The second reason why we ought to "do this"—is because of its connection with the memory of his sufferings.
We are taught this by the word remembrance, which our Saviour here uses. He says, "This do in remembrance of me." This means in remembrance of my sufferings for you. And this is the most important word used by him when he established this sacrament. It is the governing word in the whole service. It is the word by which we must be guided in trying to understand what our Lord meant to teach us by all he did and said on this occasion.
You know how it is when we are trying to understand the music to which a particular tune has been set. There is always one special note in a tune, which is called the key-note. The leader of a choir, when they are going to sing, will strike one of the keys of the organ, or the melodeon they are using, so as to give to each member of the choir the proper key-note of the piece of music they are to sing. It is very important for them to have this key-note, because they cannot have a proper understanding of what they are to do without it. This holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper is like a solemn song. And the key-note of the music to which the song is set is this word—remembrance. It teaches us that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a memorial service. And, in going through the music to which the song of this service has been set, every note that we use must be a memorial note. And the language used by our blessed Lord when he established this Supper, or sacrament, must be explained in this way. When he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying—"This is my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me," he meant that we should understand him as saying—"This is the memorial of my body." And when he gave them the cup, and said—"This is my blood of the New Testament," he meant that we should understand him as saying—"This is the memorial of my blood." And we are sure that this was the meaning, for two reasons.
One reason for believing this is that this was the way in which similar words had been used in the Jewish Passover, which Jesus and his disciples were then keeping.
In the Passover service, when the head of the family distributed the bread, he always said—"This is the bread of affliction." When he distributed the flesh of the lamb, roasted for the occasion, he used to say—"This is the body of the Passover."
But every one knows, and every one admits, that the Jewish Passover was a memorial service. It was kept in memory of the wonderful deliverance of their forefathers from the bitter bondage of Egypt. And the words used at that service were memorial words. And so, when Jesus, a little while before, had given to his disciples the Passover bread, saying—"This is the bread of affliction:" he did not mean to say that that was the very same bread which their forefathers had eaten, in the time of their affliction in Egypt. What he meant to say was—this is the bread which you are to eat in memory of your forefathers' trial and deliverance. And when he gave to each of them a piece of the sacrificial lamb, saying, "This is the body of the Passover;" he did not mean that in any mysterious, or supernatural sense, that was the very lamb of which their forefathers had eaten on the solemn night of the Passover; he only meant that it was the body of which they were to eat in memory of the Passover. The Passover was a memorial service; and the words used at the Passover were memorial words.
And so, when Jesus went on, from the last Passover of the Jewish church, to the first sacramental feast of the Christian church, and began by saying, "This do in remembrance of me," what else could the apostles possibly have thought, but that he intended this new service of the Christian church to be a memorial service, just as the old festival of the Jewish church had been? When he gave them the broken bread, and said, "This is my body;" they could only have understood him as meaning this is the memorial of my body. And when he gave them the cup into which he had just poured the wine, and said: "This is my blood;" they could only understand him as meaning this is the memorial of my blood. And so, the sense in which he had just before used the words employed in the Jewish festival must have led the disciples to understand them in the same way when he used similar words in the Christian sacrament. This is a good, strong reason for thinking of this sacramental feast as a memorial service.
There is indeed, one point of difference between the Jewish Passover and the Christian sacrament, when we think of them as memorial services. The Jews kept their solemn festival in memory of a dead lamb—the Passover lamb that was put to death for them, but never came to life again. We keep our Christian sacrament in memory of the Lamb of God, who died for us indeed, but who rose from the dead, and is alive forevermore. As we keep this solemn festival, we may lift up our adoring hearts to him and say for ourselves personally,
"O, the Lamb! the loving Lamb!
The Lamb of Calvary!