The Remembrance of the Lord: July 2005
Table of Contents
Thoughts on the Lord’s Supper
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
I desire to offer a few brief remarks on the subject of the Lord’s Supper, for the purpose of stirring up the minds of all who love the name of Christ to a more fervent and affectionate interest in this most important and refreshing ordinance.
We should bless the Lord for His gracious consideration of our need in having established such a memorial of His dying love and also in having spread a table at which all His members might present themselves, without any other condition than the indispensable one of personal connection with Him. The blessed Master knew well the tendency of our hearts to slip away from Him, and from each other, and to meet this tendency was one, at least, of His objects in the institution of the Supper. He would gather His people around His own blessed Person—He would spread a table for them where, in view of His broken body and shed blood, they might remember Him and the intensity of His love for them, and from whence, also, they might look forward into the future and contemplate the glory of which the cross is the everlasting foundation. There, if anywhere, they would learn to forget their differences and to love one another — there, they might see around them those whom the love of God had invited to the feast and whom the blood of Christ had made fit to be there.
Thanksgiving, Not Mourning
The Supper is, purely and distinctly, a feast of thanksgiving — thanksgiving for grace already received. The Lord Himself, at the institution of it, marks its character by giving thanks, for “He took bread, and gave thanks.”
Praise, and not prayer, is the suited utterance of those who sit at the table of the Lord. True, we have much to pray for — much to confess — much to mourn over — but the table is not the place for mourners; its language is, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” Ours is “a cup of blessing” — a cup of thanksgiving — the divinely appointed symbol of that precious blood which has procured our ransom. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” How, then, could we break it with sad hearts or sorrowful countenances? Could a family circle, after the toils of the day, sit down to supper with sighs and gloomy looks? Surely not. The supper was the great family meal — the only one that was sure to bring all the family together. Just so should it be at the Lord’s Supper. The family should assemble there, and, when assembled, they should be happy — unfeignedly happy, in the love that brings them together. True, each heart may have its own peculiar history — its secret sorrows, trials, failures and temptations, unknown to all around, but these are not the objects to be contemplated at the supper. To bring them into view is to dishonor the Lord of the feast and make the cup of blessing a cup of sorrow. The Lord has invited us to the feast and commanded us, notwithstanding all our shortcomings, to place the fullness of His love and the cleansing efficacy of His blood between our souls and everything, and when the eye of faith is filled with Christ, there is no room for aught beside.
If ever a feeling of sadness could have prevailed at the celebration of this ordinance, surely it would have been on the occasion of its first institution. Yet, the Lord Jesus could “give thanks“ — the tide of joy that flowed through His soul was far too deep to be ruffled by surrounding circumstances; He had a joy, even in the breaking and bruising of His body and in the pouring forth of His blood, which lay far beyond the reach of human thought and feeling. And if he could rejoice in spirit and give thanks in breaking that bread, which was to be to all future generations of the faithful the memorial of His broken body, should not we rejoice therein — we who stand in the blessed results of all His toil and passion? Yes; it becomes us to rejoice.
Preparation for the Supper
But, it may be asked, Is preparation necessary? Surely we need preparation, but it is the preparation of God, and not our own preparation. It is the preparation which suits the presence of God, which is certainly not the result of human sighs or tears, but the simple result of the finished work of the Lamb of God affirmed to be true by the Spirit of God. Apprehending this by faith, we apprehend that which makes us perfectly fit for God. The blood of the Lamb has put away every obstacle to our fellowship with God, and, in proof of this, the Holy Spirit has come down to baptize believers into the unity of the body and gather them around the risen and glorified Head. The wine is the memorial of a life shed out for sin; the bread is the memorial of a body broken for sin, but we are not gathered around a life poured out, nor around a body broken, but around a living Christ, who dies no more, who cannot have His body broken anymore or His blood shed anymore.
“The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.” It is an act whereby we not only show forth the death of the Lord until He comes, but whereby we also give expression to a fundamental truth: that all believers are “one bread and one body.” It is the Lord’s death and the Lord’s coming that are brought prominently before our souls in the Lord’s Supper.
The Solemn Circumstances
The circumstances under which the Lord’s Supper was instituted were particularly solemn and touching. The Lord was about to enter into dreadful conflict with all the powers of darkness — to meet all the deadly enmity of man, and to drain to the dregs the cup of Jehovah’s righteous wrath against sin. He had a terrible morrow before Him — the most terrible that had ever been encountered by man or angel. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we read that on “the same night in which He was betrayed, [He] took bread.” What unselfish love is here! “The same night” — the night of profound sorrow — the night of His agony and bloody sweat — the night of His betrayal by one, His denial by another, and His desertion by all of His disciples — on that very night, the loving heart of Jesus was full of thoughts about His church — on that very night, He instituted the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. He appointed the bread to be the emblem of His broken body and the wine to be the emblem of His shed blood, and such they are to us now, as often as we partake of them, for the Word assures us that “as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.”
As the cup of Jehovah’s righteous wrath against sin, of which He was about to be the bearer, was being filled for Him, he could, nevertheless, busy Himself about us and institute a feast which was to be the expression of our connection with Him and with all the members of His body.
At the precious and most refreshing institution of the Lord’s Supper we find the bread broken and the wine poured out — the significant symbols of a body broken and of blood shed. The wine is not in the bread, because the blood is not in the body, for, if it were, there would be “no remission.” In a word, the Lord’s Supper is the distinct memorial of an eternally accomplished sacrifice. None can communicate thereat with intelligence and power, save those who know the full remission of sins. It is not that we would, by any means, make the knowledge of forgiveness a term of communion, for very many of the children of God, through bad teaching and various other causes, do not know the perfect remission of sins. Were they to be excluded on that ground, it would be making knowledge a term of communion, instead of life and obedience. Still, if I do not know, experimentally, that redemption is an accomplished fact, I shall see but little meaning in the symbols of bread and wine. Moreover, I shall be in great danger of attaching an efficacy to the memorials themselves that belongs only to the great reality to which they point.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted from
Thoughts on the Lord’s Supper
With Longing Hearts
If a child delights to do its parent’s will, simply because it has discovered its parent’s pleasure, much more surely, in the true spirit of sonship, shall we delight in pleasing Him on the first day of the week. And loving Him because He has so loved us, we shall with longing hearts desire to do the will of Him who has thus saved us by His grace.
C. Stanley, from The Lord’s Day
The Remembrance of the Lord
In remembering the Lord as He has asked us to do, we fulfill our Lord’s specific request, “This do in remembrance of Me.” Our Lord desires that we remember Him in His death by partaking of His Supper at His table, and it is our common privilege to do this on His day. In this issue we focus on this remembrance.
When we preach the gospel, we serve Him. When we partake of His Supper, we do it just unto Himself in fulfillment of His personal desire, and this makes it the greatest privilege we have on earth. In heaven in Revelation 5 we will continue our remembrance of Him — “in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as slain.” Our remembrance of Him now in His death is a foretaste of our occupation with Him “in the midst” as the Lamb freshly slain. Himself and His work by His death will be the central theme of our hearts throughout eternity.
May the occupation of our hearts and consciences with this remembrance in this issue stir our souls to give this collective activity the priority and esteem that He deserves. May we come before Him with our hearts full and our “alabaster boxes” full of precious ointment to pour upon Him with its sweet fragrance ascending to God for His pleasure.
“This Do in Remembrance of Me”
The Highest Privilege on Earth
The remembrance of the Lord is the highest privilege of the believer on earth. The One who gave up everything so that the Father’s will might be done, that the matter of sin might be settled, and that we might be brought into blessing has asked us to remember Him. Surely this precious remembrance should produce the deepest affection in our hearts and draw them out in worship. It is really a foretaste of heaven, for Christ — all that He is and all that He has done — will be our occupation up there for all eternity. God in His grace has given us the privilege of experiencing something of that joy down here.
In considering this wonderful privilege, there are elements that should not be part of it, and there are things that should be before our hearts. Let us look first at some things that should not be connected with the remembrance of the Lord.
Coming to Give
First of all, we must remember that it is not a meeting where we come to receive. Rather, it is our privilege to come and give. This is brought out typically in John 12:2, where it says, “There they made Him a supper.” While this, no doubt, refers to an actual meal, the passage is a type of the supper which we make for the Lord when we remember Him. If we come expecting to receive, we will be disappointed, for we are missing the real privilege of the meeting. At other meetings, such as a prayer meeting, an open meeting, or a reading meeting, we may come expecting to receive, and rightfully so. God feeds His people through those whom He has provided and in the power of the Spirit of God. But the Lord Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). In grace He has given us the better part and allowed us the privilege of coming together to give.
Of course, we have to say, like David of old, “All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee” (1 Chron. 29:14). It is the Spirit that leads out our hearts in thanksgiving, praise and worship, and only in true waiting upon Him can we give properly. Then, in coming together expecting to give, we will receive. We will find that, as “the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12:3), so our hearts will be filled with Christ and we will be encouraged.
From what we have just said, it is evident that the remembrance meeting is not a place for exercise of gift. Gifts are for edification, exhortation and comfort, but they have no place in worship. The enjoyment and appreciation of Christ transcends gift and brings every saint into the place of a worshipper.
It Is Himself, Not Our Blessings
It is also a meeting where we should not be occupied with our own blessings. No doubt the blessed results of Christ’s work for us will come to mind and will draw out our thanksgiving and praise. The greater our appreciation and enjoyment of these blessings, the more our hearts will be filled with praise and worship. However, our thoughts and hearts should be directed to Him who has brought us these blessings, not to the blessings themselves.
Likewise, we do not come together to pray in the sense of bringing needs before the Lord. This is properly the character of a prayer meeting, where we come “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” to let our “requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6). In the remembrance of the Lord, our own needs should be forgotten, as we have our thoughts and hearts focused on Him.
Human effort should have no place in the remembrance meeting. The outflow of thanksgiving, praise and worship must be in the power of the Spirit, and if the Spirit is free to lead and guide, there will be that energy of praise and harmony of thought and expression that is fitting. When the power of the Spirit is not felt, there is tendency for human energy to try and take its place. This results in man-made services which may appeal to the natural heart, but which do not result in that which is pleasing to God. We should never come together with a sense of duty, for the result will then be that we will go away self-satisfied, supposedly having done our duty. One old brother, long since with the Lord, once remarked, “May the precious remembrance of the Lord never become religious ritual, but may it ever be fresh in our minds!” Let us remember that God is not seeking worship, but He does seek worshippers (John 4:23).
Collective Worship
In the same way, thoughts peculiar to one’s self should not be presented, for when one takes part, he does so as the mouthpiece of the assembly. Thus, what is expressed should be what can be appreciated and approved of by the assembly of worshippers. Worship in Scripture is recognized as being collective, and thus one individual should not force that which only he can enjoy.
Finally, true worship cannot be rendered if the Spirit of God is grieved. This is a very delicate thing which cannot always be defined, but can certainly be felt. Many of us can remember occasions when we came together, expecting the Spirit to lead out our hearts in worship, only to find that there was an evident and felt lack of the Spirit’s liberty to do so. If sin on our conscience has not been judged before the Lord, or if sin in another is present, it is sufficient to stifle the Spirit’s liberty, for the Spirit must occupy us with the sin until we confess it. The Spirit’s liberty may be curtailed by serious acts of sin, but it may also be affected by evil thoughts, personal feelings against others, worldliness, a careless attitude, and many other things. May we be sensitive to the presence of the One who is in our midst, and whose love and grace deserve the very best from us!
Remembering Him in His Death
On the positive side, it is a meeting where we come to remember Him, and remember Him in His death. The Passover brought sins to remembrance, but now that we have “no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:2), we can remember Him who took all those sins away. He knew how easily we would forget Him, becoming occupied with our blessings instead of the One who brought them to us. More than this, He knew how easily we would be taken up with His power manifested in us. During our Lord’s earthly ministry when the seventy returned from their mission, they came with joy, exclaiming, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name” (Luke 10:17). While the Lord appreciated and shared in this joy, He gently reminds them that they should “rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Even to enjoy His power used through us is not as high a theme as the One who has brought us there. The remembrance of Himself focuses on what He has done, not on what we might have done, even in His power.
Let us always remember that when we come together to remember Him, it is to meet Him. The presence of our brethren, the joy of singing and praising together, the pleasure of enjoying “the odor of the ointment” — all may contribute to our appreciation of the occasion. But let us remember that it is He who is there in our midst, and that He is the One whom we come to meet!
In this connection, let us also remember that He desires and values the remembrance far more than we. On the night the remembrance was instituted, He could say, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). Prophetically He could say concerning His sufferings, “My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me” (Lam. 3:20). His appreciation and remembrance of His sufferings are always perfect, and far exceed ours. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He could say to His disciples, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me” (Matt. 26:38). As with the disciples, so we are often found asleep as to what He went through. He could say, “I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop” (Psa. 102:7), but He has asked us to watch with Him.
We remember Him in death, for He is now alive. Had He not risen from the dead, not only could we not remember Him in death, but we would have no Saviour. But because we enjoy communion with a glorified Christ, we can remember His humiliation and death. It is because we are united to a risen Christ that we can look back to Calvary. Our remembrance of loved ones now dead is as they were in life, for as to this world, they are now dead. With our blessed Lord it is different, for since He is now alive, we can remember Him in His death.
“Ye Announce the Death of the Lord”
More than this, Paul says, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until He come” (1 Cor. 11:26 JND). In remembering our Lord in death, we announce that death to the world and bear witness to the fact that He is risen. Then too, it is only until He comes, for in heaven we will not need the loaf and cup as emblems of His suffering and death. Rather, the marks in his body will remind us for all eternity that He suffered for us.
When we come together to answer to our Lord’s request, no preparation is needed, except preparation of heart, and this is perhaps the most difficult. Human energy, as we have said, can have no place, but rather true waiting on the Spirit of God to lead and guide. He will lead according to our appreciation of Christ, adapting that leading to the measure of spiritual maturity and understanding of those present. If any known sin on our conscience has been confessed, then God will meet us where we are, and worship will flow as a result. On the other hand, if our lives throughout the week have been characterized by worldliness and self, our state will show itself in a grieved Spirit and consequent lack of worship.
Praise and Worship
Finally, if we are in a right state before God, all that Christ is to God will come before us. What He is to us draws out our thanksgiving and praise, but what He is to God will bring us to true worship, where we are forgotten in the adoration of that One who, in perfect obedience and submission, not only satisfied, but glorified God in His pathway down here and His work on the cross.
May our hearts value the privilege of remembering our blessed Lord in His death, for it is a privilege we will not have in the same way in heaven! Up there, nothing will hinder the full outflow of praise and worship for all eternity. However, that which is rendered in this world where He was rejected, and thus rendered under adverse circumstances, has a special character that nothing can replace.
W. J. Prost
A Collective Remembrance
There is no such thing in Scripture as an individual taking bread and wine in remembrance of Christ; the doing so would rather be an error to be forgiven. The whole force and blessedness of the Lord’s Supper consists in this, not only that it is essentially an act in common, but that it is based on the truth of the one body of Christ. Being the expression of our common worship of Christ, anything that does not leave full room for every member of His body, walking as such, destroys (as far as it goes) the aim and character of the Lord’s Supper. Not, of course, that even in each city all could eat together in one spot, but, let them eat in ever so many places, it was to be on the same ground and in real intercommunion. The very principle of the Supper embraces all the saints walking as such in the whole world.
W. Kelly, adapted from
The Lord’s Supper
A Letter on Worship
Dear brother,
The subject of worship has been long on my own heart too. I feel strongly about it, but do not know that I can rightly express what I feel. There are meetings which are among my most precious memories, when one could almost see or touch the One present with those gathered to His name. I remember one when the spirit of worship so filled us that hearts were too full to speak, and the emotion beyond physical control.
But how often we leave the room with a sense of disappointment! We have “enjoyed the meeting,” as we say, and it may have been we were edified —yet something was lacking, and that “something” was what we did not render. It is difficult to speak of it, but not to feel and recognize it. As in a bouquet or in fruit, a fragrance or aroma may be wanting, which the eye cannot see, yet all the beauty displayed to the eye cannot make good what is missing.
Now I will give you my thoughts about worship and about the remembrance meeting, which I trust are from His Word. I will leave you to bring to them the delicacy of fragrance — the savor of the four principal spices (Ex. 30:34) that were for God only. We cannot make this composition for ourselves — it is holy for the Lord — but we can make it for Him. The ever-blessed Lord Jesus it surely is, but the incense rises when the priest puts it upon the fire drawn from the brazen altar.
Before we are saved, it is all of self and none of God, but when we are worshippers, it is all of God and nothing of us. When “born again” we get a sense of need, and we ask for what we want, that is, we pray. Then as His mercies abound and we become conscious of His loving recognition and supply of our need, we thank Him for mercies received.
Learning more of our God through the Spirit, we recognize the glories of creation and redemption, of preservation too, and we praise. There is yet another elevation where we are consciously “in the holiest by the blood of Jesus” and before us is God. We bow before Him (the word worship means primarily a prostration, as Matthew 2:11) for what he is in Himself. Self is forgotten so that we do not pray or thank — we adore, we worship. It will be our glad employment in heaven, but here in our weakness we rather aspire to, than attain to it. Our worship here will be mingled with praise, its nearest companion, and often too with remembrances of self — what He has done for us, and so we thank Him also, and lower still with prayer. But, if our thoughts have moved together, we will distinguish one exercise from another.
We come to remember the Lord Jesus, and the symbols used are a reminder of Him. Eating the broken loaf and drinking of the cup show forth His death. Thus the Lord’s Supper is a reminder of our Saviour, of our Lord Jesus, in His death. This is the primary thought of the meeting, and nothing should interfere with or cloud it.
Surely we cannot think of His death without associating with it the purpose and results of it, and these in relation to God, and to us. Can we do better than follow our Lord Himself in Psalm 22 and Psalm 102? He suffers under the hand of God, but He glorifies Him, He praises, and as Leader in the great congregation; the final results are yet to be displayed in His Lordship on the earth and the blessing of its peoples.
We have no pattern given us for the meeting, except as taught generally by Acts 20 and 1 Corinthians 14, so that our spiritual senses must be aroused and alert to do whatever is suitable and orderly for us to do. If we have in mind the purpose of the meeting and are conscious of the unseen Presence and are subject to His Spirit, we will be together at the appointed hour, waiting upon the Lord. The assembly will praise or worship by voicing together in a hymn of praise or worship, or by one voice in audible expression.
The gospel of His grace, unspeakably precious as it is, will not come to mind. The trials of the way, our pilgrimage, will be forgotten. We have no needs, no wants. The heart is filled, is overfilled, as the assembly praises or worships. It may be in silence or in voice — it matters not. There is “one heart, one mind glorifying God.” Jesus is before us — His Person —His death, and our hands are filled with Him. Surely the understanding of one may be greater than another, but it is no question now of how much of Jesus I can hold. I am full, little as I can hold of Him. The older saint — the father who has walked with Him for years and knows Him intimately — is filled. The babe who has just started on his way is also filled. It is Jesus who fills every capacity, be it great or small. Oh, how my heart longs to be in that meeting now!
Can there be a rule, an order of exercise, for such a meeting? Perhaps a hymn, or a voice uttering the worship of the assembly, a portion of His Word that makes us enjoy more the consciousness of His presence — these may or may not precede the solemn performance of the one act that is enjoined. Now we “give thanks,” all of us, as one stands to speak for us. I do not know which one, but if any is gifted, let him hesitate the longest, lest he interfere with the Holy Spirit and His choice of spokesman.
If the Holy Spirit is left free to move the assembly, He will choose that aspect of Jesus that is meet, for we cannot see Him now in all His glories at once. Then all — the hymns, the Scripture, the expression of the assembly’s worship — will be in harmony with the theme He has chosen. No prearrangement is needed — only true waiting upon Him. Likewise, the after-meeting will be in harmony. The word, if any is spoken for edification or exhortation, will not jar upon any heart. It is ever a meeting toward God, and hence is no place either for the exercise of gift or for a long exhortation or sermon.
Likewise, we will not get into a rut of long-continued form or procedure, nor is there any rule in addressing the Father or the Son at the table. Let it be as the Spirit leads. There is but one rule, and that is to be subject to the Spirit. Then all things will be done decently and in order. He will use the one He chooses, God will be worshipped, our Lord Jesus remembered, and the saint will leave the spot as one who has had a foretaste of heaven.
But how rare is such a meeting, for if there be one in it who is not “in tune” to the theme of the Spirit, the harmony is marred, perhaps spoiled. This is especially true if that one takes audible part — gives out a hymn unsuited, or an unsuited portion of Scripture, or prays, since he cannot worship.
Then what will the worshipper do? He must possess His soul in patience, join when he can do so, and when he cannot, abide with God alone.
In the love of Christ to you,
C. H. H. (adapted from a letter
written in November, 1891)
“Come and See”
Jesus says to them, “Come and see.” These words were the answer our Lord gave when two of John’s disciples asked Him, “Master, where dwellest Thou?” (John 1:38). The Apostle John might have been one of the two disciples. Perhaps as an old man, when writing his Gospel, he still remembered even the hour of that meeting with the Lord Jesus —“It was about the tenth hour.”
After these two disciples had heard John the Baptist saying, “Behold the Lamb of God,” they “followed Jesus.” After following Jesus and coming to where He abode, they could have a marvelous time hearing the Lord speaking about His dwelling in the bosom of the Father and of His mission to make the Father known to them.
May we likewise be impressed, when we are gathered by God’s Spirit into His blessed presence. Perhaps we have known of that place for a long time, and go there with others to see the Lord in the midst of the two or three gathered to His name. But let us remember that it is the work of the Spirit of God to bring us there.
Can we witness to others of this work of God with us? The second time we find the words “Come and see” is in the same chapter. Philip says it to Nathanael in answer to his question, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (vs. 46). Should not we give a sincere and enthusiastic witness of “Come and see” to make other saints interested in coming together to see Him! How easily the same spirit creeps in that we find with the disciples when they hindered one casting out demons in the Lord’s name, because he followed not with them (Luke 9:49). How easily we think of ourselves and our position, without the right focus on Him. When we are focused on “us,” the Lord is not all and everything for us, and we have forgotten that all is of grace.
In John 20, we read that the Lord came and stood in the midst and said to them, “Peace be unto you.” And when He had showed unto them His hands and His side, “then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord” (vss. 1920). May that scene resemble the manner of the meeting when we are gathered together on “the first day of the week” to remember Him.
D. Scheepsma
We Would Remember Thee
We would remember Thee, O Lord,
According to Thine own dear Word,
Not for the truth we do believe,
Nor yet for all we do receive
Would we remember Thee.
Not for the part we have in Thee,
Nor yet for all we are to be;
We would remember Thee and prove
The power of Thy redeeming love
To sinners such as we.
We would recall the smallest shame,
The least insult to Thy dear name;
Could we Thine agony forget
The garden and the bloody sweat;
Lord, we remember Thee.
The treacherous kiss — the false arrest,
The trial of unrighteousness,
The Roman Pilate’s weak appeal
To Jewish malice, Roman zeal;
We would remember Thee.
The mocking, Herod’s cruel scorn
Set Thee at naught that fatal morn,
And Pilate yielding to the will
Of base intrigue and crafty skill;
Lord, we remember Thee.
That form by angel hosts adored
Was bared and beaten, Jesus — Lord,
The crown of thorns, the common hall,
The brutal soldiers’ jeering call;
Lord, we remember Thee.
Thy raiment parted to that horde;
They stripped Thee naked, Jesus — Lord,
The mocking robes of royalty,
The bowing head, the bended knee;
We would remember Thee.
But oh! that journey to the cross,
Bowed neath Thy load of grief and loss;
The basest mob Thou didst pass through
Of meanest Roman, lowest Jew;
Lord, we remember Thee.
In agony of pain and thirst
Men did to Thee their very worst;
Those deep, dark hours of agony
God’s holy face was turned from Thee;
We would remember Thee.
The sense of bearing sin for me,
God’s wrath about to fall on Thee,
The loud mysterious awful cry —
“Eli, lama sabachthani”;
Lord, we remember Thee.
The yielding up to God Thy breath,
Tasting for us the pangs of death,
The Roman soldier with the spear
Brought forth the blood and water clear;
Lord, we remember Thee.
Thy sleep of death in Joseph’s tomb
Mid nature’s kindest shade and gloom;
The weeping Mary’s joy to share
The resurrection morning there;
Lord, we remember Thee.
And so we follow to Thy name,
Sharing Thy deep reproach and shame;
Owning that we with Thee have died,
And risen with Thee the glorified;
Lord, we remember Thee.
M. S. Cecil
His Request
“As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Cor. 11:26).
If the Lord had not requested that we remember Him in death according to His own prescribed manner, Christians might still have wished to commemorate His death in some fashion. But if we were left to ourselves to devise a way to do it, there would probably be as many ways or variations as there have been Christians who had such a response kindled in their hearts. Even as it is, with the Lord’s direct and implicit direction in our hands, there are many innovations and inventions added to or taken away from its beautiful and meaningful simplicity—a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, the “fruit of the vine.”
If saints on earth had been left to conjure up some method of remembering Him, some might have set up ways that only the rich could keep — as with Mary, whose precious ointment would cost about a year’s wages for a workman. Most of us could not do such a thing. Caste and society might have entered into it in other cases. But it is blessedly simple and not costly to take a loaf — that which unbroken reminds us of His body now composed of all true believers on earth, Himself the Head in heaven —and thus remember Him in His body given for us in the simple way He ordained. The loaf when broken reminds us of His body, the body prepared for Him, in which He suffered on the accursed tree. We also simply take the cup, that which reminds us of His precious blood that flowed from His wounded side as the cost of our redemption. We sometimes sing:
When blood from a victim must flow,
This Shepherd by pity was led
To stand between us and the foe,
And willingly died in our stead.
In keeping up this remembrance of Himself in this way, we know we are doing that which He would have us do, for He Himself instituted it just before He went to the cross and confirmed it to us by a direct word from heaven through the Apostle Paul, who said, “I have received of the Lord” those very instructions. What a privilege it is to thus remember Him according to His own prescribed manner, knowing that it is most surely according to His mind and will.
“As Often As Ye Eat This Bread”
Then a question arises about when it should be done. The Lord has left the matter open, by saying, “As often as ye eat this bread.” It is not laid down by legal requirements as the Jews under the law were required to keep the Sabbath. Years ago when certain ones were engaged day after day in the examination and careful study of the prophetic scriptures, they broke bread every morning in remembrance of Him in His death. They feared that the study of prophecy might get them away from the personal enjoyment of Christ and His death, although they considered the perusal of the prophetic word very important.
But we have a precedent for doing so each first day of the week, given by divine inspiration. In Acts 20 we read, “Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread.” What a fitting time to remember Him — the day on which He who lay in death came forth in triumphant power. But for many saints, once in three months, for others, once in a year, will suffice. In that case, we would almost need to read that verse thus: “As seldom as ye eat this bread.”
It would be a poor response to such great love to be satisfied to do it on rare occasions, and what is so calculated to warm our own hearts and keep us fresh in the enjoyment of what He accomplished as the weekly observance of this remembrance of Himself in His death? Surely our poor hearts need to have Him thus brought often to mind.
Till He Come
And how long did the Lord intend that this commemoration service should be kept up? The answer is precise: “Till He come.” Right up to the very time of His coming to take the church to Himself, this feast is to be observed. Now as the end is at hand, and the moment of His coming for His own may take place at any moment, how important it is that each Lord’s Day, unless unavoidably detained (in which case He knows all about it), we respond to His own blessed request, “This do, in remembrance of Me.” What a privilege it would be to remember Him, as it is written, the last Lord’s Day before His coming! Some will do it; may none of us be willing to let anything else take precedence over that one thing which He has asked us to do.
Some people, even real Christians, may account it “waste” to spend the time on a Lord’s Day to go aside from the world and remember Him in death. The disciples called Mary’s action, in breaking that alabaster box of costly ointment and using the contents on Him, “waste,” but He approved of her devotion. Do we wish His approval?
In the days of Malachi the prophet, things were at a very low ebb. The Jewish remnant that had returned from captivity in Babylon in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah had grown cold, and they even said to God, “Wherein hast Thou loved us?” They called the proud happy and set up tempters of God as examples to follow. In such a condition, there was a feeble remnant who thought upon the Lord and called upon His name. Whatever the rest of the Jews thought of them, they had His approval. He, as it were, stooped to listen to their conversation as they spoke of Him, and He caused a special book of remembrance to be written of them. No special book of remembrance was written for godly Jews in the days of Solomon when it was comparatively easy to be a godly Jew. We are now living in days comparable to those in which Malachi prophesied; may we then take courage from God’s word of encouragement written at that time.
P. Wilson