Call to Worship August 18, 2019
The Lord’s Supper by Thomas Watson
“Branch 4. Has Christ really and truly died for us? Then when we are at this gospel ordinance, let us remember the Lord Jesus there. The Lord’s Supper is a Christ-remembering ordinance. ‘This do in remembrance of Me,’ 1 Corinthians 11:25. God has appointed this spiritual festival, to preserve the living memory of our dying Savior. A Sacrament-day is a commemoration day. Remember Christ’s passion. ‘Remembering the wormwood and the gall,’ Lamentations 3:19. If the manna was to be kept in the ark, so that the memory of it should be preserved—how should the death and suffering of Christ be kept in our minds as a memorial, when we are at the table of the Lord?
Remember the glorious benefits we receive from the broken body of Christ. We usually remember those things which are advantageous to us. Christ’s broken body is a screen to keep off the fire of God’s wrath from us! Christ’s body being broken—the serpent’s head is broken! Christ being broken upon the cross—a box of precious jewels is broken open! Now we have access to God with boldness. The blood of the cross has made way to the throne of grace. Now we are made sons and heirs—and to be heir to the promise, is better than to be heir to the crown! Christ having died, we are made near akin to the blessed Trinity. We are expectants of glory. The bloody way of the cross—is our milky way to heaven. Jesus Christ drank gall—that we might drink the honey streams of Canaan. His cross was stuck full of nails—that our crown might be hung full of jewels! Well may we remember Christ in the blessed Lord’s Supper!
But the bare remembrance of Christ’s death is not enough. Some who have a natural tenderness of spirit may be affected with the history of Christ’s passion—but this remembrance of Christ has little comfort in it. Let us remember Christ in the Lord’s Supper rightly.
Let us remember Christ’s death with JOY. ’God forbid that I should glory—except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Galatians 6:14. When we see Christ in the Lord’s Supper crucified before our eyes—we may behold Him in that posture as He was in upon the cross, stretching out His blessed arms to receive us. O what matter of triumph and acclamation is this! Though we remember our sins with grief—yet we should remember Christ’s sufferings with joy! Let us weep for those sins which shed His blood—yet rejoice in that blood which washes away our sins!
Let us so remember Christ’s death—as to be conformed to His death. ‘That I may be conformed to His death,’ Philippians 3:10. Then we remember Christ’s death rightly—when we are dead with Him. Our pride and passion are dead. Christ’s dying for us—makes sin die in us. Then we rightly remember Christ’s crucifixion—when we are crucified with Him. We are dead to the pleasures and preferment’s of the world. ‘The world is crucified unto me—and I to the world,’ Galatians 6:14.”