the first day of the week. We begin the week in the Lord’s presence and in the atmosphere of His divine love. In doing so, we are empowered to live in its reality.
