Lord Jesus, You are worthy, Lord.
And we thank You, Lord, for calling us to Your table to remember You.
Lord, our gathering is unto You.
And we believe that You are here, and You are leading us to Yourself.
Lord, we do not want to just repeat what is familiar to us. We pray, dear Holy Spirit, lead us to appreciate anew the Lord Jesus Christ and the value of this table: His broken body, His precious blood shed.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Now when even was come, He sat down with the twelve.
And as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.
And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto Him, Lord, is it I?
And He answered and said, He that dippeth His hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.
The Son of Man goeth as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Then Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body.
And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives.
Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
Peter answered and said unto Him, Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended.
Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cockcrow, thou shalt deny Me thrice.
Peter said unto Him, Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.
Just meditate on this precious word.
I confess, I am so used to reading those verses of the supper of the Lord that I ignore the context in which they appear. And the Holy Spirit deliberately arranged the telling of this event.
And the Lord Jesus deliberately arranged it that first He would speak of His betrayal—that one would betray Him.
And immediately after those familiar verses, as they are walking toward Gethsemane, Jesus says, “Every one of you will stumble and will turn away from Me this very night.”
And there is something about the reminder. We know that our Lord calls us to remember Him. We need to be reminded, and the Lord underlined it in a very real way.
They had no confidence when they sat there at that table. There was doubting; there was fear. One was a traitor—who could it be?
They were shaken. They were unsettled, exceeding sorrowful that the thought of a conspiracy could penetrate that close circle.
And the Lord, very deliberately, in that atmosphere, He took bread.
And He broke it. After giving thanks, He broke that bread and distributed it to each one: “This is My body.”
As if to say, all the treachery of men, all the evil schemes of Satan, will not prevail over the purpose of God. Indeed, these things will be turned into the service of God’s will.
Knowing what He knew, seeing what He saw, He committed Himself without reservation, wholeheartedly, fully, in love, asking nothing but, “Take. Take this and eat this. This is My body, which is for you.”
And after supper, the cup: “Take this. Divide it among yourselves. Drink, all of you. Drink ye all of it. This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for the remission of sins.”
In another Gospel, “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
He is before all things. All things depend upon Him—our salvation, the carrying out of the Father’s eternal will. It all depends upon Him.
And He would make us remember that for our own sake, because He loves us so.
And it is the irony of ironies—indeed, it is the work of the enemy—that this most precious time should be turned into a formality, a ritual, something other than what He intended it to be, which is a remembrance of Him personally.
It is a calling of hearts who have been touched by the love of Christ, who have been called and who have been kept by the love of Christ; who see something of the treachery of our own hearts and how prone we are, in spite of our protest to the contrary, to go our own way and turn our back on the Lord as soon as the going gets tough.
Well, He saw it all. He knew it all. He sees it all. He knows it all, and He alone has followed through.
He has gone that way: the eternal Son of God, become flesh, come alongside of us.
And in our humanity, He obeyed the Father. He depended upon the Father. He received all from the Father, and then went to that cross so that you and I might be partakers of Him together.
As different as we are, as many things as could come between us, our communion is in our Lord Jesus.
He is our fellowship. He is the reason that we are here. He is the reason that we are kept.
And what a promise, brothers and sisters: that vow that He made, that He would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.
What love! Do you see how much He wants you and me to be with Him?
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we come to this time. Do not worry about what others are doing. Do not worry about what others are saying.
The Holy Spirit will lead us to remember Him personally. And do not hesitate to open your mouth and give thanks, to open your mouth and bless your heavenly Father, because it is the Lord Jesus Himself that made it possible for us to participate in that precious communion.
Father, we pray that as this time proceeds, there are so many of us here, but Lord, You coordinate all things. And may these songs and these prayers and these hearts be an honour to You.
In Thy Son’s precious name we pray. Amen.