This do in remembrance of
Me. - 1 COR. xi.
24.
THE Epistle of yesterday speaks
of Christ’s death in the sacrifices going before; that of to-day in the
memorial sacrifice coming after. And the respective Gospels might in this
point of view be found to coincide with the Epistles; in that of yesterday
Christ is condemned by the high priest and Jewish council, because He
confessed Himself the Son of God; in that of to-day He is given up to the
Gentiles, to the world at large, and crucified by them for the sins of all
mankind. We now, then, “go forth,” as it were, “unto Him without” the city
Jerusalem; we pass from the offerings of the law to that which is “from the
rising of the sun, unto the going down of the same.” [Mal. i. 11]
In the account of the Eucharist
given by St. Paul we find that it had already become subject to abuse.
In this that I declare unto you I praise you not; that ye come together not
for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together
in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly
believe it. Thus from the very beginning down to the present time Satan
has been most busy to introduce strife where this feast of Divine love is.
At its first institution “Satan entered,” and the hand of Judas was on the
table; and strange to say, even at that very time “there was a strife among
them which should be the greatest.” And now in the early Church at Corinth,
to which St. Paul writes, at this the Sacrament of thanksgiving, the
memorial of Christ’s dying for all, the feast of love or Christian
brotherhood which accompanied it was made the very occasion of selfishness
and intemperance, as if brought about by the evil spirit in strange mockery
of its purport and intention. For in eating, says St. Paul, every
one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is
drunken.
In the second place, from the
Epistle we learn that of such importance with God was the right holding of
this Sacrament, that He made the institution itself the object of especial
and immediate revelation to St. Paul; not leaving him to learn it from the
Apostles who were present, or from their ordinances in all the Churches, but
adding to theirs His own independent testimony; coinciding as it does with
the narrative of the Evangelists, and furnishing perhaps that of St. Luke.
And it is worthy of especial notice, that as a remedy for these disorders
St. Paul immediately takes them to that upper chamber at Jerusalem, where,
as on this day, our Lord gave Himself for us, simply giving an account of
what there took place. It is in the tabernacle of God that we shall escape
the strife of tongues, that secret Presence into which devotion shall lead
us, dwelling in remembrance on what He hath said and done. For I have
received, he says, of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, as a
sacred deposit or tradition ever to be preserved in the Church. That the
Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed,—when He was now, as
it were, bound to the altar as the Victim prepared for death, in the very
night which preceded that day of His death, He took bread: and when He had
given thanks,—by a solemn act of sacerdotal benediction,—He brake it, and
said, Take, eat; this is My Body, Which is broken for you:—words,
indeed, that could not have been understood at the time, for they as yet
required the realization of that terrible scene they were about to witness,
when His life was to be violently rent in pieces, and broken for us, and the
memorial of which was to continue as an everlasting covenant. His words,
This is My Body, remain full of power at every altar and in every
Church, and will do so until His coming again: “Even,” says St. Chrysostom,
“as the words, Increase and multiply and replenish the earth, were once
pronounced, but at all times afford to nature power of increase.” This
do in remembrance of Me. In remembrance of that awful night and awful
day, and of that long and painful dying; in remembrance, too, of all that
had gone before: the lively remembrance of Himself, that made His dying to
be what it is to us; nay, like all Scriptural words, they are deeper and
fuller than they sound,—the presence ever continued of Himself, the
participation of Himself, full of remembrances of Him. And the same St.
Paul again repeats in the delivery of the Cup: After the same manner also—with
the like solemnity of Divine institution—He took the cup, when He had
supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My Blood: this do ye, as
oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me. And yet further and more
fully to set forth this ever-continued and perpetual memorial of His dying,
this ever-present sacrifice unto the end, He adds, For as often as ye eat
this Bread, and drink this Cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.
And, oh! that this remembrance
may be ever hallowed to us! that it may be a remembrance worthy of God ever
present—“the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!” a remembrance that
may humble the heart, quicken the affections, may keep watch over all our
conduct; a remembrance which may make the words of the Gospel which we read
and hear on this day to be living words!
In the next place, the lesson
which the altar-service for this day would teach us is, that the want of
love, and all other evils which indispose us from holding aright this great
Sacrament, arise from not discerning therein the Lord’s Body;
it was this which occasioned those abuses of which St. Paul complained.
Their sin was that they discerned not the Lord’s Body; that having eyes they
saw not that which was really present; “Jesus Christ evidently set forth
crucified among” them. God is, we believe, present in this Sacrament; “God
is a Spirit,” and where He is present He must be present spiritually; but at
the same time, the reason we know Christ to be present is because of His
words, “This is My Body;” therefore in some way His Body must be present.
Now all this, blessed be God! is a vast mystery infinitely beyond our weak
reason to fathom, as everything appertaining to the attributes of God must
be. Love and faith must be our only safeguard against the arts of Satan,
tempting us either to lukewarmness or division.
Further, we may observe that on
this occasion, as if in consideration of their imperfect knowledge, God
visited them with merciful chastisements of a temporal kind, as if saying,
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
[Rev. iii. 19] For when we are thus judged, adds St, Paul,
we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the
world.
Thus St. Paul to-day in the
Epistle, and in the Gospel his faithful companion St. Luke, bring us to the
remembrance of Christ...
(for the second part, on the Gospel.)
