"Ye Do Show the Lord’s Death"
(1 Cor.11:26)

A memorial exhortation

In the ordering of the Lord’s providence the due time to remember in a special manner the death of our Lord draws near. This special act of remembrance we perform in compliance with our Lord’s direction. The story has been told so many times that every phase of truth associated therewith cannot but be well understood by all who see that our Lord was the true Passover Lamb on the higher plane of God’s purpose.

But the story will always bear repetition at this season, in order to stimulate to greater intensity our appreciation of that sacrifice, and what it did for us, and to prompt us with greater earnestness and sincerity to renew our own covenant with our God, to die with Christ Jesus our Lord.

Every year that goes brings us a step nearer "the year of My redeemed," when the greatest and grandest deliverance in all the annals of time will be brought to pass. Each passing year should invest the act of remembrance with greater solemnity and beauty, enabling each participant to carry away a deeper sense of reverence and gratitude than from any preceding occasion. Another year’s crucial experiences and refinements should have prepared our hearts to receive the emblems of our slain Lamb with deeper appreciation and satisfaction than hitherto. The leadings of Divine providence should have created a keener appetite for the "true bread of God"—a sharper hungering and thirsting for the privileges spread out on the Lord’s table, and though we may eat and drink our daily portions to meet each day’s spiritual needs throughout the year, the very special and sacred meaning attached by our Lord to the simple annual service of Remembrance should cause us more ardently to approach the Christian’s festive board.

Carrying our minds back to that last eventful night when our Lord gathered the little company around the Paschal board, we find them following first the ancient order of procedure, established away back in the days of Moses, and revised and augmented as time went by. They had met privately in a room prepared for them, on the anniversary of the actual night during which their fathers had also gone behind closed blood‑sprinkled doors to eat the flesh of a slain lamb, and to wait, fully robed and shod, for the Angel of God to pass through the land. Nothing that Jesus said or did in the early part of the night’s proceedings changed the order or sequence or the meaning of the great event they were keeping in memory. They ate the Passover together exactly as their fathers had done down the centuries. Authorities tell us that the Jews in Jesus’ day partook of the flesh of a lamb and unleavened bread to remind them of the hasty meal prepared and eaten in Egypt, of a blend of herbs and vegetables consisting of coriander and endive, lettuce and horehound, thistle leaves and succory, to remind them of the bitterness of the bondage their fathers endured, and crushed fruit and nuts brought to table in shape of a brick, to impress on their minds the arduous labours of the mud pits and the brick‑kilns. They drank together the expressed juice of the vine, from a cup which from times long distant had been called "the Cup of the Covenant."

If this assortment of fruits, herbs, bread and flesh had become the established fare at the Paschal board, no valid reason exists for doubting that these were the ingredients that had been prepared by the owner of the room and set out in order by the two disciples (Mark 14:13), Peter and John (Luke 22:8) in readiness for the arrival later of Jesus and the rest of the band.

As they thus ate and drank and sang their way through the ancient feast they called to remembrance the slaying of the lamb, the sprinkling of the doorposts the extraordinary postures of the participants, the angel’s midnight flight, the morning’s early commotion as prince and peasant rushed to Pharaoh, the royal audience accorded to Moses, and the imperative order to "be gone." They would remember that Israel’s first‑born sons had been "spared" as the angel, with flashing sword, "passed over" their huts or houses. They would not fail to be reminded that God had spared those firstborns for himself, and that He hallowed them to himself and his purposes in the dead of that eventful night. Then with the early flush of dawn the hosts of the Lord began their march of liberty and to life with God. The old, old story was enshrined in every drop and particle on the Paschal board, and every year, each generation drew forth the same meaning and purpose. It was a memorial—a looking back—a remembrance of the great things which God had done.

The usual procedure ended, Jesus took a piece of the remaining bread, and raising over it a special prayer, passed it to his disciples, saying "Take this and eat—this represents my body." (26:26 [Author’s own translation]) He took the cup, in which yet remained a quantity of the juice of the grape, and again giving thanks to God, passed it with the words "Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament (Covenant), ,which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matt.26:27‑28) This was a new procedure, and had an entirely new meaning. Yet it was superimposed on the old. It was still intended to be "the Passover." It was still intended to presage deliverance. It was like going back to the night in Egypt to start it all over again, but on a higher plane. It still required a Lamb to be slain, it still required the sprinkling of the blood (1 Pet.1:2); it still had special application to the firstborns among the families of Israel. It was still intended to be the prelude to the breaking of bonds, and to the start of a journey towards the land of promise and of life with God. For the firstborns it still meant salvation from the destroying angel’s sword. For the remainder of the house of Israel it meant emancipation from a great and terrible taskmaster so that they could enter anew into covenant relationship with God.

The ultimate purpose of the Covenants was to constitute Israel a holy nation and a kingdom of priests, that through them the outcast families of the earth may be regathered to God and blessed with eternal life. That great objective was and still is God’s great purpose. But it needed a better Lamb than Israel’s paschal lamb. It needed a better firstborn to be brought forth on a higher plane, and to a higher ministry. Jesus came to earth to be that Paschal Lamb. Jesus went back to Heaven the firstborn among many brethren who are "the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven." (Heb.12:23 NIV) In that quiet, upper room, a great change began. The old order, observed by Jesus to the very letter, came to its end. The new order began. Jesus’ act and claim to put himself in place of the Paschal Lamb, and his invitation to his followers to eat the bread in lieu of eating him, carried the Paschal idea and the Paschal work to a higher plane. His death that very day provided the slain Lamb for Israel’s "Redemption" feast. His surrendered life provided the Redemption blood. From that upper room on that eventful night influences went forth which yet will change the world. Already they have changed the lives of those disciples, and of others who believed on Jesus through their word. And they will do much more as they constrain Israel and the nations into the way of God.

But here and now it is not this wider field of blessing and blessedness we seek to contemplate, but that one central fact on which the whole redemptive plan reposed. It required the death of our beloved Lord. There was no other way to effect release. Jesus, the Lamb of God, must die. No one in heaven or earth could meet the great need. All depended upon him—upon him alone! Jesus knew this. He knew the seriousness of all He said and did. He faced the greatest issue of all time. But no cost to him was too great to ensure the success of the Father’s plan. His death would make redemption sure, so He went to his death with open eyes and an understanding heart. He offered himself without spot or stain, a sacrifice of noblest worth. He poured out his soul to death.

For one night in the yearly round it is the Christian’s privilege and delight to show forth the Lord’s death, to think and speak of his voluntary surrender to the will of God, and commemorate the greatest sacrifice of all time. Each child of God knows and understands that every gracious privilege he or she enjoys flows from that sacrifice. Reconciliation and redemption, hope and expectation all spring from that unique surrender. The resounding hosannas of a world restored trace back to that unblemished offering. (Rev.5:12‑13). That is the one event in the whole range of time which is inevitable and indispensable. It is the one thing needed—the one thing all‑essential to make God’s "yea" YEA! God’s promises, though immutable, were all made with this in view. Jesus was accounted "slain" from the dawn of time.

It is no light thing which we do. It stands related to eternal things. Once for all the holy Lamb of God died. It can never occur again. In showing the Lord’s death we make contact with the "imperatives" and "absolutes" of God’s universal plan. We need to be humble and sincere in our approach to the table of the Lord. We need to purge out the least trace of the leaven of sin. We need to be hungry and athirst for him, as the panting hart over the water brook. No matter how much the Cup may symbolise to each and all, apart from him there could be no "bread," there could be no cup.

Let all remember that that which they do shall be done by countless thousands when the story of his deathless love shall be made known to all, and that it is an honour beyond compare to have a place among them in these dark days, to know their Lord and God, and walk in the footsteps of His worthy Son. Our opportunity to do this thing is nearly run. The outlook shows us that the Church’s race is almost at an end. The last days should be the best, and to each and all, this commemoration should be the most solemn and encouraging of all. May the blessing of God be with each soul, as we turn our eyes and hearts to him who died for us that we might live with him.

Bible Study Monthly March / April 1985