When we partake of this meal we are partaking of both the Lord’s disgrace, and His promised glory.
“Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Is. 52:13–14).
Our Lord embraced His sufferings in obedience to His Father, and He was embraced by the pleasure and glory of God in His resurrection. And because of our union with Christ, both are ours. His agony is ours and His glory is ours. We partake of His sufferings; our sufferings and our sins were all imputed to Him. We partake of His glory; His obedience and righteousness were imputed to us.
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
We partake of both. When Jesus died, marred beyond all recognition, all His elect died there with Him, also marred beyond all recognition. All of our wretchedness was all there—the outer darkness was nailed to a stake of wood. And when Jesus rose to glory, brighter than ten thousand suns, we rose with Him to partake of that glory. Jesus is not imputed to us on a piecemeal basis. All that He is, all that He ever did, all that He ever suffered, all that He ever inherited, is bequeathed to you.
As an emblem of all this, as a token of all the promises, God this morning offers you a morsel of bread and a swallow of wine. But as with all such things, God is not offering you a tiny fraction of His grace. Every morsel of bread, and every small cup of wine, contains worlds. And as you eat and drink in genuine faith, you inherit them.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.