THE OBLIGATION OF CHRISTIANS TO OBSERVE THE LORD'S SUPPER
"Therefore let us keep the feast."—1 Cor. 5:8
These words (which are selected more as a motto than a
text), I desire, with the utmost simplicity of thought and language, to take
as the theme of appropriate meditation on this Sacramental Sunday morning.
Our subject is—the solemn and imperative obligation resting on Christians to
keep the sacred Feast of Communion.
There are not a few, regularly and devoutly worshiping
God in His Sanctuary—"not forsaking the assembling of themselves together,
as the manner of some is," who yet leave their places vacant on the
recurrence of the Holy Ordinance of the Supper. As the professing servants
and followers of a great and good Master, I would desire to bring home to
all here present who have arrived at a mature age, the privilege and duty of
making this avowal of their faith in Christ and of consecration to His
service. Let me proceed to state one or two reasons, why the Communion
Service ought to be devoutly observed, by every one who bears the Savior's
name.
I. The Lord's Supper is
to be observed, because its
obligation rests on the Redeemer's dying command.
An injunction is always rendered more binding and imperative if it has
these two, among other considerations, to enforce it—
(1.) When it comes from the lips of One we love, and
who has shown a deep interest in our welfare. We naturally pay a
respectful deference to the request of a neighbor or acquaintance; but what
is this, in comparison with the command of a parent? How supremely
obligatory to every right-thinking child is the wish emanating from a father
or mother, and with what joyful alacrity is it obeyed! The son going to a
distant land has a Bible put into his hands, as the last gift of doating
love, with the sacred promise exacted and given, that night by night in the
adopted home he will never fail to use it. The request might be sacred for
other reasons; but doubly so would it be, when he regards it as that of his
dearest earthly friend.
When, in the desert wasteland, or in solitude, memory
travels back to the parental hearth, and remembers the devotion which so
often and so willingly submitted to self-sacrifice—the hands which smoothed
the pillow of sickness, and the voice which solaced in the hour of sorrow—if
he ever proved traitor to his trust—if that hallowed souvenir should be ever
left to gather dust on the neglected leaves, we know whose image would be
the first to give the upbraiding look of injured love, and lead him with
remorseful tears to unclasp it once more.
The observance of the Lord's Supper is the solemn
injunction of One, who has proved Himself to be infinitely more than
the best and fondest on earth. Even a mother's love—noblest type and ideal
of supreme human affection—pales before His. All our tenderest and most
endearing relationships, individually and combined, form but a feeble image
and emblem of the devotion of this Parent of parents—this Brother of
brothers—this Friend of friends—"He that does the will of my Father in
Heaven, the same is my mother and sister and brother." It is from the
lips of such peerless LOVE the command is addressed, to "keep the Feast!"
(2.) Another consideration which makes such a request
specially obligatory, is, if it is conveyed at some exceptionally solemn
or momentous season. Surely if there be a time in the history of any
human being more sacred or impressive than another, it is at the hour of
death. How sacred must have been the dying adjuration of the last of the
Patriarchs, when he "made mention of the departure of the children of
Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones!" How filially and loyally
was this injunction obeyed—all the more so, just because it was a dying one.
The bones of Joseph were not allowed to repose in Egyptian sarcophagus or
under Egyptian pyramid. They were religiously guarded and kept unburied by
his children's children, until, borne in the longest funeral procession the
world ever saw, they were laid, in obedience to his last injunction, in the
mausoleum at Sychar.
Take a New Testament illustration. Timothy would feel at
all times imperative the wishes of his great spiritual father. But when the
latter was "such an one as Paul the aged," "ready to be offered," sinking
under the weight of years and suffering in his dungeon home, how devoutly
would the younger disciple respond to his injunction, even to the request
about his winter cloak and parchment writings left in Troas! And, when the
noble champion of the faith was gathered to the Church triumphant, how
specially would every dying word listened to in that Mamertine prison,
remain engraved indelibly on the survivor's heart.
What shall we say of the circumstances in which the
parting command—the great farewell injunction—was given, of a Greater than
the greatest of Apostles, that of the Divine Savior of the world? "Do this
in remembrance of Me" has, as we well know, the special significance and
impressiveness attached to it, of being uttered the night before death. It
was, as much as the "Peace I leave with you," His dying legacy. He left on
it the impress of His dying lips; yes, too, when His agony and bloody sweat,
His Cross and Passion, and all their fearful accompaniments, were vividly
portrayed to His omniscient eye. If John felt that the hallowed bequest of
his Lord had a double obligation, because uttered by the faint lips of the
Crucified in the supreme moment of suffering love—"Son, behold your
mother—Mother, behold your son,"—if, just because it was spoken with dimming
eye and paling countenance, that disciple regarded the direction and trust
all the more sacred, from that hour to take the bereft mourner to his own
home—with what profound reverence ought not we to accept and ratify the
valedictory command of Jesus, to show forth His death in His own appointed
Ordinance?
Yes! If I love the Savior; and so loving Him, if there be
preeminently sacred music in His dying words; then surely no evasion of what
is alike a duty and a privilege can be pleaded regarding our solemn Feast
day. "If you love Me," says He, "keep my commandments." You are my friends
if you do whatever I command you." Blessed Redeemer! to Whom we look for
every hope for time and for eternity—in the great crisis-hour of Your work
and sacrifice, You did not only institute this precious Memorial, but did
lay upon Your Church the solemn injunction to perpetuate it for all
ages—"Therefore, let us keep the Feast."
II. I would observe,
under our second general head, that an obligation rests upon us to celebrate
the New Testament Ordinance,
because it is a befitting public declaration of our Christian profession.
Beautiful must have been the spectacle of that ancient
mountain gathering, when the tribes of Israel assembled to give public
testimony of their allegiance to their fathers' God, on the slopes of Ebal
and Gerizim. More solemn and interesting still, what we have on other
occasions referred to in connection with our Sacramental seasons—when, year
by year, the valleys and highways of Palestine were vocal with the songs of
Pilgrims, as they went in company to celebrate the appointed feasts. Jehovah
required them thus, year by year, to make mention of His name in the City of
Solemnities. It was not enough for Jewish parents, by oral instruction, to
impart His will and unfold His testimonies to their children, "talking to
them when sitting in the house and when walking in the way—when lying down
or rising up"—thus faithfully inculcating in the homestead the observance of
private and domestic religion. "The Lord loves the Gates of Zion more than
all the dwellings of Jacob." Jerusalem was the place where He recorded His
Name, and where He promised especially to meet His chosen people. Hence
every true and warm-hearted Israelite, when he came of age, considered it
alike a duty and delight to take part in the holy convocation, and
"subscribe himself by the name of Jacob." "Jerusalem is built as a city that
is compact together, where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto
the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord."
Brethren, "let us keep the Feast"—our New Testament
Passover—as a blessed opportunity of testifying, in presence of our
fellow-Christians and before the world, our obligations to the Savior, and
that we are not ashamed of Him and His gospel. Observe, the Psalmist
(himself a devout worshiper) puts special emphasis in paying his vows "in
the presence of all God's people." "In the courts of the Lord's House,
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem" (Ps. 116:14, 19). Let none of us be guilty
of false shame, shrinking from an open declaration of the infinite debt of
gratitude we owe to Redeeming Love. Even the soldiers of pagan Rome were not
ashamed to pay their religious vows along with their comrades. They gloried
in ascending the steps of the Capitol to the Temple of Victory, with their
votive offerings, swearing by the gods of Olympus allegiance to their
Imperial Master. And shall we, Christians, be found cowards to the true
Jehovah and His Christ, when the heathen did public fealty to mute idols?
If such unworthy feeling be deterring any from
approaching that Holy Table, let them remember the righteous upbraiding
which will meet them at the Great Day, "Whoever is ashamed of Me and my
words, of Him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of
His Father and of the holy angels." No, no; may this rather be the avowal
that rises spontaneously to our lips, "We will rejoice in Your salvation,
and in the Name of our God we will set up our banners." God helping us, we
shall not, like the recreant children of Ephraim, "carrying bows, turn back
in the day of battle." The servant may desert his master—the beggar may
refuse to recognize his benefactor—the restored may pass unacknowledged the
physician that cured him—the soldier may absent himself from the ranks, or
basely disown his brave and trusted leader—but God forbid that we should
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. "You have given a banner
unto those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of Your truth."
"Therefore, let us keep the Feast!"
III. We are under an
obligation to keep this feast, because
by not keeping it, we incur
spiritual loss. We never can be
careful enough in discarding the false and unscriptural idea, that there is
any peculiar grace or virtue in the Sacrament—any mystic charm to pacify
conscience—or that the mere act of communicating earns some claim or title
to God's favor—in some mysterious way condones transgression, and cancels
bygone guilt. We can entertain no such modification of the Roman Catholic
dogma. As little could the mere act of communicating have power to take away
sin, under the new dispensation, as had the blood of bulls and of goats
under the old. All grace and mercy, pardon and acceptance, flow, not from
the sacrament, but from Christ. This Ordinance is no more than one of "the
golden pipes" spoken of by Zechariah in his beautiful and instructive
vision, as conveying the golden oil from the Heavenly reservoir (Zech.
4:12).
But neither, on the other hand, must we undervalue the
Ordinance, as a mean of grace. It is doubtless one of the Divine
channels for the conveyance of spiritual good—one of the aforesaid golden
pipes which transmit needed and promised grace to the soul. God could have
fed His Temple-lamps miraculously, without aid or intervention. He could
have nourished them by some mysterious supernatural process. But in this, as
in other things, He works by instrumentalities; and if we neglect those of
His own express appointment, we cannot expect otherwise than to suffer
spiritually.
Would the Pilgrim host of Israel have sustained no
deprivation if they had omitted to quench their thirst and fill their
leathern bottles at the wells of Elim? Would Elijah have suffered no loss if
he had rejected the offered food, in whose strength he braved the barren
desert for forty days and nights? And how can we expect otherwise than to
incur loss and detriment if we pass by this Well of Living Water dug for us
in the Valley, without partaking of its refreshment?
We would confidently appeal to many who, in obedience to
their Lord's command, have come again and again (using the expressive word
of an old writer), to this gracious "Trysting-place" and surrounded
His Table. Have you not found it a precious means of advancing the work of
grace, and of fostering spiritual growth in your hearts? Can you not, as you
look back to these "Delectable mountains," with their hallowed memories,
exclaim, "It was good for me to be there"—"I will remember You from the land
of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the Hill Mizar"? How many have there
received some unexpected tokens of blessing—gracious revelations of the
Savior's character and work—new unfoldings of the Savior's love—some more
intense and quickened longings after divine fellowship—some more realizing
and energizing views of the unseen and eternal?
Ask such, if they regard this Day of Solemnity as an
empty form—a mere periodical accordance with a conventional religious
custom, from which they expect no fresh and stimulating impulse to faith,
and love, and holiness? They will tell you far otherwise. "I have food to
eat which the world knows not of." "His Flesh is food indeed, and His Blood
is drink indeed." "You have put gladness in my heart more than in the time
that their harvests and their wine increased." We take no undue or
exaggerated estimate of His ordinance when we say, that it is the choicest
and most strengthening meal provided by the Master for His spiritual Israel,
in the House of their pilgrimage—"Lord, evermore give us this Bread!"
These remarks may appropriately be closed by a simple
reference, and no more, to a DIFFICULTY. This difficulty is occasionally
felt and expressed as twofold, on the part of those who remain away from the
Lord's Table, and forfeit a personal share in the blessing of which we have
spoken.
(1.) 'We are not warranted to approach the Table of
Communion, because
we are not prepared for it.'
My answer is—The same reason which makes you
unfit for the Communion, is equally valid, equally pertinent, in rendering
you unfit and unready for Death. Unfit for the Communion Table in the Church
below, can you be fit to sit down at the Supper-table of the Church above?
Unworthy! Oh, is it not because we are sinners, and unworthy, that we are
invited to come to the Feast, and there to celebrate the infinite worthiness
of "the Lamb that was slain?"
(2.) It is further and not infrequently urged—'We cannot
go to the Sacrament of Communion
because we know that some venture
who have no right to be there.'
'Hypocrites,' say they, 'frequent this hallowed
ground—those living in known sin and spending disreputable lives. We shall
not, we cannot go, where the cup of fellowship is mixed with the cup of
devils—to talk of it as a "Communion" would be a brand and stigma on the
name.' I reply—Your duty of obedience to your Lord's command is independent
of any such intruders. You are not responsible for the sin and presumption
of others. If hypocrites there be, to the Lord they thus mock, and defy, and
crucify afresh—not to you—are they answerable. It is a disputed question,
whether the betrayer himself dared to partake of the consecrated elements on
the night of Institution. If he did, John and Peter and James were assuredly
not responsible for the sacrilege—the defiant crime of the Apostate putting
his lips to that sacred cup. And of every Judas who ventures with unhallowed
footstep among disciples still, we can only say—"To his own Master he stands
or falls."
Jesus bids all His lowly followers welcome. "Blessed are
those who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be
filled." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Why stand
excluded from the gracious privilege by the intervention of any needless
barriers and impediments unrecognized by the Master? If in any degree
conscious of love to Him who first loved, and so loved you,
and cherishing a humble yet earnest desire for its increase—do not delay
this public manifesto of your allegiance. Rather, in response to His
invitation, "Come, for all things are ready,"—be it yours to say, even while
deeply feeling your unworthiness and infirmity—
'Just as I am! Your love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Your, yes, Your alone—
O Lamb of God! I come!"
We cannot more appropriately close, than by simply
repeating our text, and the words of the immediate context—"Christ, our
Passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast!"
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