[ p. 174 ]
FOR nineteen centuries Jesus has been remembered in the new feast which he instituted at the Supper that night in the upper room. During all these centuries quiet groups have knelt in silent churches, with bowed heads, offering to him the acceptance and faith which his own generation denied. Let us go back again, then, to the scene of the institution.
Stop a moment and think. Your mother is dying. You sit by her bedside, her hand in yours. She looks up into your face. There are many things you both want to say; but you can neither of you bear them now. At length she does speak, in low, trembling tones, of things which must be said. She tells you what she wants you to do for her in the few days that are left. And then, with a smile that lights up her face, she speaks of some other things she wants done afterward. “You will do it, dear,” she asks, “do it for me? And you won’t forget me, will you? Do it always, to remember me.” What kind of a son would you be if you forgot?
Jesus, who was the world’s friend, gathered his followers about him on the night before he died. He was very human. And he had all this human longing not to be forgotten; purged, of course, of all self-seeking [ p. 175 ] —he would be remembered, not for his sake only, but for ours. He and his friends had met for a solemn and sacred purpose. They had kept together the Supper, a great religious feast of their race. When it was over, he took bread and wine—the bread of the feast and the wine mingled with water. He raised his hands in blessing; he broke the bread and poured out the wine; he told them that his own body would be broken and his blood shed for them. In St. Paul’s account of the Supper, which he declares was received from the Twelve and so may be accepted as the earliest tradition, he tells how, as the bread was broken, Jesus said, “This do in remembrance of me,” and when he gave the cup, “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” All understood that it was the institution of a new memorial feast.
What kind of Christians are we if we forget?
So we think of the Holy Communion first as a devout act of remembrance. If one cannot believe any more than that about it, yet it is possible to come acceptably. But it is more than that. In some way it has always been felt that in this service Jesus touches us, and we receive his very life.
Let us think a moment about ourselves. You cannot see me; I cannot see you. All that you see of me —this hand; this face—is not myself; it is the garment my spirit wears. What you see is only carbon, phosphorus, lime and water and a little sodium chloride mixed. But the real self is not this material body, [ p. 176 ] it is the living soul which is important. That soul is my real self, though you cannot see it.
The mother’s kiss: it is only a little dust of her lips touching the dust of your forehead. Is it? Or is it the fellowship of her spirit with yours in the power of love? The mother’s tears: they are only a little water and a pinch of salt. Or are they more?
And Jesus said wonderful things about this sacrament of his life. He said, “This is my body; this is my blood.”
It will be objected that he was speaking figuratively. Of course he was. But what do we mean by figurative language, unless it be that our figures of speech are an effort to express a bigger truth than we can put into humdrum prose? The very need of figurative language shows that the idea to which we are trying to give utterance calls for a heavier burden of meaning than ordinary words can bear. To say that words are figurative is not to empty them of meaning. It is to say that the wider conception must be at least as great as the figure itself.
Let us be frank to declare, therefore, that these words of Jesus are figurative. What then? Why, this: that the inner reality which needs such a figure to express it must be great beyond all thought. We are not making the Holy Communion less mysterious, then, if we call the language that describes it figurative language; we have but deepened the mystery.
That is the next thing we feel, then, about the Holy Communion. It is not merely an act of remembrance; it is Jesus’ way of giving us his own life. He himself [ p. 177 ] is present when we do what he commanded. The food we take is not material food only; it is his very life. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ?’* So Paul puts the question and those who accept Jesus’ words on their face value can give but an affirmative answer.
When Jesus said,—implicitly or explicitly—“Do this in remembrance of me,” what he chose to be remembered for is significant. He was famous for his teaching, and yet more notable for his wondrous works. Yet he chose neither. He would be remembered in his death. That was because his death was no ordinary martyrdom. He gave his life “a ransom for many.” His death was in some way a sacrifice for the sin of the world. Into the world of sin, divine forgiveness came freely; but it came by divine love itself, bearing, before our eyes, our sins or their results. In the death of Jesus, as in nothing else, we see the awfulness of sin, and are brought to acknowledge the penalty that is its due. There, as nowhere else, the pain and the shame of sin are awakened. In the supreme moment of forgiveness we find that forgiveness is made possible because at last we have seen sin with the eyes of God.
It was this that Jesus would bring constantly to our remembrance. The Holy Communion is not simply an act of remembrance, nor is it only the means of [ p. 178 ] approach to the divine presence; it is a sacrificial service.
Not until men have grown into fuller appreciation of “the Lord’s own service” shall we ever know what public worship is, and so it has not seemed out of place to dwell at length on the original institution. Those who wrote the Gospels linger lovingly over the details. The story of the last night occupies much of their space, because it held so large a place in their hearts.