Luke 22:19-20 — And when He had taken some bread and 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." And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood..."
We are reviewing some of the reasons for the church to participate frequently in the Lord's Supper, and have seen that the weight of Scripture evidence strongly suggests this is what the early church did.
This time, we want to focus on the simple words of Jesus from Luke (above). Here, the paramount reason He gives for our eating this meal is that we might remember Him. He says this in relation to the bread, but Paul indicates in 1 Cor 11:23-25 that He also repeated this as a reason for taking the wine.
Why was Jesus concerned to leave His church, for which he was about to lay down His life, something to remember Him by? How could the disciples who had shared the experience of His life and ministry ever forget? There are two things to note here. The first is that even those who were closest to Jesus were prone to forgetfulness of things that He had said to them. The second is that there were generations and generations of disciples yet to come who would not have this experience but still needed to remember Him. It is very difficult in this world to live a life in the consciousness of Christ's presence, of His life, of His death and resurrection. How different believers would be were they more able to do so! But we have enemies within and without who try to dull our memory of spiritual things and reduce their effectiveness in our lives so that we are more liable to fall into sin when tempted.
Even if this were not a spiritual battle, our fallen minds are not always the best at remembering important things - like a wedding anniversary date or the birthday of a loved one. The Lord Jesus Christ is far more important than these, but our poor minds are not up to the challenge.
Knowing the frailty of the flesh in this regard, and the spiritual warfare in which we are placed as children of God, Jesus graciously gave us the Supper as a means to remember Him and to be strengthened in our Christian walk.
So how often should we take the Supper if its major purpose is to remind us of the One Who left heaven, lived perfectly, was nailed to a cross and then rose from the dead to save us? Is once a year enough? Once a month? Can we begin to get a clearer picture from this why the early church "glued" themselves continually to the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42), perhaps eating the supper as a church day by day in their homes? Are we so confident in our own powers of memory that we feel we can eat the meal much less frequently and still remember Him as He wants to be remembered, as He should be remembered?
So the reason the Lord gave when He instituted the meal, coupled with our own frailty and inability to remember even secular things, let alone those where spiritual enemies are encouraging our forgetfulness, surely provide a most compelling reason for us to take the Supper as often as possible in our fellowships.
