One of our hymns laments the choice that many others have made with regard to the Lord’s Table. Why was I made to hear Thy voice, And enter while there’s room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come? The choices men make are odd, and it is even stranger that if …
Quiet Your Fears
If a misguided father, in the interests of preventing pride from taking root in his children, offered criticism after criticism, the results would not be what he anticipated. Instead of rearing humble children, he would bring up neurotic and jumpy children. “What is it now?” would be their constant internal question. But another father who …
Round About
Keeping the Supper faithfully is not a matter of jinning up holy feelings. It is not a matter of introspection, figuring out a hundred and one reasons why you ought not to be partaking. Neither is it a summons to theological logic-chopping, where you try to figure out what happens to the bread and why, …
Food in the Ark
When the Lord gave food to Adam, He gave him the world as food. Only one tree was off limits, and every other tree in the garden, and from there to the world, was given into his hand. But after the arrival of sin, and the great judgment on sin that we call the flood, …
The Death of Death and the Life of Nations
The Lord gives us rich food, and we must take a moment to consider how this can be. At first glance, it appears very plain—simple bread and red wine. How is this a banquet? The Lord declared through the prophet Isaiah (25) that in the time of the new covenant, on the mountain of the …
He Prepares a Table
Our practice of taking a day to honor our mothers is certainly a practice in accord with Scripture. It is not a holy day, marking an important event in the life of Christ, but it is a fine cultural practice. But what could it have to do with the Lord’s Supper? Everything in the world …
The Last Shall be First
One of our names for the establishment of this sacramental meal is the Last Supper. We call it this because it was the last meal that Jesus shared with His disciples before His arrest and crucifixion. But the name is more evocative than being just a reference to the chronology of Christ’s life. It was …
Double Gratitude
This is a meal that should be bookended with gratitude. We come to the Table in the first place because we are grateful, and we are looking for a means to overflow, a way to express that gratitude. One of the names for this meal is the Eucharist, which comes from the Greek word for …
Interpreting Our Lives
The Lord spoke to the people of Israel through Moses when they were on the threshold of the land they were about to inherit. He told them, as part of a series of exhortations to remain faithful to the covenant, that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but that the things revealed …
The Direction of the Offer
In this glorious meal, Jesus Christ is genuinely and truly offered. The divide between historic Protestantism and the Roman Catholic view is not over that—both sides believe that Jesus Christ is truly offered. The difference is not over whether that happens or not. The difference is one of direction, and concerns who receives the offering. …