Lord’s Table

Hymn 197 - Precious Lamb of Glory

All over the world, the service of the Lord’s Table is observed in different ways, and with different customs. But when you boil it all down to its essence, there are four things that Jesus wants us to do at the Lord’s Table.

1. He wants us to look back:

Jesus based the Lord’s Supper on the Jewish Passover meal. The Passover was for the Israelites a time of looking back on their deliverance from Egypt. The main dish of that meal was lamb, and as they ate the lamb, they remembered the Passover Lamb which was slain; its blood sprinkled on the doorposts so that they would be protected from the judgment of God. It was a feast of remembrance; a time of remembering God’s deliverance.

In the same way, the Lord’s Table is a feast of remembrance. It is a time for us to look back and remember Christ’s death on the cross. There are only two simple elements in this meal—a piece of bread and a cup. As we eat the bread, we remember his broken body. As we drink the cup, we remember his shed blood.

Some people might think it odd that we go out of our way to remember Jesus’ death. Usually, when you memorialize someone, you try to emphasize their life and the things that they did. But Jesus specifically instructed us to remember his death—not his life, not his teachings, nor his miracles—but his death, and the way in which he died. Why?

Because it is not the earthly life of our Lord, nor his teachings, nor his miracles that saves us, but his death. Because when Jesus died, he died as our substitute. Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 1 Peter 3:8 tells us that “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.” He was our substitute; our Passover Lamb—the Lamb of God whose death made it possible for us to come into right relationship with God.

That is why we look back on his death.

Hymn 208 - Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?

2. He wants us to look forward

The table of the Lord is not just about remembering, it is about anticipating as well.

When Jesus ate that first Lord’s Supper with his disciples, he said to them: “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes…” In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul tells us that “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

So as we gather around the Lord’s Table, we are not only looking back; we are also looking forward to the time when Jesus returns—to the time when he gathers us unto himself—to the coming of the kingdom of God.

The Bible says that the return of Jesus Christ is the blessed hope of the church. We need to remember that Jesus not only died for us, but he rose again and ascended to heaven and one day, He’s going to return and take us to heaven to be with him.

So when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are looking back on the significance of his death, but we are also looking forward with eager anticipation to that great day when we’ll be with Him.

Hymn 206 - There is A Redeemer

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The first thing we need to do at the Lord’s Table is to look back—to remember the significance of the Lord’s death for us. And then we need to look forward, to the day when we shall see him in glory. There’s a third thing we need to do when we gather around the Lord’s Table.

3. We need to look within

Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11: “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

Notice that Paul does not say that we have to be worthy to partake of the Lord’s Supper. None of us are worthy! No, the apostle says that we should participate in a worthy manner—in other words, our attitude needs to be right as we partake of it. That was the problem that Paul had to address in the church at Corinth. They were participating in the Lord’s Supper with wrong attitudes—prideful, arrogant, selfish attitudes.

The story is told of a Communion service that was held in a church in Scotland. The pastor noticed that one of the women in the congregation did not accept the bread or the cup as it was passed to her. She refused to participate, but instead sat there weeping quietly.

The pastor, sensing her anguish and brokenness, left the table and carried the bread and cup to where she was sitting near the back of the church. He knelt down beside her and said gently “Take it, dear lady; this bread and this cup are for sinners.”

That woman had the right attitude—she was acutely aware of her sin and her own unworthiness before the Lord.

A few weeks ago, at a communion service here at Erindale, a young man stood up and told how the Lord had saved him and utterly transformed his life. And in the middle of giving that testimony, he broke down and could not continue.

Some might say that that was not appropriate—that that is not “what we do at a Communion service.” But I say that that young man was an example to all of us of the proper attitude with which to observe the Lord’s Table.

The Bible says that we are to examine ourselves. And if there is sin in our life, we are to confess it to God.

And if we have sinned against a fellow believer, we are to confess it to that person and seek reconciliation. This is something that we do not often do. We become so uptight, and reserved, and concerned about appearances that we lack the humility to get up in a public setting and admit that we’ve done wrong, and go to another brother or sister and ask for forgiveness.

But is this not of the purposes of the Lord’s Table? —to help us be transparent with God and to keep us from allowing divisions to separate us from our fellow believers.

As Christians, we’re part of a family, and sometimes family members have disagreements. Sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. Sometimes there are misunderstandings and hurts that develop between us. The Lord’s Table is the right time and place to deal with those things, not to paper over them in the interests of decorum.

We are going to take some quiet time now to look within. And if there are matters you need to deal with, now’s the time to do it.

Hymn 323 - Let Us Break Bread Together on our Knees

4. We need to look around us

In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul rebuked the Corinthians because in their observance of the Lord’s Supper, they were being callous and uncaring toward each other.

They had divided into factions, or church cliques, and there were hard feelings among them. Paul said “I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you. And your observance of the Lord’s Table indicates that.”

He wrote: “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk.”

They were eating the Lord’s Table independently. The rich members looked down their noses at the poor, and the poor members resented the rich. That is why Paul had to tell them in v. 33…

My brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. You need to look around and appreciate the fact that, as Christians, you are all part of one body. And if one member is hurting, you’re all hurting.

Likewise today, we need to look around us. We need to wait on each other. We need to be sensitive to the hurts and the needs and the problems of our fellow believers. We have no right to come to this service and partake of the Lord’s Supper and then go our separate ways without a thought for how our fellow believers are doing.

We look back
We look forward
We look within
We look around