“Let us Keep the Feast”
1
Corinthians 5:8
"Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed for us."
Here we rest, protected by the paschal blood, feeding on the paschal lamb, with
its unleavened bread and bitter herbs, day by day. "Let us keep the
feast." Wherever we are, let us keep it. We carry our Passover with
us, always ready, always fresh. With girded loins and staff in hand, as God’s
pilgrims in this strange land, we move along, through this wilderness, through
the rough places and the smooth, over the mountains and through the valleys, by
day and by night, with our faces sit toward the land of promise.
Our Paschal Lamb
Our paschal lamb is “Christ crucified.” As such He is our
protection, our pardon, our righteousness, our food, our strength, our peace. Fellowship
with Him upon the cross is the secret of a blessed, happy and peaceful life.
We feed on that which has passed through
the fire; on that which has come from the altar. No other food can quicken or
sustain the spiritual life of a believing sinner. The unbroken body will not
suffice; nor will the risen or glorified body avail. The broken body and shed
blood of the Son of God are the things on which we feast. It is under the
shadow of the cross that we sit down to eat and find refreshment for our journey
and strength for our warfare. His flesh is meat indeed; His blood is drink
indeed. This is what is pictured in the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper
Every Lord’s day evening we gather around the Lord’s
Table to celebrate our redemption by Christ exactly as he commanded us, eating
the unleavened bread that represents his holy humanity and drinking the cup of
wine which represents his precious blood. This is a highly symbolic ordinance,
full of instruction for all who behold it, delightful to all who participate in
it properly, and honoring to our Lord. It has absolutely no saving merit or
efficacy. It has no mystical power. It is not a sacrament (a means of grace),
but an ordinance to be observed by those who have experienced grace. The table
is an ordinary wooden table, not an altar. The bread is ordinary unleavened
bread, not the body of Christ, except in symbol. The wine is ordinary concord
grape wine, not the blood of Christ, except in symbol. Yet, the ordinance is
highly significant.
It symbolizes our Savior’s death as our
Substitute (1 Cor. 11:26).
The broken bread portrays his body, crushed to death under the wrath of God for
us. The cup of wine represents his blood, poured out unto death at Calvary for
the remission of our sins, securing for God’s elect all the blessings of the
covenant of grace forever.
This ordinance is a declaration of our faith (1
Cor. 10:16). Eating and drinking the wine, we profess to all our faith in and
dependence upon Christ’s finished work for the pardon of our sins and
righteousness with God.
Observing the ordinance is an act of grateful remembrance (1
Cor. 11:25). It is an ordinance that can only be properly observed when it is
observed in remembrance of Christ. It is meaningful only as it reminds us of
who he is and what he has done for us.
The Lord’s table is a symbol of our union with one another in
Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). As the bread is one loaf, so all
true believers are one body in Christ because all are partakers of him.
The Lord’s Table is also a prophetic ordinance. It
is the showing forth of the Lord’s death “till
he come” (1 Cor. 11:26). As the Jews of old ate the passover with their
staff in their hand, their shoes on their feet, and their coats on their backs,
so we must ever keep this ordinance in anticipation of that great day when
Christ shall come again and feast with us in his Father’s kingdom (Matt.
26:29). AMEN.