Suppers are frequently in conjunction with other events. We have memorial banquets, banquets to honor an individual, birthday celebrations, anniversary dinners, and so on. God has created us in such a way that whenever we really want to mark something as important, we attach it to a meal.
God has done the same for us in this meal. Jesus Christ has been established as the Savior of the world, and God wanted us to be sure that we never forget it. Consequently, we have this commemorative feast, this marking of the sacrifice of Jesus, and we remember it by eating bread and drinking wine. This is the gospel; we hold life in our hands, and there is life in the cup.
But it is not just a remembrance for us; it is a memorial for God. As the rainbow served to remind God not to destroy the earth, so the observance of the Lord’s Supper reminds God that His wrath against the world has been propitiated.
Now of course, we all know our basic theology, and we know that God does not need to be reminded of anything, still less by symbols like a bit of bread and a cup full of wine. Of course He does not. Still less does God need to be corrected by us when we don’t understand why He has told us to do something. He is God, and we are not. If we master that principle of theology, we will go far.
God condescends to us. He doesn’t need to hear our prayers either—He already knows. So why pray? Because He is teaching us to know that every good thing comes from Him. Why remind Him of the Lord’s sacrifice when He knows the Lord’s sacrifice perfectly already? Because we need to know that He knows.
He has filled His Word with things that He wants us to remind Him of. He loves it when His people argue with Him in faith. He detests it when we murmur in unbelief, but He delights in it when we discover a promise in His Word, and we turn to Him and say, “Hey! Why aren’t You doing this? We know the fault must be ours, but still, why do You talk this way in the Bible if You don’t want to do it?”
As we partake of this bread and wine, God is enlarging our hearts. He is enlarging our imagination. This is part of what it means to grow up. And as we eat this bread and drink this wine, we are growing up into Christ.