Christ Remembered at his Table

We have come together in this one place, Christian brethren, for the purpose of celebrating a very simple yet instructive and impressive ceremony, which has been appointed to us by Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.  “This do, said he, in remembrance of me.”  To eat of this bread, and to drink of this cup, is that which he requires us to do.  But we are directed to do it, not as if it were a common meal, nor to satisfy hunger and thirst, for “we have houses in which to eat and to drink,” but as a memorial of Him by whom it was ordained.  “This do, in remembrance of me.”

What is it then that we are now to remember respecting Christ?  We are, no doubt, to remember what he is personally, as possessing in himself a divine and human nature; as being at once the Son of God and the Son of man—“the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”  But, in connection with this sacred supper, we are more especially to remember his death.  That one event is selected out of the many and marvellous circumstances which distinguished his wonderful history, as the only event which is to be celebrated by a religious ceremony.  Though he triumphed over Satan, when he was tempted in the wilderness; though he wrought superhuman and divine miracles, by which he healed the sick and raised the dead; and though he was transfigured on the holy mount, when his face shone as the sun, and his raiment became white and glistering, and Moses and Elias appeared to him in glory; yet none of these circumstances, splendid and important as they were, are selected for commemoration at this supper.  It is his death, his death by the shedding of his blood, which he has required his church perpetually to celebrate.  This bread denotes his body which was broken, and this wine denotes his blood which was shed.

There must therefore be a peculiar degree of importance connected with his death which does not belong to any event of his previous life.  And this importance is attached, by the scriptures, not merely to the mode of his death, or to the degree of suffering which he endured in dying, agonizing and mysterious as his sufferings were, but more especially to the state of mind with which he suffered, and to the moral purposes which his sufferings were intended to accomplish.  His body was broken, but it was broken “for you.”  His blood was shed, but it was “the blood of the New Covenant,” “the blood that was shed for many, for the remission of sins.”  His death is to be remembered therefore, not only as a fact, but as a doctrine founded on the fact.  He died, but he died for our sins; he died, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God.

And in thus remembering his death, we are to connect it with his divine as well as with his human nature.  The scriptures ascribe the sacrificial and saving efficacy of his death principally to the peculiar dignity of his person; and the language in which they teach this doctrine is remarkably emphatic.  It is “the blood of Jesus Christ HIS SON that cleanseth us from all sin;” “WHO, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, BY HIMSELF purged our sins;” and “WHO HIS OWN SELF bare our sins in HIS OWN BODY on the tree.”  Now while these and similar passages by no means teach that the divine nature of Christ suffered and died—a doctrine as contrary to scripture as it is to reason—yet they do teach that he was competent to be a Saviour because he was the Son of God, and that because such a person as he gave himself for us, his sacrificial blood is an availing “propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

These, brethren, are some of the particulars respecting Christ which we are to remember while we eat of this bread and drink of this cup.  It is therefore a service intended for both bodily and mental exercise, because both the body and the soul are interested in the redemption which it celebrates.  As, however, it is especially intended for the mind, while we are doing this, the thoughts of our hearts should be actively and devoutly directed to Christ, that we may discern the Lord’s body, and that we may contemplate the things signified, as well as the signs.  But as our minds are naturally affected in accordance with the objects which are perceived by our senses and contemplated by our thoughts, we should now remember Christ in order to excite and strengthen in our hearts those emotions and principles which a devout consideration of his sacrificial death is calculated to produce.  “Mine eye,” says Jeremiah, “affecteth my heart.”  Attention to an object awakens corresponding feelings.  Minding the things of the Spirit is, by the agency of that Spirit, productive of spiritual-mindedness; and, in harmony with the same divine rule, a thoughtful and believing remembrance of Christ is rendered, by the Spirit of God, productive of such sentiments and feelings as his person, and grace, and dying love, are intended and adapted to awaken, and which are so peculiarly appropriate to this solemnity.  These remarks may therefore be illustrated by the following particulars, for the purpose of shewing the influence which may be produced by an attentive and devout remembrance of Christ.

1.  In the first place, such a remembrance of Christ will encourage our approach to him as sinners.  This indeed is the only character in which we can approach him.  We cannot go with any degree of previous preparation or of personal merit.  If we go to him at all, we must carry with us our burden of sin and unworthiness.  Now, the remembrance of Christ who died for sinners, will greatly encourage us to do this, for we are told that the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost; that he approved the prayer of the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” that he promptly received the weeping penitent whom the self-righteous Pharisee rejected, and said to her “Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee;” that he threw his arms around the neck of the returning prodigal, and said, “This my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found!” and that his constant and constraining invitation is, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Now this invitation, combined with these remembrances, is a special and powerful encouragement to go to Christ, because it gives us authority and right to go.  It is not a sense of need, nor an earnest desire, nor hungering and thirsting for the righteousness which the gospel feast provides, that gives us primary authority to sit down with the guests, however much these feelings may dispose us to go; but it is his own invitation which, as Master of the feast, he addresses to the perishing and the lost.  That is our authority, and with that in our hand, we may go “boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

2.  Remembrance of Christ will excite and strengthen our penitential feelings.  Remembrance and reflection are the means of producing conviction and contrition, especially if we remember Christ as well as our own sins.  David says, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet to thy commandments.”  And reflection produced a similar effect upon Peter, after his denial of the Lord; for, “when he thought thereon, he wept.”  On this same principle it is written, “They shall look on him whom they have pierced and mourn;” so that repentance, evangelical repentance, the repentance which includes a change of heart and conduct, is derived not so much from looking at the broken tables of the law, important as it is to remember them, but from looking at the broken body of the Lord.  We must remember the groans and agonies of Gethsemane, rather than the thunder and earthquake of “the mount that might be touched;” we must look to Jesus rather than to Moses; and our sorrow and mourning for sin must be produced on Calvary rather than on Sinai.

Law and terrors do but harden,
   All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood bought pardon,
   Can dissolve a heart of stone.

3.  Grateful love to Christ will also be produced by this remembrance.  Love to Christ is a principle essential to personal religion, and without it we are nothing.  But our hearts are so constituted that love cannot be excited in them by any commands however authoritative, or by any threatenings however terrible.  We cannot love an object unless we perceive that it is lovely; nor can we love Christ unless we perceive the loveliness of his person and character.  And this perception is derived from reflection and remembrance.  While we are musing the fire begins to burn; and when we remember the great love with which he loved us, when he gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, that love excites and constrains our own, and “we love him because he first loved us.”  When we thus begin by loving him for what he has done for us, we go on to perfection by loving him for what he is, the noblest and the purest love our hearts can cherish.  And as love always assimilates to its object, and blesses the heart which it inspires, so love to Christ conforms us to his character, and becomes a fruitful source of joy and peace.  The Spirit takes of the things which are Christ’s and shews them to us with increased clearness and impressiveness, so that “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory.”

4.  Nor can we thus remember Christ, and thereby feel the constraining influences of his love, without manifesting devout subjection to his authority, and practical conformity to his example.  The great and pervading principle of his mind was evidently a spirit of obedience and submission to his Father’s will.  “I am come,” said he, “not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.”  “My meat is to do his will.”  “Father, not my will but thine be done.”  How perfectly and perseveringly were these sayings exhibited in his daily life; and how precious and powerful does his example become to those who endeavour to have these things always in remembrance.  And shall it not be so with us?  Shall we, his disciples, pursue any course but that which is marked by his footsteps?  Shall we remember Christ and love the world, and comply with temptation, and neglect watchfulness and prayer, and carefully avoid self denial, and follow our own inclinations rather than his commands, and feel ashamed of making a public profession of his gospel?  Oh, no!  Holy Jesus, no!  We would ardently cling to thy cross, but we would also humbly bow beneath thy sceptre.  And while we do this in remembrance of thee, we would thankfully acknowledge that we are not our own; that we have been bought with the price of thy precious blood; and that we are under infinite obligations to glorify thee in our body and our spirit which are thine.

5.  This remembrance of Christ will also promote our love to the brethren.  How affecting and constraining were the manifestations of Christ’s love to his disciples.  He lived for them; he died for them; he bore with their infirmities; he prayed for them that their faith might not fail; he washed their feet, to teach them to wash one another’s feet; and when his soul had begun to be exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, and they were striving which of them should be greatest in that earthly Kingdom which they expected him to establish, he looked mildly on and said, “Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth?  Is not he that sitteth at meat?  But I am among you as one that serveth.”  “While you sit, and strive, and aspire to lofty stations, I am content to stand and wait.”  “I am come, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give my life a ransom for many.”  Brethren, was this in any degree the spirit of the world?  Was not this love that passeth knowledge?  And can we do this in remembrance of such a meek and lowly Jesus, and yet cherish towards any of his disciples a spirit of cold-hearted selfishness and proud sectarianism, which would refuse to recognise them as brethren, or to co-operate with them in promoting the cause of Christ.  Oh no!  Let us rather sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of him; let us love mankind at large, even our enemies, with a benevolent desire to do them good; but let us love the brethren because they are brethren and because “Christ hath loved them and given himself for them.”  And let our love to them include forbearance and longsuffering in reference to their infirmities, a cordial recognition of their as well as our spiritual relationship to Christ, an affectionate sympathy with them in all their difficulties and tribulations, and a fraternal communion and co-operation with them in all their works of faith and labours of love.

6.  Such remembrance of Christ will bring us, even now, into a state of harmony with heaven.  Heaven is that “upper room” in the new Jerusalem where Christ sits down at his table with his disciples; where he partakes with them of the new wine of his kingdom; and where all that is signified and shadowed by this earthly supper is “fulfilled.”  When therefore we thus come together in this one place to remember Christ, by eating of this bread and drinking of this cup, we come also “to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born which are enrolled in heaven, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and even to Jesus himself, the mediator of the new covenant.”  Our spiritual circumstances, though in many respects very inferior to theirs, are nevertheless the same in kind.  “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.”  All things which are in heaven and which are on earth, are gathered together in one by Christ, even in him.  We and they therefore are one church; one whole family in heaven and earth; one communion of saints, partakers of the same blessed privileges, and cherishing a devout remembrance of the same Lord.  Our justification is as complete as theirs; our holiness is derived from the same source, and assimilates to the same image; our joy, as well as theirs, is “unspeakable and full of glory.”  Thus the pure river of water of life, which flows from the throne of God and the Lamb, pours down its clear and crystal streams to make glad this earthly city of our God.  Thus the Tree of life, which grows in the midst of the Paradise of God, bends its fruitful branches down to earth, that we may sit under its shadow with great delight, and find its fruit sweet unto our taste.  And thus

The men of grace have found
   Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground,
   From faith and hope may grow.

Finally.  Our remembrance of Christ will be the means of preparing us for his coming.  We are directed to do this “till he come.”  He has been once, and his first advent is the pledge of a second.  He will come to all mankind at the last day; and till that day arrives, his church is continually to shew forth his death.  The Lord’s supper is therefore designed to be prospective as well as retrospective.  It is a chain which connects together the two advents, and requires us to remember not only the cross on which he suffered, but also the throne which he will occupy, when he comes “the second time without sin unto salvation.”  He will also come to us individually at death.  “I go,” said he, “to prepare a place for you, and I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”  He will not send for us; he will come himself.  And when he appears, his presence will deprive death of its darkness; only a faint “shadow” will be thrown across “the valley” through which we shall have to walk; only a shadow; the shadow of a sword which cannot pierce, and the shadow of a serpent which cannot sting; and a shadow through which we shall walk till we reach the sunshine of everlasting light.  The brightest object amidst that light is Christ: and when we behold him, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  His presence is heaven; the highest, the holiest, and the happiest heaven that we can desire or enjoy.  “Then shall we be satisfied when we awake in his likeness; for in his presence is fulness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore.”  “Amen, even so, come Lord Jesus.”