Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses

by Joseph Cross

My dear brethren, there is One far nobler who died for you and me. With a disinterestedness unparalleled in the annals of war, he took our place in a fiercer conflict than was ever waged for freedom or for empire. Fighting our battle, he fell; but falling, conquered all our foes. Triumphant he rose from the dead, and ascended on high, leading our captivity captive. At the right hand of the throne of God, in our nature redeemed and glorified, "he ever liveth to make intercession for us." All that we have or hope of good we owe to his dying love. But in an upper chamber at Jerusalem, with a few chosen witnesses present, just before he went forth to the final engagement, he instituted for us a perpetual memorial of his unexampled charity. Taking bread, he blessed, and brake, and gave to his disciples, saying: "Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me." Then, taking the cup, he gave to them, saying: "Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins; do this in remembrance of me." This finished, he chanted part of the Great Hallel with the beloved twelve, as if the victory were already won; then gave them his valedictory address, and went out to die. And some twenty-four years later, the great Apostle Paul, in a letter to the Christians of Corinth, having narrated the facts just as they are recorded by the evangelists, adds these solemn words for the benefit of his brethren in all subsequent ages: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."

Here, then, is the precious Calvary token bequeathed by the dear Saviour to his redeemed Church. While we contemplate it, hear we not a voice from the excellent glory bidding us take off the shoes from our feet? Approaching the altar to gaze upon the great sacrificial memorial, the ground we tread is holier than that on which Moses stood before the bush that burned in Horeb. There is more of God seen here than in all the fires of Sinai. There he made known his law; here he reveals his love. There we read his will; here we behold his heart. No other ordinance, even of the new and everlasting covenant, contains so much of majesty, so much of mystery, so much of sanctity, and at the same time so much of mercy, as the eucharistic feast; in which the Messiah stands forth to our faith at once the sacrifice and the sacrificer, in the same sacred solemnity instituting an everlasting memorial and a perpetual priesthood.

To us, more than eighteen centuries after the fact, if we have any right feeling and clear perception, the solemn transaction in the upper room,

"On that sad memorable night,"

must wear an aspect far more interesting than it wore at the moment even to the apostles themselves. For we are able to view the matter more deliberately and more dispassionately than they could, and with many additional side-lights to aid our apprehension of the divine truths involved. Certainly no act of the Saviour has laid his Church under greater obligation, none has exhibited in more attractive colors the relations he sustains to his redeemed people. Taking the bread and the cup, does he not remind us of his having taken our flesh and blood? Presenting them with solemn benediction to the Father, does he not intimate to us the offering of his humanity to Heaven as a sacrifice for our sins? Giving them to his disciples with the command to eat and drink, does he not assure us that he is ours with all the infinite benefits of his incarnation and atonement forever? Ordering the apostles and their apostolical successors as his priests to do what they have just seen him do as their Lord, does he not furnish us a perpetual commemoration of his redeeming love, and a perpetual demonstration of his quickening power, till his return in glorious majesty from heaven to rule the world he ransomed with his blood?

Under both the Hebrew and the heathen rituals, the meat-offering and the drink-offering were inseparable from every piacular sacrifice; and without the conjunctive offering of bread and wine, it is difficult to see how either Hebrew or heathen could have regarded the death of Christ as an expiation for sin. As the death of a martyr, indeed, they might well enough have taken it; but as a sacrifice for human transgression, how could they have received it, unaccompanied by the Holy Supper? Were the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ in the physical sense maintained by the Church of Rome, their perpetual presentation by personal intercession before the Father's throne would be superfluous and even impossible, while the voluntary death of our dear Lord upon the cross would be unnecessary and suicidal. Were they the body and blood of Christ in the merely emblematical sense maintained by the ultra-Protestant sects, they would constitute for us no sufficient assurance of his ever-living mediation in heaven, nor to God any effectual remembrancer of his suffering in the flesh for the expiation of our guilt. Therefore those denominations who deny the propitiatory character of his passion have little care or scruple about the due observance of this most sacred festival—

"Rich banquet of his flesh and blood."

"This do," said the divine Author of the institution, "in remembrance of me"—strictly, "for my memorial;" not merely remembering me—reminding yourselves and others of me; but memorializing God the Father—reminding him of the self-presentation of his well-beloved Son as an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor for our salvation. In doing this, we do not repeat the once offered and forever accepted propitiation for our guilt—a thing which, indeed, we cannot do, and which no word of Holy Scripture warrants us in attempting; but we present a spiritual memorial of that propitiation, setting forth in the sight of God the perfect work and infinite merit of our personal Redeemer; we present the consecrated bread and wine, and with them we present ourselves and the whole catholic Church, to him who delivered up his own Son for us all, and accepted that Son's unknown sorrows and sufferings as a sufficient satisfaction for all human sin. This is the essence of the eucharistic oblation, the anti-typical peace-offering, the great sacrifice of the faithful. How unworthy are we of so sublime a service! and how should we cleanse ourselves to appear with such a gift at the portals of the heavenly sanctuary!

In the presence of the chosen twelve presenting to the Father the meat-offering and drink-offering of the true Paschal Lamb, the appointed High-Priest of our profession solemnly attested to heaven and earth the sacrificial character of his ensuing sufferings, and pledged himself to the speedy accomplishment of the great sin-offering once for all. Enjoining upon his apostles the perpetual continuance of the same ministration by an unfailing succession of consecrated men, he provided the Church with a proof and the world with a token of the everlasting endurance and efficacy of that sacrifice, once offered, often commemorated, and eternally acceptable to God. Instituting a memorial for all subsequent ages of the completeness and perpetuity of his personal sacrifice, he instituted also the means of appropriating its benefits; and the Christian meat-offering and drink-offering being so intimately associated with the Christian sacrifice, the partaker in faith of the one is partaker in fact of the other, truly eating the flesh and drinking the blood of God's incarnate Son. Hear the Saviour's memorable words in the Capernaum synagogue: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you; whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day; for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed; he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him."

Hard sayings were these to some who heard them, and hard they still are to all self-blinded unbelievers; but, as St. Augustine says, they are hard only to the hardened, and incredible only to the incredulous. To us who believe, though mysterious, they are very precious. We apprehend their spiritual meaning, and rejoice in the privilege which they open to our faith. Eating and drinking at the Lord's table, we become partakers of his life, his holiness, and his immortality. Here we participate with the Eternal Father in his joy over the accomplished work of his Beloved Son, and with that Beloved Son himself in his joy over the redeemed Church—his treasure and his bride; while heaven and earth unite in the glad festival of faith—the hidden manna and the new wine of the kingdom. And if the living Christ be thus in you, dear brethren! what outward enemy is too strong for you—what duty too arduous—what ordeal too severe? Away with your doubts and fears, O ye faint-hearted disciples! Can you not trust him who, in the power of an endless life, has established his throne in your hearts? With Christ, all things are yours, and no agency of earth or hell can rob you of your regal inheritance!