The Meal Jesus Gave Us | 1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:17-34
Brian G. Hedges | April 17, 2016
This morning we are going to be looking at the meal that Jesus gave us at the Lord’s table. And I want to begin with this quotation from Tim Chester, who is a theologian and a church planting pastor in the United Kingdom.
Chester says, “In all cultures, eating is a powerful sign of community welcoming and belonging. It goes beyond charity, for it is something we do with people, rather than for them. What matters is not the quality of the food, but the expression of friendship, family meals, rather than formal dinner parties.”
When you go to the Scriptures you find that meals are very important. The fall of human beings into sin took place through a meal in the Garden of Eden. And the end of human history in the book of Revelation will be celebrated as part of a meal, the wedding supper, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Chester points out that in the Gospels, the phrase “The Son of Man came” appears three times and is completed in three different ways: (1) The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, (2) the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. (3) And the Son of Man came eating and drinking. And one of the most fascinating studies you can ever do is a study on Jesus’ meals in the Gospel records.
But especially at the apex of all of those meals is the last Passover meal he ate with his disciples. We know it now as the Last Supper. And in that meal, the institution of it is what we now call, The Lord’s Supper. And this supper -- this meal, this feast -- lies right at the center of the story of Scripture, right at the heart of Christian worship throughout history.
So this morning we are going to talk about this meal, and I want to do this for several reasons.
First of all, it’s important for us every so often to just be reminded of the importance of the sacrament. And to be taught what it means and what it is that we do when we share in this meal together. I’ve been reading some in the Reformers this week, particularly John Calvin. And the Reformers, and especially Calvin, viewed the right use of the sacraments as one of the two defining marks of the church. The other one was the preaching of the gospel, the right preaching of the gospel. And they said, basically, that where you find the church—when the gospel is preached and the sacraments are duly and rightly observed—there you have the Church. There you have the people of God. This is what defines us. This is what marks us as God’s people.
There’s also a more specific reason in the life of our own church for this message this morning, because, beginning next month, in May, we are moving to a weekly observance of the Lord’s Table. In the past number of years we have been observing the Lord’s Table together twice a month, that was a change from once a month, which was our custom for many years. And our Elder team has been discussing this off and on for the last several years, and we’ve come to the point where we have unanimously agreed it’s time to move to weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. And so I want to give some reason for that by teaching us what it is that we do when we come to the Table, and then how we can prepare for it.
As the basis of our teaching this morning I want to read two passages from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we’re going to be in in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 and then 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. I’m not going to so much do a full exposition of every verse, but I want to use these verses (and I’ll also appeal to the gospel records) to teach us five things about the Lord’s Table as we come to it. So I’m going to read these passages.
First of all 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, Paul is writing and he says,
“16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
And then in 1 Corinthians 11:17 to the end of the chapter. Paul says,
“But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.”
This is God’s word. So, this morning I want us to ask this question, “What is it that we do when we come to the Table?” And I want to answer in five ways. Five main points to the message this morning. And then at the end, I want to ask three more questions that are pastoral questions to try to address what may be questions you have or concerns you have when you think about coming to the Table, and especially coming to the Table on a weekly basis. But for the substance of our talk this morning we are going to look at five things we do when we come to the Table. Some of these I will give more time to than others, so don’t be discouraged at the length of my first point. They will not all be equally so long!
I. What We Do When We Come to the Table
1. Number one, when we come to the Table, we remember Jesus.
We remember Jesus. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We have basically those words twice here in our passage 1 Corinthians 11:24 and again in verse 25. This is why we call the Lord’s Supper a memorial meal.
Now what is a memorial? A memorial is something to help us remember. It is a remembrance. And there is great importance in Scripture given to cultivating holy, sanctified memory. You remember, throughout the Old Testament, when God did his mighty deeds in delivering his people, they were to build a memorial. They would pile stones together, or they would celebrate a feast or a festival or a day. They would do something to commemorate what had been done and to remember what had been done. And in the same way, when we come to the Lord's Table, we do so remembering, we do this in remembrance of Christ.
Now this meal, the meal that Jesus has given to us had deep roots in the story of Israel, particularly in Israel’s exodus from Egypt. You remember that when God delivered them from Egypt, he gave them a meal. It was called the Passover meal. This was a meal that they celebrated annually as they remembered how God had passed over their sins. When he brought judgment on Egypt for the children of Israel, if they had spread the blood—they had sprinkled or splattered the blood on the doorposts and the lintels of their doors—God passed over them. He passed over their sins, and they were redeemed. They were saved. They were delivered. This was the Exodus, and the Passover was the yearly celebration in remembrance of that great defining act of deliverance in the Old Testament.
N.T. Wright tells us that “Jesus' last meal with his followers was a deliberate double drama. As a Passover meal (of sorts), it told the story of Jewish history in terms of divine deliverance from tyranny, looking back to the exodus from Egypt and on to the great new exodus, the return from exile, that was still eagerly awaited. But Jesus' meal fused this great story together with another one: the story of Jesus' own life, and his coming death. It somehow involved him in the god-given drama, not as a spectator, or as one participant among many, but as the central character.” (Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 554)
In other words, when Jesus established the Lord’s Supper, he was taking the Passover meal and he was redrawing it around himself. He was saying, in essence, that he himself was the Passover lamb. Paul says this explicitly in 1 Corinthians 5 when he says, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.”
What was this showing us, and what is it that we then remember when we come to the Table? Well, the elements themselves show us: the bread which is broken symbolizes for us and reminds us of the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ. How is bread made? Through grain that is bruised and crushed and cooked and broken, and then it is served and it is given to us, consumed by us. In the same way, the body of Christ broken for us, consumed in the flames of God’s judgment, so to speak, is then taken by us through faith. Also, the cup. The cup, made from grapes that are bruised and pressed and crushed. Wine as it was, I believe, in the New Testament which was fermented and then poured out and consumed. And so, George Herbert in one of his poems reflects on this imagery when he says,
Blessed be God, who prosper’d Noah’s vine,
And made it bring forth grapes good store.
But much more him I must adore,
Who of the Laws sowre juice sweet wine did make,
Ev’n God himself being pressed for my sake.
(from The bunch of grapes, The Temple, 1633)
God himself, pressed for my sake! Jesus pressed, bruised, broken, crushed on the cross. That’s what the bread and that’s what the cup show us and remind us of. That’s what we remember.
And why is it that we remember this? Because he did it for us. “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many,” Jesus said. Mark 14:24. “This is my body which is given for you.” What is this? It is a substitutionary sacrifice. Jesus, when he instituted this meal, was giving us a feast that would show us as often as we take it—would remind us as often as we partake of it—that he himself was sacrificed as our substitute, on our behalf.
Now let’s be very clear, the sacrifice that he offered is complete. It was offered once and for all. And when Jesus, before he died on the cross, uttered those words, “It is finished,” he was showing the complete finality of his sacrifice. I didn’t write the texts down, but just go through the letter to the Hebrews and underline every time you see the word “once,” and you will see that Christ has delivered a sacrifice, he has offered himself “once and for all to God” -- a final sacrifice.
This is important to us, because it helps us distinguish our understanding of the Table from the Roman Catholic understanding of the Table. Now I debated whether to bring this up or not, but because some of you perhaps are former Catholics, maybe you are even a current Catholic, but you’re here worshipping with us today, I think it’s important for us to make these distinctions. I looked up this week the official teaching of the Catholic Church and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And you will find in Catholic teaching that the language that is being used is very different. They don’t use exclusive language about the Table, but they also describe the Table as an altar. As an altar. And they describe the Table in terms of sacrifice. Here are a few quotations. “The bread and wine are brought to the altar, they will be offered by the Priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice in which they will become his body and blood.” This is the doctrine of transubstantiation, where the body and blood of Christ are literally said to be in the bread and the juice. “It is the very action of Christ at the Last Supper,” the Catechism says, “the presentation of the offerings at the altar take up the gestures of Melchizedek and commit the Creator’s gifts into the hands of Christ who, in his sacrifice brings to perfection all human attempts to offer sacrifices.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Two, Section Two, Chapter One, Article III, 1350)
Then in the next section “The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit. . . The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Two, Section Two, Chapter One, Article III, 1366-1367). That’s the Roman Catholic teaching. That is not the Protestant or the Reformed view, and it’s not my view, and it’s not the view of our church.
We do not believe that we come here to an altar, but rather we come to a Table. We eat a meal, we don’t offer a sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ is not completing any sacrifice that we make, the sacrifice of Christ is complete already. It is final. It has been offered once and for all. And I think that the Roman Catholic doctrine is in error. And I think it’s in error for these three reasons. (1) Because it denies the finality of Christ’s sacrifice, first of all. (2) Because it also contradicts the reality of Christ’s ascension. By saying that the bread and the juice become the very body and blood of Christ, it contradicts the testimony of Scripture, which tells us that the glorified body of Christ has left the earth and has now ascended into the presence of God. (3) Then finally, though I believe there are very, many well-meaning Catholics who would not say this or they wouldn’t agree with what I’m saying here, yet I think it is a true statement to say that the Roman Catholic practice detracts from the glory of Christ as the object of our worship; because, when the bread is viewed as the host, so that the body of Christ is there, present, and the bread is then lifted or it is adored it becomes the object of adoration, thus detracting that adoration from the Lord Jesus in his glorified humanity.
So it is a memorial meal, not where Christ is offered again by us to God, rather it is the meal that points to the perfection and the promises and the benefits of his singular offering of himself on the cross—that offering that is presented to us through the words of Scripture and the signs of the Table by the Lord. It’s a very different understanding of how the Supper works, and we need to be clear in what we confess to be doing when we come to the Table together.
So, first of all we remember Jesus. We remember Jesus in his crucifixion, we remember the sacrifice. The full final, complete sacrifice that was offered once and for all for us.
2. Number two: when we come to the Table we proclaim Jesus.
We proclaim Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is a gospel meal. Paul says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). And here I just want to underscore the centrality of the Gospel in the meal. The meal that we eat proclaims the gospel. It proclaims his death until he comes.
Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch Reformed theologian, said that the Supper or the bread and the wine do not represent Christ, per se, but Christ crucified. (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, p. 575) And that’s important for us to remember. The bread and the juice point us to the crucifixion of Christ, and so the Lord’s Supper is a gospel meal. There is a gospel focus.
And really, everything in our worship we want to have a gospel focus. What is it that we do when we come together for worship week by week? We come to read the gospel. We come to confess the gospel. We come to preach and to teach and to proclaim the gospel. We come to sing the gospel, singing the kinds of songs that we sang this morning. But we not only do those things, we also come to taste and to touch and to see the gospel. And we do that at the Table. Whereas, the word gives us the substance of the gospel in verbal form, the Table presents to us a picture of the gospel in visual form, and in tactile, tangible form. And that means that there is an evangelistic function to the Table. The Table, when we observe it regularly, keeps central the gospel and the message of the gospel which we build our life and our church around.
Now, I think it’s important for us to understand that we do not get a better Christ at the Table then we get through the Word. We don’t get something different from Christ through the Table than we get through the gospel itself. But as the Scottish theologian Robert Bruce said, “We do not get a better Christ at the Table, but we may get Christ better at the Table.” (Sermons by the Rev. Robert Bruce, p. 49-50) Because there is something about this act of taking and eating and drinking that helps seal this to our hearts and our minds in a tangible way that moves on our imagination and our affections.
The meal, then, strengthens our faith in Christ as he is clothed in the promises of the gospel. So it’s a gospel meal when we come to the Table. We are proclaiming the gospel, we are preaching the gospel to ourselves and to one another.
So, we remember Christ. We proclaim Christ or preach Christ...
3. And then, number three, we worship Christ. We worship Jesus when we come to the Table.
Let me read this time from Matthew 26:27-28 “27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” I read that just to underscore those two words, “giving thanks.” Those two words are one word in greek, the verb “eucharisteo” which is why we sometimes call this meal the Eucharist.
Now there is nothing wrong with that word. It is not used as often in the lower church type traditions, Baptists, or Methodist or Missionary type traditions, but the Eucharist is an appropriate meal for the name of the meal that Jesus has given to us, because it reminds us that this is a thanksgiving meal. It is a meal where we give thanks to God the Father for the gift of his Son, and we give thanks to Christ himself.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, talks about “the cup of blessing that we bless.” Why is it a cup of blessing? Because it is a cup that God has given to bless us, but it is also a cup that we take in blessing God and praising him. The word there “blessing” is the word from which we get our word “eulogy.” So we eulogize God, we praise God, we honor God, we thank him, we worship him, when we come to the Table.
Very simply, when we come to the table we thank Jesus for what he’s done for us. You’re saying, “thank you,” (or you should be) in your mind and in your heart, every time you eat the bread and drink the juice. Something in you should be saying, “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your sacrifice for me.”
Now this is one argument for frequency at the Table. Can we really be too thankful for the Gospel? Can we really say, “thank you” too often for the gospel? I don’t think we can, and the meal celebrated regularly will help us do that. So, we worship Jesus when we come to the meal. The Lord’s Supper is a Thanksgiving Meal.
4. We fellowship with Jesus.
We fellowship with Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is a communion meal. Again, 1 Corinthians 10, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation,” circle that word, participation “in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” That word ‘participation’ is a very important word; it’s the greek word “koinonia,” and it’s the word for fellowship or the word for communion. And so we sometimes call the Lord’s Supper a communion meal.
Now, I do believe that when we come to the Table, though we don’t get a different Christ than we get from the gospel, we don’t get a better Christ than we get from the gospel, there is a special kind of intimacy and fellowship that we can enjoy with Christ around the Table. We commune with him. Paul says, we are participating with him, communing with him, fellowshipping with him when we come to the Table.
It’s not that we eat and drink his actual body and blood, nor is it true that Jesus is physically present with us. He is physically absent. His incarnate, crucified, resurrected, glorified body is in the presence of the Father. He is physically absent from us, but in the ministry of the Holy Spirit he is spiritually present to us. The Spirit brings us into fellowship with Christ in a spiritual way as we come to the Table. In that coming we then receive grace from Christ. Or perhaps better, we receive Christ. Because grace, you see, isn’t a commodity that Jesus just dispenses to us. All the grace we get, we get by getting Christ. It’s Christ himself. It’s laying hold of Christ himself. We don’t separate his benefits from him, so it’s laying hold of Christ himself by faith as we come to the Table that we fellowship with him.
Now, let me just give you one creedal explanation of this. This comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the classic confession of faith for Reformed churches. The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 is identical to the Westminster Confession of Faith in this regard except that it uses the word “ordinance” instead of “sacrament”, but the wording is virtually the same. Here is how it goes. “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. (WCF, ch. 29:vii)
Now, I know that following kind of that 17th-century language is a little bit hard, but what I just want you to get is the phrase here that we really and indeed inwardly, by faith, feed upon Christ. All right? That is not the Catholic doctrine, that is the Reformed teaching. We really feed upon Christ when we come to the Table. Not because his literal body and bread are in the bread and juice, but because by faith we are laying hold of our crucified Jesus! And we are fellowshipping with him, and by faith we are feeding our souls upon him. And so there is a very special kind of fellowship when we come to the Table.
Now one of the great defenders of this (and also one of the great defenders of weekly communion) was none other than the great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Charles Haddon Spurgeon observed the Lord’s Supper weekly, and he especially drew significance from the fact that we come together at a table, at a table. And he’s thinking of table fellowship and the kind of friendship that is cultivated through table fellowship. And Spurgeon said, “All the Lord's believing people are sitting, by sacred privilege and calling, at the same table with Jesus, for ‘truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.’ He has come into our hearts and He sups with us and we with Him! We are His table companions and shall eat bread with Him in the Kingdom of God!” (Spurgeon’s Sermons Volume 54: Aug. 27, 1908). So when we come to the Table, we are fellowshipping with Jesus in a special way, and that is why coming to the Table can be a time of great intimacy and closeness with the Lord Jesus. The meal, then, strengthens our faith, but also expresses our love for the Savior.
5. And then fifth and finally, as far as a main point goes here, we wait for Jesus at the Table.
We wait for Jesus. And I draw that from verse 26 from 1 Corinthians 11, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Until he comes. And so we can call this an eschatological feast. An eschatological meal, a meal that is characterized by waiting for what is yet to come. We’re looking to the coming of the Lord Jesus. Jesus himself said, Mark 14:25, “Truly I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
I started this whole message by talking about the significance of meals in Scripture. One of the most significant meals of all is the final meal. It’s the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. It’s the meal that the prophet Isaiah looked forward to in Isaiah 25, when he said, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined, and He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all the peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.” You recognize that language from the book of Revelation, right?
This feast that the Lord prepares for His people, that’s what we’re looking forward to. We’re looking forward to the day, brothers and sisters, when we will actually, bodily, physically, in resurrected, glorified bodies, sit down at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb with the Lord Jesus Christ himself in His glorified and incarnate humanity. We’re waiting for that! We’re looking for that. So when we come to the meal, we not only strengthen our faith, we not only express our love, but when we come to the Table we sustain our hope, we remind ourselves that we are a pilgrim people. We’re a pilgrim people, and this meal is our sustenance along the way in the journey towards the heavenly city, the celestial city. And so it’s a meal of hope, it’s an eschatological feast.
II. Pastoral Questions
Now, let me just close by asking very quickly three questions that maybe have risen in your mind as a concern or just a question or something that you would need an answer to.
1. What if I don’t feel worthy to take the Lord’s Supper?
What if I don’t feel worthy? I read this full passage of 1 Corinthians, the last part of 1 Corinthians 11, where the Apostle Paul warns against eating and drinking in an unworthy manner and warns us about eating and drinking judgment upon ourselves. And so, what does that mean, and what should I do if I come to the table and I feel consciousness of my failures and of my sins, and of my weaknesses? Does that mean I should not take the elements of the Table?
And I think it’s important for us to understand something of the context that Paul was writing to. He was speaking very specifically about divisive kind of practices in the church of Corinth. Maybe you’ve picked this up. The Lord’s Supper had evidently been blended with another larger meal and the rich were coming and eating their rich, sumptuous food, while the poverty-stricken saints were coming with nothing to eat. And the rich were having their little party, and the poor were being neglected. And Paul said this is a denial of the Lord’s Table. This is a denial of the unity that you have in Christ. This is the wrong thing. Some were even getting drunk on the wine at the table. This was happening in the church; this was happening in their fellowship meals. It was an abuse, and Paul is specifically calling them to repentance for that, because their divisive behavior was a practical denial of the unity that the Table was meant to portray.
Now, the principle that Paul gives here, I think, still applies. The principle is that we should use the Table as an opportunity for self-examination and for repentance and for renewed faith. But that doesn’t mean that if you find yourself struggling with a sin, or if you yelled at your kids on the way to church in the morning that you can’t take the Table. Instead, bring those sins to the crucified Savior. Seek forgiveness. Repent. If necessary, lean over and ask forgiveness from someone that you need to, or do so as soon as you’re able. But come, even with the consciousness of your sins, realizing that the very consciousness of your sins reminds you of how much you need the Savior that we come to at the Table.
Nobody has helped me more with this than Calvin. This is what Calvin said, he said, “Since then it [the Table] is the remedy which God has given us to assist our frailty, to fortify our faith, to augment our charity, and to further us in all sanctity of life, so far from this making us abstain [our consciousness of our frailties, making us abstain], we ought the more to make use of it the more we feel oppressed by the disease.” He said, that to refuse the Table because we are still weak in faith or integrity of life would be like a person refusing to take medicine because he is sick. “I’m too sick to take medicine.” That’s ridiculous! No, it’s the very sickness that you have that means that the medicine is needed. So, when we come to the Table, this is what Calvin says, “This then is how the frailty of the faith which we feel in our heart and the imperfections which persist in our life ought to incite us to come to the supper, as to a remedy designed to correct them, only let us not come without faith and repentance.” (Calvin, Short Treatise on the Holy Supper of Our Lord and Only Savior Jesus Christ in Theological Treatises. See especially pages 152–153.)
In other words, just come. Come repenting. Come believing. Come with your eyes on Jesus. Come as a sinner.
I’m reminded of what John Duncan, a Scottish elder in the 19th Century, said to a young Scottish teenage girl. She came through the line to receive the elements and she was weeping bitterly over her sins. And he leaned into her and whispered, “Lassie, it’s for sinners.” It’s for sinners! So, don’t let your consciousness of sin keep you from the Table, instead let it incite you to come. Not just to the Table, but to Jesus in repentance and in faith.
2. Why celebrate it so often?
Jesus said, “As often as you eat, do it in remembrance of me.” He doesn't’ specify how often. Scripture does not tell us that we should take it weekly or monthly or quarterly or annually. But there are hints. There are hints in the book of Acts that it was practiced weekly.
Here are the hints; I’m going to give you two verses. Acts 2:42. This is the early church after the day of Pentecost, and it says, “they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” John Stott in his commentary on Acts tells us that that phrase, “the breaking of the bread,” because it has a definite article, it almost certainly means the Lord’s Table. “The breaking of the bread” and “they devoted themselves to it.” They devoted themselves to all of these things—the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. And throughout Christian history, believers have gathered at least once a week for preaching and teaching and for fellowship and for prayer, devoting themselves to these things. It seems reasonable then that the same devotion we give to the Apostles’ teaching and to fellowship and to prayers, that same devotion should be characterized at the Table. That we devote ourselves to the breaking of bread. That’s the first evidence.
The second is stronger. In Acts 20:7, Paul is on one of his journeys, he is headed to Jerusalem, and he stops in Troas, and in verse 7 we read this, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight,” and then follows that wonderful story of Eutychus falling from the rafters to his death. The most fatal sermon in history! And then he’s resurrected, restored, in the Lord’s grace. But, verse 7 indicates that they were meeting on the first day of the week on a Sunday, and as they gathered, they broke bread. So those are just possible indications that the church took communion weekly. So those are some of the reasons why we’ve felt inclined to do this.
Now, the objection to doing it weekly some might raise is that, “Well, I’m afraid that if we take communion every week, it’s just going to feel commonplace; it won’t feel special anymore.” I want to give two parts to my answer to that. The first is an illustration. I think sometimes we think of communion, perhaps with the wrong kind of expectation. We may expect communion, because it has been practiced in the past, to be something like a huge family dinner that you celebrate once or twice a year on a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Now, those are important, and there are times to do that with the Lord’s Table, to have a wonderful celebration where the whole celebration is devoted to this meal together. That’s appropriate, nothing wrong with that. But social scientists have shown that what’s really formative for families it’s not the one or two special meals they have together in a year, it’s the regular eating together, eating together. Day after day and week after week, coming together. It’s more humble. It’s more mundane. It’s more quaint. It’s more common. It doesn’t build like this spectacular memory of the great Christmas feast, but it’s forming, it’s shaping, it’s bonding together. Binding together the hearts of the family members who do this, who are eating these meals together. One of the most important things we do together as families -- and in the same way when we come to the Table regularly, we are binding our hearts to one another and to the Lord Jesus. And the very regularity, the frequency of it, I think, is formative for us and helpful for us.
The other part of my answer is this, that we must remember that the meal is the sign of the gospel. It’s the sign of the gospel. It’s the sign of the promises that God has given to us in the new covenant established in Christ. And perhaps one reason why sometimes in our practice the meal has felt too commonplace or not special enough is because that connection has not been clear enough in our minds and hearts. And we’re not thinking about the gospel when we come to the meal. And so my intention and our intention as leaders in the church is to make those connections very clear for us. And to be creative and varied in the use of Scripture and of worship songs and hymns and of creeds and the confessional statements, so that we’re bringing together elements that are helping to remind us in a fresh way, week after week after week, of the gospel itself; so that when we come to the Table, it feels special every week. I’m sure some weeks we’ll do better than others, but that’s our intention, and I believe that frequency, along with variety, will be helpful to us.
3. Final question and then we’ll go to the table this morning and this is very simple. How then should I prepare for the Table?
How should we prepare for the Table? And I just want to give you three statements. No explanation needed here. Come prayerfully, come repentantly, and come believingly.
(1) Come praying. When you take those elements and even before, pray. Use this as an occasion to seek the Lord, to ask him, speak with him, to talk with him, to commune with him.
(2) Come repenting. Use this as a time for self examination, and just pray that simple prayer, “Search me, O God and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23-24) The Holy Spirit will faithfully show you where you have sinned. And when he shows you, repent. Turn from the sin, and ask him for fresh grace and strength to walk in obedience to him.
(3) And especially, then, come believingly. Come with faith so that when you take the bread and the juice, you are in that moment as you do that physically, you are at the same time in your mind and in your heart, in your spirit you are laying hold of Christ himself. You are saying, as it were, “Christ Jesus, I am a sinner, and you’re my Savior. And if I’ve never received you before, I receive you now. You are my hope. Your sacrifice is my substitution. Your resurrection is my life. Your death on the cross is my forgiveness. You are my all in all. I bring you my sin and my shame. Clothe me in your righteousness and in your mercy and in your grace. Draw near to me now.” Pray something like that as you’re coming to the Table week to week. And I would say, start doing this on Saturday or even before. Anticipate it. Look forward to preparing your heart, and I believe the more we prepare our hearts for it and the more we come prayerfully and repentantly and believingly, the more the Table will mean to us, binding us to one another and to our Lord Jesus.
Let’s pray and then I’ll ask the Deacons to come serve the elements to us.
Our Father, we thank you so much for your kindness and your mercy and your grace that you have given us your Son. You’ve given us your Son. You’ve given us the Lord Jesus. And we come to the Table, not adoring the elements of the Table, we come, rather, adoring the Christ that the elements point us to. We come worshipping him and thanking you for him, we come to remember him, we come to fellowship with him, we come to wait for him as we look to his coming. And we say maranatha, Lord, come quickly. As we come this morning, we bring you all that we are. We are sinners. We are sinners who have been changed by your grace, forgiven and justified. Partially sanctified on the road to glory, but we come weak and frail and stumbling in so many ways, and we ask for fresh forgiveness and fresh assurance, we ask for fresh strength. That, as we take the bread and the juice in our physical bodies, we might also in our souls feed upon Christ crucified and risen and ascended and glorified, in the strength of his perfect humanity and in the grace of the Spirit that Christ, with you the Father, have given to us we might persevere in the holy walk you’ve called us to. So meet with us now, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
