The Lord’s Supper reveals that Jesus takes the worst we are able to do and makes it an indication of one of the best he does for us. Inside hours of that meal within the higher room, Jesus’s physique would certainly be given and his blood poured out. This dreadful tragedy completed our superb salvation.
From the start, the early church recalled and reenacted these moments in gathered worship. Simply twenty years after Jesus’s demise, Paul handed alongside what he had obtained as widespread understanding: “As typically as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s demise till he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). In Communion, we enter each the ability and the proclamation of Jesus’s saving demise. That participation needs to be thrilling.
Contentious Meal
Generally, nevertheless, we get all tousled in regards to the Lord’s Supper. We are able to so simply miss the purpose of this follow Jesus gave to his folks. The joyful expression of our union with Christ and each other turns into heavy with contentious questions.
For instance, we puzzle over what occurs to the components. Jesus stated, “That is my physique” (Matthew 26:26; 1 Corinthians 11:24). We surprise how actually he meant it. We additionally stress over who might take part. Some ministers in my custom appear to take extra time speaking about who might not partake than truly inviting believers into the life-giving thriller of the meal.
Then there are all of the logistical points. We fear whether or not the bread should be unleavened as within the Passover. Some insist the wine should be fermented, whereas others are adamant that grape juice will do. Widespread cup, particular person cups, or intinction (dipping the bread within the cup)? Come ahead or go out?
And except we’re from a long-established liturgical custom, we talk about frequency. Quarterly, month-to-month, weekly? Virtually talking, Communion takes away time from singing and preaching, so it might really feel like a nuisance. Others fear that if we have a good time the Supper too typically, it’s going to develop into rote.
This cascade of questions can suck the enjoyment out of this valuable sacrament Jesus gave us. However maybe if we dig beneath these encrusting controversies, we’d as soon as once more attain the dwelling coronary heart of Communion. It’s actually not that far-off. We simply return to that momentous night time. We contemplate how Jesus attracts humanity at its worst into the triune God at his redemptive greatest.
His Greatest in Our Worst
Jesus provides them the bread with the phrases, “That is my physique” (Matthew 26:26). Then he shares with them the third cup of the Passover: “That is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for a lot of for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). The traditional symbols of bread and wine obtained new, deeper that means in these moments. Jesus dared to make the sacred Passover meal discover its true success in himself. The Lamb of God pledged himself to a brand new covenant that might be sealed in his blood. On the meal, Jesus supplied himself to them — simply minutes earlier than the arrest that might result in his trial and torture and demise.
Jesus warns them that this night time will convey them the disgrace of failing him. However within the glow of the meal, the disciples really feel courageous. “Peter stated to him, ‘Even when I have to die with you, I can’t deny you!’ And all of the disciples stated the identical” (Matthew 26:35). But minutes later, when Jesus asks three of them to maintain watch whereas he prays in his agony, he returns to seek out them sleeping. “So, might you not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).
“The Lord’s Supper reveals that Jesus takes the worst we are able to do and makes it an indication of one of the best he does for us.”
Quickly, Judas arrives with the troopers. “Now the betrayer had given them an indication, saying, ‘The one I’ll kiss is the person; seize him’” (Matthew 26:48). Moments earlier than, those self same traitorous lips had tasted the bread given by Jesus’s personal hand. With that very same mouth, he marks Jesus for demise.
Earlier than the mob, the bravado of Christ’s closest pals fades to concern. “Then all of the disciples left him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). Even Peter would proclaim with an oath, “I have no idea the person” (Matthew 26:74).
Jesus pledged himself in covenant as he gave them bread and wine. However the disciples’ keen participation within the second solely highlighted their weak point to come back. Bread and wine would without end remind them of how they failed their Lord that night time. They had been unable to cease his physique being seized and his blood being let.
And but. One can’t steal what’s already freely given. One can’t acquire victory over one other who has already submitted. The troopers might have seized Jesus, however he had already given his will to the Father. Pilate might have condemned him, however Jesus had already submitted to the triune plan to defeat demise by demise. The disciples had been by no means actually the reason for something. These tokens of struggling, betrayal, failure, and demise would develop into eternal indicators of sovereign love. That is the center of Communion.
Fantastic Change
Close to the start of his good clarification of the Lord’s Supper, John Calvin connects this sacrament with the center of God’s reward to us in Jesus. He likens what Jesus underwent to a wonderful commerce during which we’re stunned beneficiaries.
That is the great trade which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that changing into Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has ready an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking up our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weak point, he has strengthened us by his energy; that receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the load of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us together with his righteousness. (Institutes of the Christian Faith, 4.17.2)
Each Lord’s Supper, we come to the buying and selling place. We come carrying our disgrace and guilt like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, dragging the clanking chain of his sins. But on the Desk, Jesus gives to interrupt these chains. He desires to commerce us. He’s able to take our newest cowardly denial, drowsy inattention, outright betrayal, and embarrassing flight into self-protection. He stays probably the most extravagant dealer. No four-year-old buying and selling his leather-based baseball glove for a tattered comedian ebook ever made a seemingly worse deal than Jesus. For out of the grace hoard of his full atonement, Jesus swaps us.
Commerce on the Desk
Are you able to think about Jesus on the Desk? His eyes welcome you with love. They see all and but beckon you to come back nearer. His smile opens an ocean of compassion. He speaks with startlingly unusual phrases. “Drop that sack of disgrace proper right here. Take a hunk of my ever-renewing Bread of Life. Slide that bitter cup of cussed unforgiveness my method. And choose up my cup. Gulp down the blood that cleanses not solely all you’ve ever finished however all that’s ever been finished to you. Come on — commerce me. That is for you, proper now. Give me your worst. Obtain my greatest. Take me — don’t wait. Let’s make a commerce.”
It’s not solely a matter of sins. We are able to convey all that weighs us down and supply it up. In Communion, Jesus nourishes us with himself, so we are able to obtain any and all phrases he says into our private conditions. We convey our nervousness and hearken to him saying, “My peace I give to you. . . . Let not your hearts be concerned, neither allow them to be afraid” (John 14:27). We convey our tumults and trials and obtain his phrases, “On the earth you’ll have tribulation. However take coronary heart; I’ve overcome the world” (John 16:33).
We convey our sorrows from all of the painful partings. He speaks, “I’m the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, although he die, but shall he stay” (John 11:25). We feature up our despair over the state of the world and place it into his fingers. He provides us the bread and cup with a promise: “Behold, I’m making all issues new” (Revelation 21:5). We convey intractable conditions to the one “who opens and nobody will shut, who shuts and nobody opens” (Revelation 3:7).
Coronary heart of Communion
The center of Communion is Jesus’s taking the worst, hardest, most baffling and defeating from us. He provides us his greatest — his method, reality, and life. For the bread reveals the Son of God who gave himself completely and totally for us. The cup gives the blood shed to remove each sin. The essence of the Lord’s Supper is Jesus providing within the current second all that his incarnate life, demise, resurrection, and ascension have completed.
Paul writes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation within the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation within the physique of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). The thriller is the wondrous trade whereby Jesus retains on receiving us as his personal and giving himself to us totally and redemptively. This places all the opposite questions, as necessary as they might be, of their correct place.
