An older English word for offer is the word tender. The great theologian John Owen said that in the Lord’s Supper, the Lord Jesus tenders an offer of Himself, inviting us to receive him. We have echoes of this older use of the word here and there, as in the phrase legal tender on your money.
This meal consists of the shed blood and broken body of the Lord Jesus. We are proclaiming His death until He comes, the apostle says. But we are also proclaiming everything about that death. We do not proclaim His death in isolation, but rather in concert with everything the Scriptures teach us about that death. And one of those things is the love of Jesus Christ for us. “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5). Any exhibition of the death of Christ is necessarily an exhibition of the love of Christ. It says here that He loved us, and in that love He washed us from our sins in His own blood.
Too many times we are as Jacob was. “And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not” (Gen. 28:16). But the Lord is here, and He offers Himself now to you. He tenders His love, and He does it tenderly. The only appropriate response in receiving Him is to love Him in return. He gives His love, and we return it. We love Him because He first loved us, but we do love Him. This meal is a covenantal transaction. He gives us His love, and this creates love in us. That love, so created, must be tendered in return.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.