Christ Remembered at His Table

by John Alexander

Law and terrors do but harden,
All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood bought pardon,
Can dissolve a heart of stone.

3. Grateful love to Christ will also be produced by this remembrance. Love to Christ is a principle essential to personal religion, and without it we are nothing. But our hearts are so constituted that love cannot be excited in them by any commands however authoritative, or by any threatenings however terrible. We cannot love an object unless we perceive that it is lovely; nor can we love Christ unless we perceive the loveliness of his person and character. And this perception is derived from reflection and remembrance. While we are musing the fire begins to burn; and when we remember the great love with which he loved us, when he gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, that love excites and constrains our own, and “we love him because he first loved us.” When we thus begin by loving him for what he has done for us, we go on to perfection by loving him for what he is, the noblest and the purest love our hearts can cherish. And as love always assimilates to its object, and blesses the heart which it inspires, so love to Christ conforms us to his character, and becomes a fruitful source of joy and peace. The Spirit takes of the things which are Christ’s and shews them to us with increased clearness and impressiveness, so that “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory.”

4. Nor can we thus remember Christ, and thereby feel the constraining influences of his love, without manifesting devout subjection to his authority, and practical conformity to his example. The great and pervading principle of his mind was evidently a spirit of obedience and submission to his Father’s will. “I am come,” said he, “not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” “My meat is to do his will.” “Father, not my will but thine be done.” How perfectly and perseveringly were these sayings exhibited in his daily life; and how precious and powerful does his example become to those who endeavour to have these things always in remembrance. And shall it not be so with us? Shall we, his disciples, pursue any course but that which is marked by his footsteps? Shall we remember Christ and love the world, and comply with temptation, and neglect watchfulness and prayer, and carefully avoid self denial, and follow our own inclinations rather than his commands, and feel ashamed of making a public profession of his gospel? Oh, no! Holy Jesus, no! We would ardently cling to thy cross, but we would also humbly bow beneath thy sceptre. And while we do this in remembrance of thee, we would thankfully acknowledge that we are not our own; that we have been bought with the price of thy precious blood; and that we are under infinite obligations to glorify thee in our body and our spirit which are thine.

5. This remembrance of Christ will also promote our love to the brethren. How affecting and constraining were the manifestations of Christ’s love to his disciples. He lived for them; he died for them; he bore with their infirmities; he prayed for them that their faith might not fail; he washed their feet, to teach them to wash one another’s feet; and when his soul had begun to be exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, and they were striving which of them should be greatest in that earthly Kingdom which they expected him to establish, he looked mildly on and said, “Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as one that serveth.” “While you sit, and strive, and aspire to lofty stations, I am content to stand and wait.” “I am come, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give my life a ransom for many.” Brethren, was this in any degree the spirit of the world? Was not this love that passeth knowledge? And can we do this in remembrance of such a meek and lowly Jesus, and yet cherish towards any of his disciples a spirit of cold-hearted selfishness and proud sectarianism, which would refuse to recognise them as brethren, or to co-operate with them in promoting the cause of Christ. Oh no! Let us rather sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of him; let us love mankind at large, even our enemies, with a benevolent desire to do them good; but let us love the brethren because they are brethren and because “Christ hath loved them and given himself for them.” And let our love to them include forbearance and longsuffering in reference to their infirmities, a cordial recognition of their as well as our spiritual relationship to Christ, an affectionate sympathy with them in all their difficulties and tribulations, and a fraternal communion and co-operation with them in all their works of faith and labours of love.

6. Such remembrance of Christ will bring us, even now, into a state of harmony with heaven. Heaven is that “upper room” in the new Jerusalem where Christ sits down at his table with his disciples; where he partakes with them of the new wine of his kingdom; and where all that is signified and shadowed by this earthly supper is “fulfilled.” When therefore we thus come together in this one place to remember Christ, by eating of this bread and drinking of this cup, we come also “to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born which are enrolled in heaven, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and even to Jesus himself, the mediator of the new covenant.” Our spiritual circumstances, though in many respects very inferior to theirs, are nevertheless the same in kind. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” All things which are in heaven and which are on earth, are gathered together in one by Christ, even in him. We and they therefore are one church; one whole family in heaven and earth; one communion of saints, partakers of the same blessed privileges, and cherishing a devout remembrance of the same Lord. Our justification is as complete as theirs; our holiness is derived from the same source, and assimilates to the same image; our joy, as well as theirs, is “unspeakable and full of glory.” Thus the pure river of water of life, which flows from the throne of God and the Lamb, pours down its clear and crystal streams to make glad this earthly city of our God. Thus the Tree of life, which grows in the midst of the Paradise of God, bends its fruitful branches down to earth, that we may sit under its shadow with great delight, and find its fruit sweet unto our taste. And thus

The men of grace have found
Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground,
From faith and hope may grow.

Finally. Our remembrance of Christ will be the means of preparing us for his coming. We are directed to do this “till he come.” He has been once, and his first advent is the pledge of a second. He will come to all mankind at the last day; and till that day arrives, his church is continually to shew forth his death. The Lord’s supper is therefore designed to be prospective as well as retrospective. It is a chain which connects together the two advents, and requires us to remember not only the cross on which he suffered, but also the throne which he will occupy, when he comes “the second time without sin unto salvation.” He will also come to us individually at death. “I go,” said he, “to prepare a place for you, and I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” He will not send for us; he will come himself. And when he appears, his presence will deprive death of its darkness; only a faint “shadow” will be thrown across “the valley” through which we shall have to walk; only a shadow; the shadow of a sword which cannot pierce, and the shadow of a serpent which cannot sting; and a shadow through which we shall walk till we reach the sunshine of everlasting light. The brightest object amidst that light is Christ: and when we behold him, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” His presence is heaven; the highest, the holiest, and the happiest heaven that we can desire or enjoy. “Then shall we be satisfied when we awake in his likeness; for in his presence is fulness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore.” “Amen, even so, come Lord Jesus.”