When we come to the Table, the entire congregation is proclaiming. What are we proclaiming? The apostle Paul says that we are proclaiming the death of Jesus until He comes again? Faithful observance of the Supper is therefore an evangelistic act. Even those participation in the Supper is limited to baptized Christians, the import of the Supper is for all the children of men.
So when we proclaim the death of Jesus as the very center of the mighty acts of God, we are doing it context. We rejoice in our subjective experience of salvation, but we do not begin and end there. The experience of salvation is driven by the objective reality of it. God has done marvelous things in the world, and because we look at them and believe, the Spirit continues His work in us.
We declare, therefore, the mighty acts of God. We declare what He has done in the creation of Heaven and earth, and we rejoice in how He delivered His people throughout the Old Testament period, doing this over and over again. He delivered Israel from Egypt. He struck down Sennacharib. He brought His people back from Babylon. God is to be praised for all His works.
When the time was right, when the times were ready to give birth, He sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. He lived a perfect, sinless life, doing so on our behalf, representing us as Israel, finally obedient. He went to the cross, in order to have our sins laid upon Him and there judged. He was laid in the grave so as to taste death fully. He was raised to live for our justification. And all this is what we declare in our observance of the Supper.
What do we say then? We say that God is the creator of all things. We say further that He is the sovereign Lord who decreed that the created order would fall under the disobedience of Adam. He then promised that the dire blow of wrath from a holy God would in fact fall, but would fall upon Himself, in the person of the incarnate Son. We say further that God vindicated His wisdom in doing all of this by raising His Son Jesus from the dead. And so it is that we declare the three mighty acts of God—creation, redemption, and creation all over again.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
The original audience (of 1 Cor. 11:26) was a mixed church of Jews and Gentiles. By merely gathering together they were proclaiming the Lord’s death, and He did indeed come again and wipe that distinction away — you know, the distinction where all Jewish males, including infants, needed a sign upon them? Your trumpet is giving an uncertain sound. But keep trumpeting. Perhaps it will clear itself. I guess the best approximation today is mixed race churches – the end of all tribalism and heredity in the empire of Christ. That is a very strong proclamation.