Loading…

From Heaven With Love

252/317

The Reasons for Celebrating the Lord's Supper

But the Communion service was not to be a season of sorrowing. As the Lord's disciples gather about His table, they are not to lament their shortcomings. They are not to recall differences between them and their brethren. The preparatory service has embraced all this. Now they come to meet with Christ. They are not to stand in the shadow of the cross, but in its saving light. They are to open the soul to the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness. They are to hear His words, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” John 14:27. HLv 443.1

Our Lord says, When oppressed and afflicted for My sake and the gospel's, remember My love, so great that for you I gave My life. When your duties appear severe, your burdens too heavy to bear, remember that for your sake I endured the cross, despising the shame. Your Redeemer liveth to make intercession for you. HLv 443.2

The Communion service points to Christ's second coming. It was designed to keep this hope vivid in the mind. “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come.” 1 Corinthians 11:26. HLv 443.3

Christ instituted this service that it may speak to our senses of the love of God. There can be no union between our souls and God except through Christ. And nothing less than the death of Christ could make His love efficacious for us. Only because of His death can we look with joy to His second coming. Our senses need to be quickened to lay hold of the mystery of godliness, to comprehend, far more than we do, the expiatory sufferings of Christ. HLv 443.4

Our Lord has said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you... . For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.” John 6:53-55. To the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life. The bread we eat is the purchase of His broken body; the water we drink, of His spilled blood. Never one, saint or sinner, eats his daily food, but he is nourished by the body and blood of Christ. The cross of Calvary is stamped on every loaf; it is reflected in every water spring. The light shining from that Communion service makes sacred the provisions for our daily life. The family board becomes as the table of the Lord, and every meal a sacrament. HLv 444.1

Of our spiritual nature Jesus declares, “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life.” By receiving His word, by doing those things which He has commanded, we become one with Him. “He that eateth My flesh,” He says, “and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” John 6:54, 56, 57. As faith contemplates our Lord's great sacrifice, the soul assimilates the spiritual life of Christ. Every Communion service forms a living connection by which the believer is bound up with Christ, and thus with the Father. HLv 444.2

As we receive the bread and wine symbolizing Christ's broken body and spilled blood, we in imagination witness the struggle by which our reconciliation with God was obtained. Christ is set forth crucified among us. The thought of Calvary awakens living and sacred emotions in our hearts. Pride and self-worship cannot flourish in the soul that keeps fresh in memory the scenes of Calvary. He who beholds the Saviour's matchless love will be transformed in character. He will go forth to be a light to the world, to reflect in some degree this mysterious love. HLv 444.3