In Remembrance of Me

Taking the bread and wine links us with our brethren in all lands and all times. But in how different circumstances has the sacred feast been observed during the past two thousand years. Consider that first anniversary, just a year after its inauguration by our Lord on that night in which He was betrayed.

Can we picture the disciples gathering in response to his love's request? It was no effort for them to remember him. Their memories were crowded with mental pictures of scenes in which He had been the central figure. All the four Gospels, put together, record only the merest fraction of what Jesus did and taught with which they had been familiar. How wonderful for them to be able to visualise our Lord enacting some of those scenes with which the Gospels have made us so familiar, such as the cleansing of the lepers, the restoring of sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk, casting out devils, cleansing the Temple, rebuking the winds and the waves, walking on the sea and even restoring the dead to life. How vivid and tragic must the closing scenes have been to them; the triumphal procession on Palm Sunday followed by the terrible cry of "Crucify Him"; the sad procession from the judgment hall to the place called "Calvary" and the crowning horror when the three crosses were erected with Jesus in their midst.

As they gathered together for the first memorial each would have specially treasured memories of personal contacts with the Lord. Mary, the Lord's mother, would be able to go furthest back. If every mother's mind is richly stored with precious recollections of her first born, how transcendently more must Mary's have been. Possessing the secret of his birth, with what wonder must she have watched her child's personality unfolding as He grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man. She would recall the wrench when at the age of thirty He left home to take up the work for which He had been born. The parting, however, had been softened by the hope that He had gone to lead the nation, as their Messiah, back to God and to fulfil the angel's words given before his birth. How sorely tried was her faith by subsequent events. But now she understood the reason for it all and all the wealth of her affection had been transformed into a passion of love as she saw him wounded for her transgressions, bruised for her iniquity and the chastisement of her peace upon him. It was surely with trembling hands and eyes and a heart that overflowed that she partook of those sacred emblems of that broken body and shed blood that had meant all the world to her.

Those amongst the disciples who could look farthest back were John and Andrew. At the first memorial they would be recalling that first meeting with the Lord on the banks of the Jordan. It had been a meeting never to be forgotten; what a wonderful evening they had spent together. First impressions are lasting and probably all would recall the circumstances in which they had first met the Lord. There was Nathanael; he would be thinking of how he had been making it a matter of prayer under the fig tree when the Lord gave him that heart-searching glance, spoke those thought penetrating words and that splendid commendation which he should never forget as long as he lived. Nicodemus too would be there. How he would recall the events of that memorable night when the Lord had spoken to him those wonderful words of life. Little had he realised at the time the meaning of the saying addressed to him "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up." As he thought of his Lord there on the cross he could now see something of its meaning.

Martha and Mary would also be there with their precious store of personal recollections. How much the Lord had loved them and how frequently had he made their house his home! The sisters could still hear the ringing tones of that voice that woke the dead. And what about Peter and James and John, the three so often singled out by the Lord for occasions of special intercourse with him. How much they would recall of personal contacts. As they shared the bread and wine surely their minds would go back to that wondrous vision on the mount of transfiguration when Moses and Elijah had spoken of the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. Instances could be multiplied of how the disciples would in the most natural and spontaneous way remember him. To them it would not be so much God's purpose as Jesus as a person that would be uppermost in their minds; not so much the truths about him as the personal love of their Lord.

As we look forward to another anniversary we cannot help but recognise a difference between ourselves and these brethren of whom we have been speaking. Unlike them we have no personal recollection of the Lord as He was in the flesh. Our knowledge of the Man Christ Jesus is second hand, books forming the principal source of our knowledge. God caused the New Testament to be written specially for that larger body of his brethren whom our Lord referred to as "those also who shall believe on Me through their word." By its aid we can remember him in those incidents portrayed so simply and beautifully in the Gospels, using our sanctified imagination to make the scenes live. As compensation for our lack of first hand knowledge of the human life of our Lord, we have a more complete knowledge than those first disciples of his resurrection life. The epistles written over a long period give evidence of how gradual was the growth into the fuller knowledge of the person and work of Christ. Even Peter refers to Paul's writings as containing some things hard to be understood. The disciples then could look back over the three and a half years of our Lord's earthly ministry; we can look back over nearly twenty centuries and see the Lord in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, watching over his people with patient tender care.

If our knowledge of our Lord as he lived on earth is of necessity second hand, not so our knowledge of the risen Christ. There is no child of God who has not abundant occasion for remembering the Lord in respect of his own personal contacts. While it is true that

The sands have been washed in the foot-prints
of the stranger on Galilee's shore,
and the voice that subdued the rough billows
is heard in Judea no more"
it is also true that
Warm, sweet living yet,
a present help is He,
And faith has still her Olivet
and love her Galilee".

We must all have had personal contacts with the Lord. Why else have we a place at the feast? We have been cleansed from sin; our blind eyes have been opened and our deaf ears unstopped; He has opened our lips that our mouth should show forth his praise; He has given us power to stand erect and walk in his ways; He has quickened us and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.

These and countless other blessings are common to all God's people, yet each one has had experiences in connection with them peculiarly his own. The members of the new creation are not mass produced. The Lord has an individual plan for every individual life. When we take bread and wine it is an occasion for remembering him with deepest gratitude for all the peculiarly personal expressions of his love.

The next feast, for all we know, may be the last. It almost certainly will be the last for some. Let us go forward with this solemn thought in mind, not only looking back to the cup which our Lord drank to the dregs at Calvary and in which we are privileged to share, but also forward to the ineffable joy, which he gives us, of drinking the wine new with him in the Kingdom of God.