The Lord's Supper: Past, Present, and Future

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." 

- Corinthians 11:26

What is the Lord's Supper? What is this strange, small, family meal that Christians consume together in our church services? The Lord's Supper is called by that name because it is a family meal that was instituted by Jesus for his disciples. Sometimes it is also called the eucharist (literally "thanksgiving"), but Evangelical Christians do not usually call it that, because we do not want to confuse our practice with the Roman Catholic practice where they believe they are re-sacrificing Jesus every week. The Lord's Supper is also often called communion, which focuses on unity between Christians and the invitation to experience the presence of Jesus, which the meal emphasizes. There are different frequencies with which this meal is eaten by different Bible-believing churches (weekly or monthly), different elements involved (bread or wafers; juice or wine), and different ways of eating the meal (coming up front to receive the elements along with a blessing; waiting to partake together). However, we all believe that the Lord's Supper is a meal of remembrance, communion, and hope.

PAST: A SUPPER OF REMEMBRANCE

First, the Lord's Supper is a supper of remembrance where we focus on what Jesus did for us on the cross. Every time we take this meal together, it's sort of like our spiritual Remembrance Day, where we remember the one who died to give us freedom from the oppressive weight of sin. Here is the passage that we often read before we take the Lord's Supper together: "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, 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'" (1 Cor. 11:23-25). The meal where Jesus spoke these words to his disciples was called The Passover. The Passover was all about remembrance. Nigerian Bible scholar Victor Babajide Cole writes that at the Jewish Passover, 

“After the participants had taken their positions at the table, the head of the family pronounced a blessing on the feast and the wine. Then they drank a first cup of wine, in remembrance of having been led out of Egypt… Then they drank a second cup of wine in remembrance of having been freed from slavery. Next the head of the family blessed the bread, which was passed round and eaten… At the end of the meal, the head of the family blessed the third cup of wine and it was drunk to celebrate and remember God’s mighty act of redemption… The celebration concluded shortly before midnight with the drinking of a fourth cup of wine in honour of the consummation when God will take his people to be with him for ever… As the head of his family of disciples, Jesus led the disciples in the celebration of this Passover. [But] he infused new meaning into [it]… Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it. [But then he said, ‘this is my body.’]... The third cup of wine, taken at the completion of the meal, had been in remembrance of God bringing about salvation for Israel. [But] Jesus gave it new meaning [when he said, ‘this cup is the New Covenant in my blood’].” 

Jesus took the Passover supper, which was a supper of remembrance for God’s rescue of Israel, and he gave it a new meaning as a remembrance for our rescue from sin. Tim Keller says “the Lord’s Supper connects the present to the past, because it immediately connects you to the night in which Jesus was betrayed.” We re-enact the story of the Last Supper together as a church whenever we take Communion: We claim that that is our story; and you can say: Jesus shares his table with me; I am a disciple of Jesus; his body was broken like this bread for my salvation; his blood ran red, like this cup, from the cross for my sins; you can hold the cup and the bread and declare that you are provided with nourishment because you hunger and thirst for righteousness, and when you take Communion, you confess “I need Jesus—his presence is like spiritual food for me, his saving death is like a drink for my soul.” And when we say that the Lord’s Supper is a supper of remembrance, we also acknowledge that it’s not just for our benefit: we "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). Thomas Schreiner put it better than I ever could; he said that “The Lord’s Supper communicates a story to the world, a story of sacrificial love in which Jesus gave up his life for the sake of others… The Lord’s Supper is not only a remembrance but also a proclamation... to the world about the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” I also love how the Puritan Thomas Goodwin compared the Lord’s Supper to a sermon, when he wrote: “Of sermons, some are for comfort, some are to inform, some to excite; but here in the Lord’s Supper is everything you could ever hope to expect. Christ is here light, and wisdom, and comfort, and all that you could need. He is here an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame; He is everything to everyone.” This is how we remember and proclaim Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.

PRESENT: A SUPPER OF COMMUNION

The Lord’s Supper is also a supper of Communion. Think along the lines of community - gathering, and sharing, and relationship. In 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul's constant assumption is that the Lord’s Supper is something that that Christians eat, quote, “when [they] come together” (1 Cor. 11:33). It’s not something they do off by themselves and away from other Christians. It’s something that’s supposed to bring them together as a church. In the church that I serve at, we express this by all partaking together (though there's nothing wrong with going up front to receive, as it displays dependence upon Jesus). We all wait and we eat and we drink at the same time, because Communion reminds us that whether we’re rich or poor, old or young, woman or man, whether we vote Liberal or Conservative, whether we are a pastor or a student or a postal worker, whether we are an elder or deacon in the church or a brand new Christian, whether we cheer for the Roughriders or some other team, our first identity is in Christ and by taking this bread and this cup together we are witnessing that we are all one people, and that we are all united together in him.

The Lord’s Supper is not just a supper of communion with each other as a Church, though, it is a supper of communion with our Savior Jesus Christ. (1) In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus invites us to eat with him at his table. We dine with him on the night before he was betrayed, when he gave new meaning to the bread and wine. The Puritan Stephen Charnock said “in this action there is more communion with God…than in any other religious act…. We have not so near a communion with a person… as we have by sitting with him at his table, partaking of the same bread and the same cup.” (2) And that isn’t the only way we have communion with Jesus as we take the Lord's Supper. His presence is with us. When we take communion, and we take a pause, we make space and to ask that the Holy Spirit would make us aware of the presence of Jesus in our gathering as we take the Lord’s Supper. When we gather together, and we declare to each other and to God that we are his disciples, and when we gather at his table to remember him and to proclaim the news about his death for our sins and our trespasses, Jesus promises in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, he says “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So New York City Pastor Tim Keller says, “in a unique way, in a way that is not available any other place, [in the Lord’s Supper] you eat and drink his words, his truth, the gospel; it becomes part of you. You remember that God will spiritually graft his truth, his gospel, his grace into you in a way that’s unique, in a way you can’t have in a quiet time; in a way that you can’t have anywhere else.” When we take the Lord’s Supper, we are entering into communion with each other as we partake together, and we are entering into communion with the very presence of Jesus in our midst as we are gathered together.

FUTURE: A SUPPER OF HOPE

Third, the Lord's Supper is a supper of hope. 1 Corinthians 11:26 says that "as often as you [eat the Lord's Supper], you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Whenever we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we also look forward to another Supper in the future, when Jesus will return to correct all injustice and wipe away all poverty and to cure all disease, and to heal all division; when he will bring all his people to himself, and the nations of the earth will make no war, and hold no hostages, and build no weapons, and have no secrets, and there will be no oppression, and no hunger, but only peace. Isaiah 25:6-9 tells us that on that day, on the mountain of the Lord, there will be another supper, which this supper looks forward to: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine.” Go back with me to the Passover supper, on the night when Jesus was betrayed. If you remember back to the beginning of this post, the Nigerian Bible scholar Victor Babajide Cole wrote about how Jesus “ended the Passover meal with the third cup, and did not go on to take the fourth cup, [which represented] the gathering to God of his people. That cup will only be drunk at the time of Jesus’ second coming. So the fourth cup is postponed. [It’s still waiting on the table.]” When Jesus comes, what’s his gathering going to be? What’s he going to bring when he comes? A supper. When you take the Lord’s Supper, God is whispering to you. He says, “I am unconditionally committed to getting you from here to there; from this bread and drink, to the new bread and drink in God's Kingdom.” We eat this meal in anticipation of the Great Feast that we will share with Jesus when he comes.

CONCLUSION

So on Communion Sunday, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. We celebrate a supper of remembrance; a supper of communion; and a supper of hope. This little piece of bread and this little cup are so small, but they represent such enormous truth and beauty and meaning. In these, according to 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, we have the message of the Gospel re-enacted for us. Jesus gave his body for us (v. 24). He brought in a new covenant in his own blood (v. 25). He died for sin, and was buried, and he rose back to life three days later, conquering sin and Satan and death and hell, and he rose up to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, from where he will one day come again. (v. 26)

- Sean