1 Corinthians 11:26 — For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
As a sermon, the Lord's supper first and foremost proclaims the death of Jesus Christ, and all of the other themes of the message flow from this one: Jesus Christ has died!
It may seem curious in a meal that is at least in part a celebration, that the central theme is that someone has died. Unless a person is unspeakably wicked, and justly forfeits his or her life by virtue of the crimes they have committed, death is usually and mainly a cause of grief and pain. Jesus Christ committed no crimes and was unjustly executed by the authorities of His day, yet at this Table, His death is declared as something that should cause rejoicing and comfort, even as we mourn over its cause. Here is what Matthew Henry has to say about our text:
[The Lord's Supper was appointed to be done in remembrance of Christ, and also it] was to show forth Christ’s death, to declare and publish it. It is not barely in remembrance of Christ, of what he has done and suffered, that this ordinance was instituted; but to commemorate, to celebrate, his glorious condescension and grace in our redemption. We declare his death to be our life, the spring of all our comforts and hopes. And we glory in such a declaration; we show forth his death, and spread it before God, as our accepted sacrifice and ransom. We set it in view of our own faith, for our own comfort and quickening; and we own before the world, by this very service, that we are the disciples of Christ, who trust in him alone for salvation and acceptance with God.
"The Son of God has died!" This is the astonishing truth that the Table proclaims. The second Person of the Holy Trinity took human flesh and laid down His life as a substitute, to pay for the crimes of sinful and ungrateful men and women. Because Jesus died, those who were born dead in their trespasses and sins may now be made alive in Christ. Because Jesus suffered Hell in place of His people on the cross, they will not suffer it themselves. That is why we are to marvel and rejoice at the Lord's Supper. As Charles Wesley put it, "’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies: Who can explore His strange design?"
But how is it that a simple meal can declare the death of Jesus? We want to go on to think specifically about the bread and the wine, but for now, let's consider the two elements as they are laid out before us on the Table. The first thing we have to note is that they are separate. Jesus did not serve His disciples with bread and wine mixed together in a bowl. Rather they had first the bread and then the wine. In the Old Testament sin offering, the blood of a bull was drained from the slain animal, sprinkled before the Lord and poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offering. The body of the animal was burned - the liver, kidneys and internal fat being offered on the altar of burnt offering while the entrails and the remainder of the carcass were taken outside the camp and burned in a special place (Leviticus 4:1-12). The separation of body and blood were an integral part of this sacrificial death. In the same way, the fact that the body and blood of Christ are pictured separately in the bread and the wine of the Supper declares His sacrificial death on behalf of His people, in fulfillment of the Old Testament types and shadows.
Matthew Henry notes that our text begins with the words, "as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup" , which he takes as a hint that the meal should be eaten frequently - "Our bodily meals return often; we cannot maintain life and health without this. And it is fit that this spiritual diet should be taken often too. The ancient churches celebrated this ordinance every Lord’s day, if not every day when they assembled for worship." With such emblems before us, and such themes to meditate upon and to celebrate, surely every true child of God will want to join their brothers and sisters at the Table as often as possible to eat this meal and to "listen" to the sermon it proclaims!
