TO REMEMBER

An invitation to the Lord’s Supper is both sustaining and sobering. We are voluntarily asked ‘to remember Him.’ He gave us His plan for how to remember. He took the cup of wine and blessed it with thanksgiving prayer and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves” (Luke 22:17). This is an invitation to participate in His blood, His sacrifice, and His mission. “The cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (v.20). We drink in the new covenant. We swallow the endorsement. We agree to the capacity we can understand and by faith agree to much more. He gave His covenant word to us, His promise of blood sacrifice and His promise to remove our sins. This drink is not “to cover our sins,” that is the Old Covenant ‘scapegoat’ way of dealing with sin (Leviticus 16:8-10). The blood of Jesus does not cover our sins, it ‘removes our sins.’ They are no more. They need no second dose of blood. They are removed and forgiven and forgotten. We drink the wine to celebrate such a miracle.

Just as the blood is the death side of the Supper and shows the blood sacrifice for sin, the Bread is the life side of the Supper and shows us the life after sin has been removed. We participate in the body of Jesus. ‘He took some bread and broke it, gave a thanksgiving prayer, and passed it to His disciples. “This is my body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). We are given His body. His body is delivered to us. Now we must do something with this body. His instruction was, “Take, eat, this is My body” (Matthew 26:29), and that is a simple but terrifying instruction. Take. Eat. So we take the bread, which is His body, and swallow it into our bodies. We have taken on life. We have eaten the bread of life.

“Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus