1 Corinthians 11:24–25 — and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which 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.”
We have seen this meal is commanded for the believer and that the early church devoted themselves to its observance. Now we are looking at what the meal actually is and we saw already that it is a replacement for, and a better memorial than the Passover meal. This time, we want to focus on the fact that it is to be an act of remembering Jesus.
In the passage above, Paul reports what he had received directly from Jesus concerning the Lord's Supper, and twice he quotes Jesus as saying that the meal is to be eaten in remembrance of Him. But why did Jesus provide this meal for us, and so stress the need to remember Him when we eat it?
First, because the very remembrance of Him will warm our hearts with affection for Him, and spur us on to live more like Him, and in greater obedience to His commands. When we are separated from those we love, we will often look at photographs of them and the memory of them can help us in our lives. Jesus is in heaven, and the Lord's Supper is much richer and fuller than any photograph could be as a means for us to remember Jesus and His love for us, and to find motivation to greater holiness.
Second, because Jesus knows how liable we are to be unmindful of Him! Like Martha, we are prone to be busy about many things but to overlook the ones that are most important. We get distracted in this world and as a result, we are inclined to forget the One Who died to save us - the One Who is to be the first love of our lives. The less He is in our thinking, the more easily we may stumble and fall into sinful behavior. At the Table, our Lord says to us,"Don't be forgetful of Me! I want you to have Me in your thoughts."
Our need to have this meal to help us to be mindful of Jesus may provide a clue as to how often we are to celebrate the Supper. As we have seen, it is not a good thing to be forgetful of Jesus, but sadly we are capable of entering quickly into that condition. Can the Supper adequately remind us of Him if we take it once a year, or even once a month? Can we trust ourselves not to become forgetful of Jesus if we take the Supper so infrequently?
Furthermore, since He is the Delight of our hearts, to remember Him must itself be a delightful thing, and this is surely a great incentive for us to take the Supper frequently. Why would we only want to experience that delight once a year or once a month? When young couples are in love but circumstances separate them, do they deliberately decide to have nothing to remember each other by for long stretches of time? Absence may well make the heart grow fonder where there are the means to provoke remembrance, but without them, absence is likely to make the heart grow colder.
Finally, let us not miss another meaning that there is in the words of Jesus, and to which we must pay careful attention: whenever we take the Supper, it is always to be taken with Him in our minds. We must never eat this meal without thinking of Him, for then we have missed the whole point for which He provided it. How can it be wise or right to take this meal with no thought of the One it is designed to remind us of? Let's guard ourselves against such a possibility!
Later in this series, we will examine some of the specific things we can remember about Jesus as we take the Supper but for now, let's be thankful we have such a meal, and commit ourselves to use it so we may never become forgetful concerning our Savior.
