“Come To the Table”
This morning as a body that is united in and through Jesus Christ we have the privilege of coming to the table to partake in the Lord’s Supper, the ordinance of communion. But before we follow Christ’s command in partaking, I would like address four points about coming to the table. I would like us all to understand His Reverence, His Presence, His Plan and our Response. All of these come from partaking in the Lord’s Supper.
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 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 {He took} the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink {it,} in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor 11:23-26).
Let us try to understand the reverence due our Lord as we approach the communion table. We should never look at the Lord’s Supper as a tack on to the end of a church service. But instead we should see it as a service all to itself, one that is truly worthy of our Savior. Coming to the Lord’s Supper is one of the two ordinances that we hold as a church, the other being baptism. Jesus Christ Himself commanded us to partake of it. In the book of 1 Corinthians the church of Corinth had been abusing the Lord’s Supper and the apostle Paul wrote them saying, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. … For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep” (1 Cor 11:27,30). Members of the Corinthians church were becoming physically weak and sick because they were abusing the privilege of the Lord’s Supper. As a matter of fact it states that some even slept referring to the fact that they had died because of this abuse. Each one of us needs to approach the service of the Lord’s Supper with the reverence that is due it.
Let us pray.
“Strengthen and cleanse, O Lord, the hands which will be held out to receive the bread and cup. Grant that our ears, which will hear Your Word and songs, may not be distracted by sounds of clamor and dispute. Grant that the eyes, which have seen Your great love, may behold Your blessed hope in our Savior Jesus Christ; that the tongues, which will sing Your songs, may speak words of truth. Grant that the feet, which have walked in this sanctuary, may walk ever in the presence of Your light, and grant that we who partake the bread of life and the blood of the new covenant will be restored in newness of life through Jesus Christ. Father we pray this all in the name of the One who is the bread of life Jesus Christ AMEN.”
Are you prepared to come to the table? In our pray there were some very practical thoughts for us to ponder as we consider this question. The hands which will hold the bread and cup – what else have they held? Every letter these hands write, every book they hold, must be pure for they themselves are to be sanctified.
The ears that hear the voices of praise on Sunday, what were they attuned to throughout the week? What did they strain to hear? Was it words worthy of a child of God? What are these same ears attuned to at this very minute?
What of the lips that will partake of the bread and the cup – what words have they uttered and what words will come forth? Only wholesome words - clean, kind should be spoken by lips that are so honored.
And the eyes that have seen God’s great love, what else have they gazed upon? Did those visions provide pure and holy thoughts or did the eyes look upon and lust.
Indeed our whole body, inasmuch as it will feed upon the bread and cup, is to be consecrated to God. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives within you” (1 Cor 3:16)? Each one of us who call Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior must in all areas be worthy of our high call.
Did you know that it was the night that Jesus was under the shadow of the cross, when He called for the observance of the Lord’s Supper. In instituting the Lord’s Supper Jesus Christ gave His body and blood. As a matter of fact the Scriptures tell us that He knew the hour had come (John 13:1). The very least we can do is dedicate our body, to Him, through our ever action, every time we partake of the elements.
(Read next section poetically)
Unto You O Lord I offer my all
My body, my life to heed Your call.
My Savior, My Lord to You I give
For it was You who died that I should live.
Death’s grip was shattered as you rose from the tomb
New life proclaimed as death was doomed.
So I come to Your table as You set it in place
And I dedicate my life to seeking Your face.
During the Jewish Passover Jesus Christ ate and offered the sacrificial lamb with His disciples as they were remembering how God had brought their people into freedom from the bondage of slavery. However, Jesus did more than celebrate the ordinance of Passover, He took the most important national and religious festival which commemorated the incredible and dramatic deliverance from slavery and totally changed it’s meaning. Jesus changed the Passover of the Jews into a communion for all of God’s children as He stated:
"This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 1 Cor 11:24-25
Our Lord Jesus was telling the disciples that no longer do you need to remember coming out of the land of Egypt because He was doing something more important than that. The deliverance that Jesus Christ was bringing would put Moses into the shadows. Jesus was saying from now on, as long as you go on keeping the Passover, taking the bread and the cup, do it in remembrance of me because He was soon to become the sacrificial lamb.
(read poetically)
Will I remember through the cup and the bread
Iron nails driven, a blood soaked head
Will I remember for more than a day
How the Lord sweat blood as He bowed and He prayed
Will I remember as I enter into His grace,
The love that sent Him to die in my place.
Or will I be consumed by my own selfish ways
As I partake in the table and so soon run off to play.
Jesus Christ introduced at the Passover an ordinance to remember Him. 1 Corinthians 5:7 states, “For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the festival.” Jesus Christ became the sacrificial lamb, and He brought and continues to bring His people out of the bondage of slavery to sin. The Lord’s Supper marks a new age in the history of God’s people. Because of this we owe Jesus a deep and abiding reverence.
Now I’d like to ask the question, “How is Christ present with us in the Lord’s Supper?” There is a very real difference in theological views of Christ’s presence in the communion service.
The official view from the Vatican, maintains that when the priest utters the words “This is my body,” the bread immediately changes into the very literal body of Christ. The bread has changed into Christ’s body, yet its properties remain the same. The elements of bread and wine become for the Church of Rome the actual literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. For this reason, the Church of Rome worships the consecrated bread.
The Lutheran Church maintains the real presence of the body of Christ is present with the elements. They hold that the bread and wine remain the same, but there is a miraculous real presence of the whole person of Christ, body and blood, in, under and with the elements.
I personally maintain that Jesus Christ is present in three ways:
He is present symbolically. The bread and cup are symbols of the body and blood of Christ as they ‘re-present’ or represent Him at the Supper.
He is present verbally. This is through the faithful representation of the Word of God through reading, exposition and song. This brings Christ’s presence to the Table through the Word.
He is present spiritually. Christ is ‘re-presented’ or represented by His Proxy, the Holy Spirit. It is by and in the Spirit we have fellowship with Christ who is not absent but present.
Because of the presence of Christ in the communion service, the visual symbols of the bread and cup, which are interpreted by the Word, through the Holy Spirit we should be reassured and encouraged in our fragile faith and it should led us to an increase in our devotion to Christ for His infinite mercy and grace bestowed upon the faithful. We should want to worship Him.
His plan. At the Lord’s Supper we are told to remember Christ, but is this the only aspect of the Lord’s Supper that we are to understand? No, I believe there are five aspects to the Lord’s Supper.
The first aspect is the covenant. In 1 Corinthians 11:25 it says, “This cup is the new covenant of my blood.”
Also in Jeremiah 31:33,34 it reads, “’But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put my law within them, and on their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ … ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’”
The Lord’s Supper is an opportunity for us to celebrate God’s new binding to us in His gracious promise, through the Holy Spirit. In the passage in Jeremiah it states, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart will I write it.” God writes the New Covenant on hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When one believes and confesses Christ as Lord and Savior the Holy Spirit takes up a permanent residence inside of them. We have a covenant with God through which the Holy Spirit seals us as God’s child. It’s the Holy Spirit who has been given to us who believe as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession (Eph 1:14). As we repeatedly come to the communion table it is a form of covenantal renewal. When we partake of the bread and cup we are affirming the covenant between God and ourselves and it should be creating in us a strengthening allegiance to God.
The Lord’s Supper is to be a memorial or remembrance as Christ said “Do this in remembrance of me.” It is a remembrance of Christ’s person and work, of the Savior and salvation. It commemorates the shedding of the blood of the covenant, Jesus pouring out his very life unto death. We should always remember that Christ “though He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” Phil 2:6-8. It calls us not to sorrow, but to somber celebration, as we remember Christ’s obedience which led Him to the cross.
The Lord’s Supper is to be a time of communion or fellowship. In 1 Corinthians 10:16,17 it states “Is this not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread, which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we partake of the one bread.”
The Lord’s Supper pictures and should reinforce, the fellowship we have with Christ and one another as a local community of believers. It is an appropriation of the benefits of His shed blood and pierced body. As well it is a celebration of union in the Spirit. the common loaf should remind us of the unity we have in Christ, and it should also separate us from false religion and ritual in the and of the world.
It is very important at this point to state that as the Lord’s Supper symbolizes and promotes fellowship and unity with the risen Christ, therefore it should be open to all believers. But it is only open to believers, those who have believed and confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. If you as an individual have not come to the point in your life where you have received Jesus as Savior then I would ask you not to participate in the communion service as you are not in Christ.
The Lord’s Supper is also a time of proclamation. We read in 1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat the brad and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Every time we partake of the elements we proclaim the Lord’s death, but not just His death but also His return as we are to do it until He returns. We are proclaiming the gospel, the saving work of Jesus Christ. We are proclaiming the fact that He is the One who paid for our sins and only through His sacrifice are we acceptable to God. As we partake of the bread and cup we are making an announcement of the gospel of the new covenant by symbol and word.
The Lord’s Supper is also to be a time of expectation.
“For as often as you eat the brad and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
We are to partake until He comes. it is a celebration in the hope, the confident expectation, of the return of Christ, because He will come in judgment and blessing. We are to look forward to the fulfillment of the new covenant promises and our future life with Christ.
When we come to the table we are to recall the covenant relationship with Christ through the Spirit; we are to remember the person and works of our Savior Jesus Christ; we are to realize our fellowship with Christ and one another; we are to proclaim His death, and His gospel while we look forward in great expectation to the fulfillment of future events in which the Lord Jesus will come and will bring all things together.
I think it’s very important to understand that I did not mention self-examination and self-judgment as aspects of the Lord’s Supper.
As we come to the table we should not be self-examining and self-judging ourselves. These are to be preconditions of the Supper, not a part of it. These should have been stressed in preparation of the Supper during the week before the Supper. We should have been examining our motives in life, our relationship with Christ, and our relationship to our fellow man. If we are to stress self-examination as the elements are being distributed it takes the focus off of Christ and His work, precisely at the wrong time and moves it directly to the wrong object – ourselves.
Our Response. Some people stay away from the Lord’s Supper because they feel they are too sinful. But, our sense of sin should not keep us away from the Lord’s Table it should draw us to it. It is true that we should not come to the table if we are coveting sin in our hearts or minds. But we must also realize we come not because we are good, but because we are bad. We come because we need forgiveness. How does God forgive man? He does it by taking our sins all upon Himself through Jesus Christ. Each celebration of the Lord’s Supper given to us should bring to our mind a perpetual memory of how God has forgiven us through His Son’s atoning work on the cross.
When we partake of the Lord’s Supper our entire focus must be on Christ, the Sacrificial Lamb. It is only when we do this that it can have a major effect upon us. What then should our response be at the Lord’s Supper?
We should be filled with a very present sense of joy at so great a salvation, the unspeakable gift that we have received. The Apostle Paul tells us rejoice in the Lord always again I say rejoice.
It should also help us to realize the certain and permanent hope we have in the future. We must always remember that even though our hope may be unseen it is assured and one day we will be in His glory in His heaven.
It should create in us a strong and abiding love as well as a warm devotion to Christ for His prior and present love for us. And this love should reflect and radiate out to our brothers and sisters in Christ also. It should create in us a sense of community as we partake of the elements with Christ through the Spirit with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It should lead us to a life of submission, the willingness to freely accept God’s will for us, whether unattractive or painful. We should accept it in thankful fulfillment of our obligations as Christ purchased us out of the bondage of sin and eternal condemnation. It should lead us to an imitation of Christ’s faithful obedience in suffering.
And it should drive us to our face in humility as we realize the enormous and unmerited generosity of God.
We are to receive the Lord’s Supper, the spiritual nourishment and fostering growth, as it helps us to increase our Christ-likeness in our character as we, in faith, submit to the Spirit.
We should be desirous and driven to worship as we come to the table. The elements, the Word, the hymns, the Spirit, and the children of God all represent Christ. We were made to worship! Jesus Christ has given us a table to come to Him in fellowship, in remembrance, as a covenant, in proclamation and in expectation.
(read poetically)
Come to the table of bread and cup
Come with a heart and mind made up
Come and praise the One who lives
Eternal, immortal His life He gives
Come to the table to worship Him
Come with a love turned from sin
Come and sing your songs of praise
Lift to Him your anthems raised
Come to the table atonement made
Come to the table your debt full paid
Come to the table until He appears
And worship your Lord in trembling and fear
Come, come to the table.
Please pray with me.
O Father, may the elements of this feast be to each of us in this sacred hour the tokens of Your love and grace. In every sanctuary in which Your people meet today, there are hearts, by sorrow broken, and tears, by sinners shed. Look upon them all in tenderness and mercy for the sake of Him in whose memory we commune together around this table. May they receive Your balm for broken hearts and Your forgiveness for broken lives. We pray in the name of the One who has freed us from our sin, Jesus Christ AMEN.
