In the Old Testament, God made provision for Israel to celebrate the Passover as an annual memorial for her redemption from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 12). In the New Testament, Jesus took the Passover, and turned it into the Lord’s Supper (cf. Matt.26:17-19). What, then, is the meaning of the Lord’s Supper? We can look at this from four angles.
First, it is an expression of thanksgiving – hence the name ‘eucharist’ which is more common in Catholic circles. Jesus gave thanks before He instituted the Supper (Luke 22:19). We have every reason to give thanks to God for what He has done through His Son, Christ Jesus. This is part of what we are doing in participating in the Lord’s Supper. Grace makes us grateful.
Secondly, it is a commemoration of Christ’s death (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor.11:26). Jesus said we are to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of Him. We are to remember what we are so prone to forget – that we are sinners in need of a Saviour, and that Christ has come to be that Saviour, and that apart from Him there is no salvation. We cannot be our own saviours, and in the Lord’s Supper we remember the only Saviour. As John Calvin declared: ‘Here, then, is the peculiar consolation we receive from the Supper, that it directs and conducts us to the cross of Jesus Christ and to his resurrection, in order to assure us that, whatever iniquity there may be in us, the Lord does not cease to regard and accept us as righteous; whatever material of death may be in us, he does not cease to vivify us; whatever the wretchedness we may have, yet he does not cease to fill us with all felicity.’
Thirdly, the Supper is meant to exemplify fellowship (or communion) with Christ and His people, and to demonstrate unity in Him (1 Cor.10:16-17). Apart from exceptions, such as home communion for those who are physically unable to meet with the wider body of the church, the Lord’s Supper is meant to be celebrated with others. It exemplifies the truth that ‘we who are many are one body’ in fellowship with our Saviour and His people.
Fourthly and most vitally, it is a proclamation of the gospel. Paul asserts that ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes’ (1 Cor.11:26). It does what preaching is meant to do: it preaches the death of one who is the Lord and who, alive again, will come a second time to usher in His final victory. Thomas Watson wrote: ‘A sacrament if a visible sermon. And herein the sacrament excels the Word preached. The Word is a trumpet to proclaim Christ, the sacrament is a glass to represent him.’
We come to the Supper because the Lord has first come to us. We earn nothing from it, but acknowledge that all is a result of grace. It showed a sad misunderstanding of the Supper, for example, for King Henry VII of England (1485-1509) to provide that no fewer than 10,000 masses be said for the repose of his soul. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, went further – he left provision for 30,000 masses to be said for his soul. Indeed, Martin Luther’s prince, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, even while he was alive, had 83 priests say almost 10,000 masses for him during 1520.
Because of our weaknesses, Christ has left us the Supper to proclaim the same gospel in a more tactile way to us:
Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face; Here would I touch and handle things unseen, Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace, And all my weariness upon Thee lean (Horatius Bonar).
The Supper is designed to fill our hearts with thanksgiving; to help us to remember Christ crucified and risen; and to confirm our fellowship with Christ and His blood-bought people. Hence it ought to be to us what John Chrysostom has called ‘the feast of the cross’, and hence what Gordon Keddie has called ‘a celebration of grace’.
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes