FFF 6:6 (June 1960)
In Remembrance of Me
The request of Jesus made just before He went to the cross, “This do in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:24), is not only the wish of our dying Lord, but it is His gracious command to all of His own. Few seem to have felt the real impact of this charge of our beloved Lord.
Should we command any person on the street to appear before us on a certain day at a certain hour, he would probably resent our attitude, and rightly so. Why? Simply because of who we are. If, however, a servant of her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth were to summon us to attend her court, there is no doubt but that we would comply with her wishes, and that without loss of time.
Pray, tell, “Why would the Queen’s command be so readily obeyed?” “Because of who the Queen is,” you reply. It is obvious that the status of the person makes the difference.
Think how the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Creator of all things, invites us as redeemed sinners to feast with Him at His own table! What an honour and privilege He confers upon us at the Lord’s supper! There we remember Him in His own appointed way.
The verse in 1 Corinthians that immediately precedes this request says, “The Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread.” Let us pause here and ask why. It does not say that the night before His crucifixion He took bread, but that the night before He was betrayed, He took bread. How dreadful, on the very night the love feast was instituted, Christ was betrayed!
Human love betrayed Him, and Judas proved himself to be false. Human love forsook Him for all the disciples fled. Human love denied Him; Peter swore that he did not know the Lord. Notwithstanding, His love gave all for us.
Oh, my soul, pause, think! See how the love of Christ shines forth! Behold Him! “He took bread;” He, the bread of life, the true bread which came down from above, knew what that symbol foreshadowed, He knew the ignominy, the shame, the bitterness of the cross; yet, “He gave thanks.”
“He break it,” the bread, “and said, Take, eat; this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.” In thus remembering Him, we show forth His death till He come. After the same manner He took the cup, and expressed the same desire; “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
A very solemn warning concerning the partaking of the emblems in an unworthy manner is given to us. The injunction reads, “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” To partake of the Lord’s supper unworthily is to eat and to drink damnation (judgment) to oneself. The unworthy one does not discern the Lord’s body.
“Let a man examine himself,” that is, let him catechize himself. Let him question his ways before the Lord, and wherein he discovers wrongs, let him make the proper corrections in order that he may eat in a worthy manner.