This is the time in our weekly worship when we come to the Supper. But the connotations might be different for us if we simply said that this is Suppertime. This is the point where the Holy Spirit of God, who is the Comforter, offers us His food, but the connotations are different when we acknowledge that it is comfort food.
This is all true because Christ is here, Christ is here seeking you. As Samuel Rutherford put it, wonderfully, “”Christ seeks you in the sacrament, seek ye Him again, and though the devil should say the contrary, there shall be a meeting.”
There shall be a meeting because this meal is not a haphazard affair. It was not thrown together. In Proverbs 9, we see how Lady Wisdom sets her table, and we see that she sets out bread and wine, as we have right here. “Come, eat of my bread, And drink of the wine which I have mingled” (Prov. 9:5).
And Jesus very much had this banquet in mind in the gospel of Luke when He told the story of a man who prepared a great feast, and, like Lady Wisdom before him, sent out messengers to invite to the feast people who were too wise in their own pursuits to come (Luke 14:15-24). But of course, to be too wise in your own pursuits to come to Jesus is to be a fool.
Like Lady Wisdom, like the man in the parable, Christ has done everything. He has prepared the meal. He has set the table. He has appointed the time. He has sent out the invitations. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, And he that hath no money; Come ye, buy, and eat; Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Is. 55:1).
The only thing that is left for you to do is to sit, and eat. All you must do is sit, and drink, and to do so in grateful faith. So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.