Jesus took bread.
The symbols of Christ’s body
I. Let us glance at the gospel feast, as exhibited to our view in our periodical approach to the table of the Lord. What is it that we are to feast upon? What is it of which Jehovah Jesus says-“This is My Body, and this is My Blood”? It is His own Person-the glorious, perfect, complete God-Man. It is His redemption work, accomplished and perfected by Himself, which constitutes the gospel feast.
1. The redemption which constitutes good for our souls is perfect. Christ has not done His work by halves. He has not left His work in an unfinished state.
2. Moreover, the redemption that is in Jesus Christ is personal; and if it be not so, there is no eating of it. If you come to a meal, to make it personal, you must participate; you must receive for yourself.
3. Moreover, it is a permanent redemption.
II. Let me pass on to notice the ordained guests. He took and brake it, and gave to them-His disciples. I do not believe that Judas was there at that moment, though some people do. I shall not stop to argue that point, however. There are two things, and only two things, essential to a welcome guest. The first is, vital godliness, as an essential qualification; and the second is, the imputed righteousness of Christ as the essential robe.
III. Let me now press on to speak of the orthodox viands that we expect to feast upon, of which my precious Lord says-“Take, eat, this is My Body, and this is My Blood.” The sacrificed Lamb is the great feast itself. This was ordered under the Levitical dispensation every morning and evening-a lamb to be sacrificed and presented to the Lord-the lamb of the Passover; and the same sacred emblem, pointing to the precious Christ of God, is declared to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; and just such persons as I have been describing were welcome to partake of it. This feasting on the Lamb, the atoning Blood, the perfect satisfaction, and the sacred acceptance thereof, is announced by God Himself as a thing with which He is well pleased; and the soul that is under the teaching and the operation of the Holy Ghost can find nothing to feast upon short of It. If I go to some places I have nothing but a dinner of poisonous herbs: I mean the beauties of rhetoric, the eloquence of the creature, heathenish morality, and nothing to profit the precious soul that is born from above. The believer is able to do what the Israelites were commanded to do: he is able to eat a whole lamb; he is able to partake of a whole Christ. So we may well say again, “having Christ, I possess all things.” Do not talk to me of feeding upon frames and feelings, and groping amongst “ifs” and “buts,” and “peradventures,” and probabilities, and contingencies, and conditions and uncertainties-they are enough to make all the people of God like Pharaoh’s lean kine, if they do not absolutely starve them to death.
IV. Let me now lead on your attention to the master’s words-“This is My body;” and “This is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many.” Mark, I beseech you, that this sacred gospel feast is intended to nourish not the fleshly, but the spiritual existence. (Joseph Irons, M. A.)
The communion service
It is hardly necessary to remark, that almost every transaction of human life has its appropriate ceremony, its established order and process. In our most familiar intercourse we have oar known forms of salutation. The system is natural in its origin, and beneficial in its effects. In religion above all other subjects, established forms are valuable. They fix attention on the duties which we assemble to perform. They give its due solemnity to the most interesting of all human concerns. They impress more deeply the sentiments of piety on the heart. They support uniformity and sympathy in the public worship of God. Would it not then be unwise and ungrateful if we did not commemorate by some appropriate ceremony the most important transaction of the gospel, the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ. Such has been prescribed by Him who had the undoubted right to prescribe it, the Author of that religion, which it is intended to support. The fitness and propriety of a commemoration appointed by such authority will not be called in question.
I. The memory of the most interesting events is apt to fade from the mind, unless occasionally revived by reflection on their respective circumstances, or by some suitable and regular commemoration. Even the sentiments of friendship require to be kept alive by tokens of regard. The disciples had seen the miracles of Christ. From the minds of those who had not teen them, at the distance of almost two thousand years, the genuine religion of the gospel might have been lost, had it not been cherished by the ordinances of the Church.
II. Before the publication of the gospel to the world, the natives of every heathen nation had their respective offerings to their Gods. They knew not from what authority their sacrifices were derived. They did but imperfectly understand the meaning of the ceremonies of their own worship. Their expectations were limited almost to temporal advantage. When we partake the sacrament we unite in an act of worship, of which we know the authority, intention, and benefit.
III. The sacrifices of the heathens, and the festivals that followed them, were usually attended with cruelty to inoffensive animals, disgraced by immoral practices, and performed at ruinous expense. The sacrifices of the Jews were designed to typify one efficacious sacrifice of the Redeemer of the world. Our sacrament is not the sacrifice itself. It is only the festival after it; commemorating the sacrifice, and urging our claims to the benefits, which it was intended to convey. By the prudent regulations of our Church no indecent excess can disgrace this act of our worship. The exhortations to repentance, faith, and charity are Scriptural.
IV. The last recommendation of our ceremonies at the sacrament is the fitness and propriety of the substances employed on that solemn occasion. From the wisdom and goodness of Him who prescribed them this was to be expected. Instead of the slaughter of animals, select and perfect, but within the reach of the poor;-instead of incense and spices which are only found in a few favoured regions of the earth, and which when found are more costly than appropriate, our Saviour has directed us to employ the simple elements of bread and wine; produced in every country; which may be obtained without delay or difficulty. These elements are fit emblems of the benefits to be derived from the solemnity; nay, “the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ.” (W. Barrow, LL. D.)
The Lord’s supper
I. The bread. This signifies our need of spiritual food from Christ. We have a spiritual life within, as real as the physical life, and needing just as much a constant supply of nourishment. When General Grant took the Federal army at Chattanooga it was feeble and dispirited because it was almost destitute. The food of the army was hauled with difficulty over mountain roads and the supply was totally insufficient. His first movement, on assuming command-and it was that which eventually led to victory,-was to repair the railroads, and open up communication, so that the army soon had everything it needed. There is a like necessity in the spiritual life of Christ’s army. We are worth very little in the service of Christ, except as we are spiritually nourished. The soul is easily starved by lack of appropriate food. And our spiritual nourishment must come from Christ.
II. The bread was blessed by Christ. The significance of this act was that God the Father was recognized as having a part in the work of the Son.
III. The bread is broken by Christ. Why is this? Here is a reminder of the sufferings of Christ. “This,” said Christ, “is My Body which is broken for you” The broken bread is designed to bring to our minds His sacrificial work. And it is worthy of remark that our Lord broke the bread Himself. He did not delegate this to another. So did Christ voluntarily surrender Himself to death. “Therefore,” He affirms in one place, “doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” There is a peculiar value in the sacrifice of Christ, in the fact that He was not forced to it. All He did and suffered was voluntary. It was because He loved us. It was in the infinite tenderness of His heart that He became our Saviour.
IV. The bread was distributed to the disciples by Christ. Here is suggested our complete dependence on Christ for salvation.
V. The second part of this symbol. The use of the cup, as well as the bread, gives the idea of completeness. The two necessities for life are food and drink. When both are given there is fulness in the provision. The spiritual food symbolized in the supper covers all the needs of the soul. He who has Christ has what causes want to cease.
2. The doubling of the symbol also serves for emphasis. Thus Elisha, Hannah, and Job received double portions, that is, an unusual amount.
3. There is also climax. The giving of the cup presents not only the old thought suggested in the giving of the bread, but something more, which is even more important.
VI. The cup. The cup is symbolic of the Blood of Christ; and the blood of life. The juice of the grape, as it is violently pressed from the grape and procured by the grape’s destruction, fittingly represents the Blood of Christ poured out for us.
VII. Eating the bread and drinking the cup. Our Saviour’s directions to His disciples regarding the Supper were very simple. They were, “Take, eat.” “Drink ye all of it.” And the one hint our Saviour gave as to the meaning of this reception of the Supper was in His words: “This do in remembrance of Me.” To this the apostle added the inspired comment: “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.” From this language several things are plain. We are taught that our eating the bread and drinking the cup is a confession of Christ, a pledge to serve our Lord, and an act of fellowship as Christians. But it is, above all, a reception of Christ by faith. Our very act of taking the bread symbolizes the way in which we are to be benefited by Christ. We can not have Christ except as we open our hearts to Him. We are to give Him loving welcome. We are to rejoice in Him and accept Him, just as we do the food for the body, in the assurance that He will build us up in life and health. We must cherish the thought of Christ with the same loyalty with which we cherish earthly friendships. We remember earthly friends when they are out of our sight, recognizing their interests and rights, keeping ourselves in proper attitude towards them, and allowing no one else and nothing else to come between them and us in such way as to make us forgetful of them or indifferent towards them. The mother of Professor Louis Agassiz lived in Switzerland. In her beautiful old age Professor Silliman and wife called upon her and were charmed with her character. The morning they were leaving Switzerland she met them, and giving them a bunch of pansies said, with a beautiful play upon words, speaking of course in the French language: “Tell my son that my thoughts (mes pensees) are all for him, they are all for him.” Now this is the way we should feel towards Christ. If we give Him all our heart, all our thoughts, we are communing with Him, we are receiving Him to ourselves, as He desires. As the elements of the Supper are taken into our system, so do we receive Christ into our souls. (Addison P. Foster.)
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
Because the sacraments of the gospel are only two in number, it has sometimes been thought that they must be ordinances of minor importance. No mistake can be greater, or more calculated to depreciate the value of these divinely-appointed ordinances, which, from their very fewness, as well as from having received Christ’s explicit command, should receive the Christian’s strictest gard. The passage before us leads to inquiries respecting the meaning and design of this great sacrament.
I. The relations in which Christ here presents Himself to His disciples.
1. Propitiation. The object of the Lord’s Supper is not to commemorate Jesus as a Teacher, though in this He was unlike any other; nor to perpetuate the memory of His example, although His was the only perfect one ever afforded. It is, to keep constantly in mind that He who was the one illustrious Teacher, and the only perfect Exemplar, employing these together with His incarnate Deity, to add efficacy to the offering, yielded up His life a sacrifice for sinners.
2. The whole benefit of His death is available to those for whom He died. All He did is placed to our credit.
II. The relations which Christians by receiving this sacrament assume towards Christ.
1. They confess their need of Christ. At the Holy Table supply and demand meet. Christ proffering and the disciple needing forgiveness, and all the attendant blessings purchased by His blood.
2. They confess their personal faith in Christ. At the Lord’s Table disciples individually appropriate Christ’s work to themselves. By receiving Christ they gain inward strengthening.
3. They consecrate themselves to Christ. Eating at His Table, they proclaim themselves His friends, and consent to His claims as their Saviour and Lord. Christ there enters into covenant with them, and they with Him.
III. The relations into which by this sacrament Christians are brought toward each other.
1. Brotherhood. The bond which unites disciples to the Master links them to each other.
2. Love. Ill-will is banished by the very desire to sit with Christ at this feast, and in its warm and sacred atmosphere animosities can no more exist than an iceberg in the gulf stream. (P. B. Davis.)
Holy Communion
Picture the scene: our Lord’s last night on earth-He fully aware of it-the Paschal supper, commemorative (through fifteen centuries) of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt-our Lord surrounded by twelve persons, one of whom He knew to be His betrayer, and who went out from this meal to execute his purpose-our Lord full of thoughts, not for Himself, but for them, and in this instance leaving them something to do for Him when He was gone. Holy Communion is-
I. The commemoration of the death of Christ and of all contained and implied in that death (1 Corinthians 11:26). In that act of worship we express our faith in
(1) the fact,
(2) the intention,
(3) the efficacy of the death (as the completion of the earthly life, and as the prelude to the resurrection life) of Christ, very God and very man.
II. A token of the manner in which alone our spiritual life is maintained. The bread and wine are not merely gazed upon, but eaten and drunk; and that in church, as a religious act. This would be, not merely unprofitable, but irreverent also, if there were not a deep meaning in it. The key is John 6:1-71, which expresses in words the same truth the sacrament expresses in act. If we are to have life through Christ, it must be, not merely by hearing of Him, or contemplating Him as an external object, but by receiving Him into heart and soul as by a process of spiritual digestion.
III. The chief opportunity of so exercising and maintaining the spiritual life (1 Corinthians 10:16; Matthew 26:26-28). Application
1. Form a high estimate of this ordinance, It is what we make it; great or small, according as we seek and expect much or little from it.
2. But let your high estimate be a spiritual estimate. Reverence, not superstition. “Feed on Him, in thy heart, by faith.”
3. Realize Christ’s presence.
4. Make due preparation.
5. Beware of delay in becoming a communicant.
6. Beware of coming once or twice and then ceasing.
7. Beware of becoming familiar with the sign and not with the thing signified. (Dean Vaughan.)
Importance of the Holy Communion
When we consider the acts of Christ on this eventful night, we are led to see how vast is the importance given to the Holy Communion. He puts it in juxtaposition with the Paschal supper. As an Israelite ceased to be of Israel-became an alien and outcast from the House of God, forfeited the grace of God and his inheritance in God-if he did not keep the Passover and partake of the Lamb; so He would have us learn that, in like manner, unless Christians partake of the Lamb of God in His New Institution, they are not members of Him, they cut themselves off as dead branches from a vine, they lose His grace, they are no more members of His Kingdom. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)
The Holy Communion a support to the weak
It is just because you are a sinner that you need the help which God gives through the Eucharist. You know your own weakness; you tell me you are afraid of the sin of yielding to temptation after having communicated. Yes; but is it not almost certain that if you do not communicate you will yield? while, if you will only come in simple faith and trust, looking for God’s blessing, it is through the Holy Sacrament that God will give the grace and strength which will enable you to resist the temptation and come off victor in the fight. There was a labouring man some time since in one of our northern towns, who, owing to some mistake, had been misinformed as to the hour of service. He came when the Celebration of the Holy Communion was just over, and when they came out of Church they found him waiting sadly outside. The clergyman explained how the mistake had arisen, and expressed his sorrow for it. “Never mind, master,” said the man; but the poor fellow could not help adding, “only I did so build upon it.” He knew his own weakness, and his need of Divine grace and supernatural assistance; and so he was coming, not as if there was any virtue in the bare act of coming, not as if the Sacrament itself could save him, but because he had grasped the great truth that it is through the Sacrament that God imparts grace, and strength, and life to us His children, unworthy as we are of the least of His benefits. (Prebendary Gibson, M. A.)
Value of the Holy Communion
In times of persecution men would risk their lives to get their Communions. A hundred years ago, during the French Revolution, when religion was abolished by the French Parliament, when Sunday was done away with, the clergy were hunted into the thickets like beasts of prey, and none might conduct or attend a service on pain of death, did people go without this means of grace? No! From time to time a messenger hurried with a mysterious watchword from house to house; “the black swamp,” he would mutter, and pass on without greeting or farewell. But the persons addressed understood him. Shortly after midnight, men and women, dressed in dark clothes, would meet silently by the black swamp below the village, and there, by the light of a carefully-guarded lantern, one of the homeless priests would give the Body and Blood of the Lord to the faithful of the neighbourhood. They all knew that at any moment, before the alarm could be given, the soldiers might be upon them, and a volley of grape-shot might stretch them bleeding and dying on the ground. What matter? man might kill their body, but Jesus had said that He would raise them up at the last day. (M. A. Lewis.)
The new testament.
Testament or Covenant
The word is thirteen times translated “testament” in the A.V., and twenty times “covenant.” Its Hebrew equivalent properly means “covenant.” But its classical import is “latter will” or “testament.” Neither of the translations does full justice to the unique transaction referred to. Indeed no human word could. And to have used a Divine word would simply have been to speak an unintelligibility. The reference is to that arrangement or disposition of things, in virtue of which mercy, and the possibility of true and everlasting bliss, are extended to the sinful human race. It was a glorious device, culminating in the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
1. It was a covenant, inasmuch as there is, inherent in it, an element of reciprocity. God, on His part, does something. He does much, But the blessing involved in what He does is suspended, so far as men’s enjoyment of it is concerned, on acquiescence on their part, or cordial acceptance, or faith.
2. It is also of the nature of a testamentary deed. For there is involved in it a disposition or disposal of the effects or goods which constitute the property of God; in virtue of which disposition it is that men, who acquiesce or believe, become His “heirs.” The deed is a real testament, for it is duly and solemnly attested and testified.
3. And it is also really a last will, for it is a final expression of the will and wish of God. (J. Morison, D. D.)
The sacraments as symbols
The Magna Charta of British history is not a more forcible witness to our national love of liberty, and our need of it as a condition of progress, than are these institutions to the universal needs of redeemed men. Ordinances that have persisted through innumerable and violent changes, and reasserted themselves in the face of gigantic efforts to suppress them, offer the strongest presumption that they are founded on true reason and spiritual necessity: and though they may have only a secondary and never a primary place, yet they are likely to be requisite still for the expression and nourishment of this life of the soul. Man is not all reason and will. He is still ensphered with sense, and dowered with imagination, and the whole of him cannot be fed, developed, and perfected without the beneficent ministry of symbol. Carlyle, no fanatic ritualist, says, with as much truth as beauty, “Would’st thou plant for eternity, then plant into the deep, infinite faculties of man, his fantasy and heart; would’st thou plant for year and day, then plant into his shallow, superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmetical understanding;” and again, speaking in “Sortor Resartus” of “Symbols,” he writes: “Of kin to the so incalculable influences of concealment, and connected with still greater things, is the wondrous agency of symbols. In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation; here, therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. And if both the speech be itself high, and the silence fit and noble, how expressive will their union be! Thus in many a painted device, or simple seal-emblem, the commonest truth stands out to us proclaimed with quite new emphasis.” (Dr. John Clifford.)
The communion service saved
“A poor widow sent me a dollar and thirty-three cents, in silver change, saying that it was all she found in her dead husband’s pocket book, and she wanted to give it to God. I told this to the children and their parents in the Church of the Ascension, in Chicago, and they soon found a way to use this widow’s mite ‘for God.’ They said: ‘We will make a communion service of it.’ So they added to it their gold rings and pieces of jewelry, and pocket pieces of silver, and a lady gave her dead boy’s silver cup, and so they kept on adding pieces of silver and gold till we had enough; and then the artist made us a very beautiful chalice and paten all of silver and gold. Now I must tell you what came of it, and that shall be my second story. When that dreadful fire which destroyed our churches and homes in Chicago was seen approaching our little church, a little girl, seven years old, came with her father to see what they could save. It was four o’clock in the morning, and there was no light except what came from the fire. But little Louisa Enderli found the Communion Service and saved it. She was soon lost from her father, and for four weary miles she made her way among the crowd of people who were hurrying away from the burning district. The wind blew the burning sand and cinders in her eyes, and almost blinded them; but she defended them as best she could with one hand, and clung to her precious treasure with the other, refusing to give it up till she had it in a place of safety. For three days she was lost from her father, she having been sheltered and cared for by a kind German family. When her father at last found her, she threw her arms about his neck, saying, ‘O, papa, I saved the Communion! I saved the Communion!’ But even then she could not give it up till she had placed it safely in the rector’s hand. I think that was an act of Christian heroism worthy of the martyrs who died for their Lord’s sake in the older days.” (Rev. Charles P. Dorset, rector of the Church of the Ascension, Chicago, Illinois.)
The blood of Christ
“The only thing I want,” said a dying bishop of our church, Bishop Hamilton, “is to place my whole confidence more and more perfectly in the precious blood!” (The Fireside Parish Almanack.)
Bloodshedding as an expression of love
A certain Asiatic queen, departing this life, left behind her three accomplished sons, all arrived to years of maturity. The young princes were at strife as to who should pay the highest respect to their royal mother’s memory. To give scope for their generous contentions they agreed to meet at the place of interment, and there present the most honourable gift they knew how to devise, or were able to procure. The eldest came, and exhibited a sumptuous monument, consisting of the richest materials, and ornamented with the most exquisite workmanship. The second ransacked all the beauties of the blooming creation, and offered a garland of such admirable colours and delightful odours as had never been seen before. The youngest appeared, without any pompous preparations, having only a crystal basin in one hand, and a silver bodkin in the other. As soon as he approached he threw open his breast, pierced a vein which lay opposite to his heart, received the blood in the transparent vase, and, with an air of affectionate reverence, placed it on the tomb. The spectators, struck with the sight, gave a shout of general applause, and immediately gave preference to this oblation. If it was reckoned such a singular expression of love to expend a few of those precious drops for the honour of a parent, O how matchless I how ineffable was the love of Jesus in pouring out all his vital blood for the salvation of his enemies! (Student’s Handbook of Scripture Doctrines.)
The heavenly Passover
I. The reality and character of the life beyond death. Christ speaks of it as “the kingdom of God.” This is not the idea of mere existence, but of being in the highest form of organization. The Father-King will pervade all life with His own spirit. The law will be the Father’s rule, which is love.
II. The special form of life in the Father’s kingdom here anticipated. “I will drink it with you new.” This implies-
1. Close and intimate association between the Redeemer and the redeemed.
2. The mutual presence and intercourse of the redeemed.
3. Their sacred employment. The Saviour says He will drink, and they shall drink, the wine of the Pascal feast new in the Father’s kingdom. He had just said: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.” The heavenly festival is a memorial celebration of redeeming love. To the redeemed it will be a cup of grateful love, and of grateful retrospection. (The Preacher’s Monthly.)