“Do this in remembrance of me”
Introduction: The fatality of forgetfulness
• sometimes having a poor memory is a decided advantage. They say that goldfish, who have a memory of about 2 seconds, swim endlessly around their 1 ft diameter bowls constantly visiting new and interesting places. Not too dissimilar is Catriona, who never remembers movies that she has seen, neither whether she’s seen the movie, nor the plot, nor the outcome, which means that she can watch them at the cinema and on DVD and on free to air TV, and enjoy it every time.
• sometimes of course, a bad memory can have more serious consequences. The armed robbery seemed to go swimmingly well, until the police arrived at the man’s door, and told him that though his balaclava was fitted perfectly, he had forgotten to take off his work name badge, which the video surveillance had pictured perfectly
• one of the great fears in the Bible for Christians is of forgetfulness, not the innocent kind of forgetfulness, but the kind of forgetfulness that will kill you, a forgetfulness of the Lord. Sometimes we forget out of panic, things in our lives are going so badly, that it seems all we can do is to survive and focus on getting ourselves out of the mess to the ruthless exclusion of all other concerns. On the other hand, sometimes we forget simply because life is so good, that when your days are taken up with a lot of eating and drinking and making merry, what’s the point of remembering? The Scriptures speak a great deal about not forgetting in either the hard times nor the good times. At one point, the Apostle Paul simply says to his young protégé Timothy “remember Christ Jesus”. Of course, the crucial importance of remembering comes from Jesus himself, who commanded us to do this in remembrance of me.
- last week we began our survey of the sacraments, those 2 signs of grace given to us by the command of Jesus, baptism and the Lord’s supper. We saw that in baptism, which is the enactment first and foremost of God’s grace to us and then also of our entrusting of ourselves to Jesus, in baptism we are united to Christ, and in particular united to his death for the forgiveness of our sins, and to his resurrection, so that we are called to live a new life, alive to God in the depths of our souls, and empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
• and that is a decisive, once off, good for all time, never to be repeated reality; we believe in one baptism. You are born again, born of water and the Spirit, and once you’ve been born again, you don’t need to be born again, again.
• except the danger of that is that it will all get left in the past – oh, yes, I remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, mighty fine things, had something to do with them years ago, involved water. This would be a fatal forgetfulness. And so Jesus helps us to remember, he gives us a meal to eat.
1. From last supper … (Lk 22.14–20)
• the scene is Jerusalem. Jesus is in the eye of the storm. Behind him is a sequence of clashes with the Temple authorities that humiliated them and sealed Jesus’ fate – we read in Luke 22.2 simply that the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death. Ahead of him lay his suffering, he has spoken openly enough of it, although the disciples seem remarkably uncomprehending, and he speaks of it again, 22.14:
Luke 22:14 When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. 15 He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
- we miss it, but it is shocking in the original language – the Greek word for suffer is pascho, and for Passover is Pascha, and so what Jesus is saying is that he eagerly desires to eat this Passover, this Pascho, before his pascho, his suffering. The meaning of his suffering is tied to the meaning of the Passover.
• the Passover itself was a one time past event, which led to a remembrance meal. The event was the decisive moment of liberation for the Israelites from the oppression of Egypt – while they ate a roasted lamb and unleavened bread and bitter herbs, the blood of the lamb having been put on the gates and the doorposts of their houses to mark them out as belonging to the Lord, while they ate the Lord himself passed through the land of Egypt, striking down the first born in every house, human and animal, all the while passing over the houses of the Israelites, which were marked. It was a dreadful blow, the 10th plague on those who would oppose the Lord, and finally their oppressor lets them go.
• and they are never to forget it – “remember this day on which you came out of Egypt” Moses says to the people, and so they repeat the meal as a central moment in their national and religious life, each year, until the meal is called the Passover, as well as the event which it remembers. It had a set and solemn form – 3 courses of food, plus a liturgy, or set form of words, said between the entrée and the main meal, each of those 4 moments with a cup of wine, 2 before the main meal, one with it and one after it, and with thanksgiving for the food – and before you rejoice at finally discovering the Biblical number of glasses of wine to have at a meal, note that they were shared glasses, so that all you got was 4 sips in total. There were set psalms to sing, and the events of the original Passover were recited, always in a given form:
[“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
• that’s from Deut 26, and the really interesting thing about it is that by this times, as they are on the verge of entering the promised land, none of the original exodus generation are left, they have all died in the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. But these words are still said in the first person – we cried to the lord, the Lord brought us out of Egypt; that’s what remembering does, that’s why it’s so important; it enables you to recall, re-connect with that defining moment, make them your own – in a sense, bring the past into the present.
• what’s more, they haven’t yet actually entered the promised land, and so the liturgy not only brings the past into the present, but looks forward to the fulfillment of God’s promises.]
• and Jesus takes all the power and richness of that moment and that memory and that meal, the salvation which it won, the blood of the lamb that was shed, the bread and the wine which are shared, and grabs it all, and redefines it around himself. Listen again to what he says, Lk 22.17:
17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
- unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke records the sharing of 2 of the cups during the Passover, most likely the second and the third, either side of the main meal. But it is the bread and the second cup, after supper, that are most important.
• Jesus says that the bread is his body given for you. Two key things to notice, corresponding to the 2 key phrases:
– ‘this is my body’. Positively, the bread in some sense stands for the body of Jesus, and the crucial thing to see here is that when Jesus speaks of his body, that is a way of referring to his death, and not his body literally, his muscles and organs and veins. Jesus has just mentioned his suffering; the whole Passover meal is introduced by the reference to the plot to kill Jesus, and the parable he has told in Jerusalem is about the wicked tenants killing the landowners son. When he says, this is my body, which is given, what he is saying is, this is my death for you.
– Which then leads to the second phrase – ‘which is given for you’. This death, the death which his body will undergo in a matter of hours, is not a meaningless death like so many, not a futile attempt at revolution, it is a death with power and purpose and divine authorization – it is a death ‘for’, a death for them and a death for us. A death in the place of, a death on behalf of. And as we saw last week in relation to baptism, death pays all debts, especially the debt of sin.
• I wonder what was the expression on the faces of the disciples as Jesus said this, and as they slowly pass around the loaf of bread and eat it. Confusion, dismay, collapse, or maybe growing comprehension, as all that Jesus has said and done about the kingdom of God, the Son of man who is a servant, slowly begins to come into focus.
• either way, some time later after the main meal has been served up and eaten, perhaps an hour or so, he does it again – “this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood”. There was an old covenant, that’s what the Exodus and the Passover were all about, God’s great promise of commitment to his people, to be their God and they to be his people, that’s what a covenant is. It had been sealed in blood, the blood of the lamb on that original Passover night, and then again blood at Sinai, when the blood of sacrificed was dashed on the people – you can read about that in Exodus 24. And Jeremiah had prophesied another great work of God, so deep and so powerful that could only be called a new covenant, written on the hearts of the people, affecting them to the core, a covenant for the forgiveness of sins. And Isaiah the prophet had spoken in riddles about a servant who would suffer dreadfully, pouring out his life. And now Jesus takes all of that hope and drama, and as this last Passover meal concludes says, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. It happens now.
• I wonder if any of them hesitated to drink – not because they thought that there was actually blood in the cup; again, the blood is a way of speaking about death, the same way as when someone says, ‘your blood is on your own head’, it doesn’t mean that they are likely to get sticky wet hair. We know what’s being said. No, maybe they hesitated because they knew all too well – those times that Jesus had prophesied his coming up to Jerusalem to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes and be killed he meant it, and he meant it for them, as the great victory of God for his people, victory over their sins.
• some final things to see here:
– notice that the cups of wine are mentioned, the bread is mentioned, but there is no mention of the lamb, although it was certainly present – Jesus makes no mention precisely because in a sense, the whole thing is about the lamb, the lamb that is the person hosting the meal. That’s why this is the last Passover meal, and what we do as Christians is not a Passover, it is a new meal to go with the new covenant.
– second, here is command – do this in remembrance of me. Why do we do what we are about to do in just a moment? – because Jesus told us to. We are to eat the bread and drink the cup, just as he gave them to those first disciples, in remembrance of him.
– Third, the great fight in Christian history on this matter has been over the word ‘is’. Martin Luther was so frustrated in a debate about this that he carved it in Latin into the desk where he sat – ‘Hoc est meum corpum’ – this is my body. But to fight over the word ‘is’ sadly is to miss the point. The issue is not whether the ‘is’ is literally or metaphorically Jesus body at the Lord’s supper; what’s at stake is not his body as such at all, it’s his death. When Jesus speaks of his body given for them and his blood poured out for them he speaks not of human anatomy, but of his death, his cross.
– And so fourth, see the power of what’s going on here; he hands them bread, and cup, and says, this is my death for you, and they are to take and eat. The very symbolism indicates that something more than merely mental is going on here – this is about participation in as thorough a way as can be imagined, taking the death of Jesus into your very life, as your very life, making it yours concretely and objectively, making it you in as profound a way as the food you eat is yours, and even you. Not just thinking about them, injesting them, inhabiting them.
• and Jesus says, do this in remembrance of him. It made me reflect – how else might you do it? I guess you can do it without the faintest clue about what you’re doing. That’s possible, but not if you listen to Jesus. Perhaps it’s possible to do it simply because that’s what’s done at church, almost on auto-pilot. It’s possible even to do it reluctantly, as though spiritual Christians shouldn’t get involved in such things as physical rituals. Any of those would be a mistake, a thin, spindly kind of substitute remembering as compared to what Jesus has for us here.
• one more thing: note that they share the cups and the bread, this is a corporate moment, and in a sense it is this moment defines them as a community, or perhaps a communion, in his death. As they share in him, they share in each other as well; so the very next thing that Jesus goes on to talk about is the greater one serving, in the same way as Jesus is amongst us as one who serves.
2. … to Lord’s supper (1 Cor 11.17–34)
• and what Jesus commanded here in the Last Supper, we see obeyed by the early disciples in the Lord’s supper, interestingly, as one element in a full scale meal. In the Acts of the Apostles, it seems to be called the breaking of bread, and is an integral part of the life of this wonderful new community around Jesus, as they share with the needy, spend time together, and devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching and prayer.
• but it is with the church in Corinth that we get the fullest snapshot of the way the early Christians celebrated this occasion, not least because they were doing it so poorly that when the Apostle writes to them, he says that though they might be doing the right actions with all the correct words, they are not really eating the Lord’s supper at all. Listen to how he describes it, 1 Cor 11.20:
20 When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. 22 What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?
• it’s like being together for a church picnic, and the well off people have exquisite cuts of cold meats and soft cheeses and savignion blanc, or whatever your thing is, and the not so well off have a couple of bits of devon and a water bottle, and the haves pork in and eat and drink their fill, shaming those who are poor.
• but the really interesting thing that Paul does next is that he gives a Christ-solution to a fellowship problem. The one thing he doesn’t do is to say, ‘be nicer to each other’, precisely because there’s nothing especially Christian about being nice. On the contrary, he’s got something far more profound to say, v.23:
1Cor. 11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
• here are Christians being instructed in what is already by the middle of the first century a tradition to be handed on, in almost the precise terms that Jesus spoke of, and which we will continue 20 centuries later – this is my body which is given for you, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, things to be done in remembrance of him. But there are also 3 new things that we learn:
– Paul makes explicit after the cross what Jesus only alluded to before the cross – it’s all about his death. That’s what we do as we share in the Lord’s supper, proclaim his death, that’s what the bread and the cup are.
– But second, the supper also looks forward, until he comes, until this is fulfilled in the kingdom, until the death of Jesus had had its full life giving, cleansing, healing effect, we will do this.
– And therefore, because the Supper is to do with the dignity of Jesus’ death, it is possible to do it shamefully, unworthily, v. 27: Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. It’s very important to get this right. Unworthy eating of the bread and drinking of the cup is not about whether you have sinned recently; of course the table is for sinners, just like all the meals Jesus shared with people were tables for sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes; that’s what the death of Jesus is all about, the forgiveness of sins. If you’re convicted of your sins, then the table is where you most need to be, to drive you out of yourself and your self pity and to the Lord whose death is your life, whose body was given and blood shed for you, for your sins. No, unworthy eating is explained by Paul in the next verses as failing to discern the body. This is a wonderful play on words. What’s happening in the Supper is nothing less than connecting yourself to Christ’s body and his blood, that is his death. But because you connect yourself to Christ therefore you also connect yourself to his body, the church. And that means that if you despise the church, say by greedily eating ahead of others, shaming others in their poverty, then you have despised Christ’s death, and the apostle says, will be answerable for the body and blood of Christ. Christ loves his church, it is his body; you can’t love Christ and hate his church – he won’t have it.
Conclusion: Worthy remembering
• here is one final way not to do this in remembrance of Jesus – to do it despising the church, to have little care or respect for your brothers and sisters in Christ; to speak badly of them everywhere except to their faces, and to wonder why the church doesn’t seem to be a loving place. Do you see what the Apostle is saying – how we speak to and of each other after the service, how generously we open our homes and our time and our resources to people between services, may in fact say more about our discerning of the body than any reverence with which we partake during our services.
• no, as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes – the death of the Lord which we take into our very selves, the death of the Lord that means that we have died, each one of us, died with him to our pride and our vanity and insecurities and jealousies and angers and all the things that cause us to treat our sisters and brothers in Christ poorly – we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes, and by the power of the Spirit we live the life of the Lord.
• let’s pray
Leave a comment