And now, O Father, mindful of the Love
That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree,
And having with us Him that pleads above
We here present, we here spread forth to Thee
That only offering perfect in Thine eyes
The one true pure, immortal Sacrifice.
Look, Father, look on His anointed face
And only look on us as found in Him
Look not on our misusings of Thy grace,
Our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim
For lo! between our sins and their reward
We set the Passion of Thy Son Our Lord.
Our Blessed Lord is therefore present as the Head of the Church which is His Body, as the great High Priest to enable us in union with Him to plead His Sacrifice, which is the sole ground of our approach to and acceptance with God. In that which has been called the Companion hymn to Dr. Bright's, part of which I have quoted just above, the Saintly Bishop Bickersteth expressed the same great truth from his standpoint as an Evangelical Churchman.
O Holy Father, who in tender love
Didst give Thine only Son for us to die,
The while He pleads at Thy right hand above
We in One Spirit now with faith draw nigh,
And, as we eat this Bread and drink this Wine,
Plead His once offered Sacrifice Divine.
(b) But not only is the commemoration of the Lord's death made before God, it is also made before and amongst ourselves. The breaking of the Bread, the blessing of the Cup with the use of Our Saviour's words do remind us in the most solemn manner of the cost of our redemption and the great love wherewith He loved us and gave Himself for us.
The more we ponder God's amazing love in Redemption, the more wonderful does it appear and the deeper and more ardent becomes our love whereby we love Him who first loved us.
Perhaps the chiefest essential in the Christian life is that we should have a living faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death, and nothing helps us to secure this essential so much as the due and devout observance of the Lord's Supper ordained by Our Blessed Master Himself in the same night in which He was betrayed and on the very eve of His tremendous death and Sacrifice.
(c) There is a third aspect of the commemoration which must not be overlooked. The Eucharist is a means of proclaiming or preaching the Lord's death before the world until His coming again. "For as often as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till He come" (1 Corinthians, XI. 26). There is not space at my disposal to do more than merely call attention to the evidential value of the Holy Eucharist to the truth of Christianity and to the Gospel history. But its constant celebration week by week is a fact, a fact which even the world must take note of, a fact which proclaims as no other institution of religion does that Jesus died and rose again. And He, Who has promised to be present where two or three are gathered together in His Name, He, Who has pledged His presence to His Church in the proclamation of the Gospel, is ever mindful of His promise when His followers meet together at His table, and amongst themselves and before the world proclaim and herald the death of Him Who died to be the Saviour of all mankind.
THE SPIRITUAL FOOD OF HIS BODY AND BLOOD.
The Holy Communion was ordained, and Our Blessed Lord is present in that Holy Sacrament, in order that He, the true Bread from Heaven, may feed us with the Spiritual food of His Body and Blood. In the language of the Prayer Book itself "it is our duty to render most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God our Heavenly Father, for that He hath given His Son Our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but also to be our Spiritual food and sustenance in (this) Holy Sacrament." Whilst our Catechism asserts that "The inward part or thing signified in the Lord's Supper is the body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." The seeker after the truth must read and compare very carefully the following passages of Holy Scripture. St. John VI., the whole Chapter; St. Matthew, XXVI. 26-30; St. Mark XIV. 22-26; St. Luke XXII, 15-21; 1 Corinthians X. 15-22; 1 Corinthians, XI. 23-end.