This bread is spiritual bread, and this wine is spiritual wine. But it is not spiritual in the sense that the bread and wine are somehow ethereal or non-real. The bread and wine before us is recognizably bread and wine. So what do we mean by considering it spiritual food? When Paul says that in …
More Than Words Can Say
This is a meal, not a sermon. It is a meal with a meaning, of course, and sermons have meanings as well. Or, at any rate, some sermons do. But the fact that the meal has meaning and sermons have meaning should not make us think that a meal is a sermon—or that a sermon …
Not a Tiny Works Club
Partaking of the bread and wine is a privilege that our children grow up with. It is our practice to come to this Table with our little ones. This is of course a debate matter in the broader Christian world, and one of the things we should do because of this is guard ourselves at …
Before You Now
Many unbelievers have dismissed this Table before us as a great superstition. Two thousand years after Jesus lived and died, here we are gathering to eat His flesh and drink His blood. What kind of sense does that make? The first thing to note about this charge is the truth of Chesterton’s observation—a man who …
Audio Reading of Post
The Spirit Went Out of Her
The Queen of Sheba had heard about Solomon’s glory, and so she came to visit him in order to see if it was true. The fact that she came a great distance means that on one level, she certainly wanted the reports to be true. And yet she was resistant. It is very interesting to …
Grace Both Lifts and Lowers
We have reminded you many times that this is a table of thanksgiving, and not a table of introspection. We have come here to rejoice and be glad, not to mope in the presence of our heavenly Father. This is not because there is no moral danger for us. Of course not. But the danger …
Superstition and the Supper
What is superstition? In our secular age, it is common to define it as the religious practices of someone else, practices that you don’t believe in. But this is too easy. Superstition should be best understood as any devoted spiritual practice that is mindlessly conducted and pursued, and yet tenaciously practiced. False faith would be …
The First Meal
The Lord’s Supper is the first meal and it is the last meal, because it is the meal that memorializes the Lord Jesus, revealed to us as the Alpha and the Omega, the First and Last. The first food available to our parents in Eden was eaten in communion with God, particularly the tree of …
Learning to Love
We have gathered at this Table from many different households, and we represent many different eating habits. But once a week, we all gather together in order to eat and drink the same thing, and do so in the same way, according to the same custom. In Christ, this is a meal of shared love, …
Faith Needs to Believe
We partake of this Supper every week. But we do not do this because we have some superstitious attachment to it. We do not believe that God wants us to shuffle along, looking down, our sight rising no higher than the lip of the Table. No, we are Christians, and we are called to set …