“Let us Keep the Feast”

1 Corinthians 5:8

"Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed for us." Here we rest, protected by the paschal blood, feeding on the paschal lamb, with its unleavened bread and bitter herbs, day by day. "Let us keep the feast." Wherever we are, let us keep it. We carry our Passover with us, always ready, always fresh. With girded loins and staff in hand, as God’s pilgrims in this strange land, we move along, through this wilderness, through the rough places and the smooth, over the mountains and through the valleys, by day and by night, with our faces sit toward the land of promise.

Our Paschal Lamb

Our paschal lamb is “Christ crucified.” As such He is our protection, our pardon, our righteousness, our food, our strength, our peace. Fellowship with Him upon the cross is the secret of a blessed, happy and peaceful life.

We feed on that which has passed through the fire; on that which has come from the altar. No other food can quicken or sustain the spiritual life of a believing sinner. The unbroken body will not suffice; nor will the risen or glorified body avail. The broken body and shed blood of the Son of God are the things on which we feast. It is under the shadow of the cross that we sit down to eat and find refreshment for our journey and strength for our warfare. His flesh is meat indeed; His blood is drink indeed. This is what is pictured in the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper

Every Lord’s day evening we gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate our redemption by Christ exactly as he commanded us, eating the unleavened bread that represents his holy humanity and drinking the cup of wine which represents his precious blood. This is a highly symbolic ordinance, full of instruction for all who behold it, delightful to all who participate in it properly, and honoring to our Lord. It has absolutely no saving merit or efficacy. It has no mystical power. It is not a sacrament (a means of grace), but an ordinance to be observed by those who have experienced grace. The table is an ordinary wooden table, not an altar. The bread is ordinary unleavened bread, not the body of Christ, except in symbol. The wine is ordinary concord grape wine, not the blood of Christ, except in symbol. Yet, the ordinance is highly significant.

It symbolizes our Savior’s death as our Substitute (1 Cor. 11:26). The broken bread portrays his body, crushed to death under the wrath of God for us. The cup of wine represents his blood, poured out unto death at Calvary for the remission of our sins, securing for God’s elect all the blessings of the covenant of grace forever.

This ordinance is a declaration of our faith (1 Cor. 10:16). Eating and drinking the wine, we profess to all our faith in and dependence upon Christ’s finished work for the pardon of our sins and righteousness with God.

Observing the ordinance is an act of grateful remembrance (1 Cor. 11:25). It is an ordinance that can only be properly observed when it is observed in remembrance of Christ. It is meaningful only as it reminds us of who he is and what he has done for us.

The Lord’s table is a symbol of our union with one another in Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). As the bread is one loaf, so all true believers are one body in Christ because all are partakers of him.

The Lord’s Table is also a prophetic ordinance. It is the showing forth of the Lord’s death “till he come” (1 Cor. 11:26). As the Jews of old ate the passover with their staff in their hand, their shoes on their feet, and their coats on their backs, so we must ever keep this ordinance in anticipation of that great day when Christ shall come again and feast with us in his Father’s kingdom (Matt. 26:29). AMEN.