Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2038
“This do in remembrance of Me.” Luke 22:19.
“THIS do”—that is, take bread, give thanks, break it and eat it—take the cup, filled with the fruit of the vine, give thanks and drink you all of it. “This do.” Take care that you do just what Jesus did—no more and no less. This act was done at a table where they had been eating the Passover. This act was performed at a common meal and was not a sacrifice, nor a celebration, nor a function, nor anything more than a significant eating of bread and drinking of wine after a devout fashion. This do—as often as you break the bread and as often as you drink of the cup—remember the Lord Jesus.
It is this that we are to do and not something else which may be supposed to grow out of it. He does not say, “Do something else in remembrance of Me—something which you may choose to do, retaining this act as the backbone of it. But this do.” This which has just been done—this in all its simplicity, solemnity and intent.
Alas, how sadly have men forgotten this! The plain supper has not been a grand enough display. To break bread and to drink wine have not seemed to them to be sufficiently solemn, or sufficiently gorgeous and so they have added all kinds of rites and institutions. That which was only a table, they have made into an altar and that which was a supper and nothing more, they have changed into a celebration. They do not this but they do something else which they have devised and elaborated.
Imagine Paul or Peter attending mass and observing the various genuflections—the moving to and fro, the lifting up and the stooping down and all the various operations of the Roman priesthood—too many to describe! Paul would pluck Peter by the sleeve and say, “Our Master did nothing like this when He took bread and gave thanks and broke it.” Peter would reply, “Very different this from the guest-chamber at Jerusalem!” And Paul would add, “Yes, indeed, my Brother, very different this from the time when the first Believers met together and broke bread and drank of the cup in common, in remembrance of their Lord.”
Whatever other communities may do, be it ours, my Brethren, to stand fast by, “This do in remembrance of Me.” “This,” simply “this,” and nothing more and nothing less. Bread, not a wafer. Fruit of the vine, not the concoction of chemistry inflamed with fiery spirit. We use this fruit of the vine in a cup and that cup not reserved but partaken of by all. We have before us bread and that not worshipped, as at the elevation of the host—but broken and eaten. The Lord and His disciples sat at a table and ate—it was a feast and not a sacrifice.
They reclined and did not kneel. So would we do, because He has said, “This do,” and not something else. Then, beloved Friends, we shall have to be very watchful upon another point, namely, that if we do this, we do it for the purpose for which He gave it—namely, in remembrance of Him. Jesus never said, “This do, that you may offer an unbloody sacrifice.” Where in Holy Scripture is there a syllable like it, either from our Lord’s own lips or from those of the Apostles?
He never said, “Do this as the perpetual repetition of My death.” To my mind the very thought is blasphemy, for our Lord claims to have finished His work and having died unto sin once, death has no more dominion over Him. The Jewish sacrifices, by reason of their insufficiency, were often repeated—but “this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.” They blaspheme the sacrifice of Christ who imagine that any man, call him priest or not, can continue, repeat, or complete that sacrifice for sin.
It is finished and our Lord has gone into His Glory. Sin is put away by His bearing it in His own body on the tree. This do you in remembrance of Christ but not as continuing His sacrifice, which is forever perfect. I would not, for my part, on any account adopt the posture of kneeling in receiving the Lord’s Supper. If it does not actually imply worship
of the bread and wine, it has a tendency to lead us away from remembrance of the Person Himself into an adoration of the elements.
The sacred supper was a feast, not a ceremony. The posture used at the feast was that of lying along—the easiest posture into which they could put themselves. That is not congruous with our western custom. But the analogous position is that of sitting as much at ease as possible, which posture I would encourage you to persist in. Let us keep the feast as a feast but by no means kneel as though we were performing an act of worship before an altar.
Adoration of the invisible God is always right and proper. But if a certain posture seems to take away from the very essence of the festival—and a festival it is—and if in addition it encourages superstition—then kneel not but sit and do this in remembrance of Christ. Do this and nothing else and do it in remembrance and for no other purpose. And if any other posture looks another way, abjure it and keep close to that for which you have a precedent. The Church of Rome prizes the great picture by Leonardo di Vinci and in it all the Apostles are seated at the table. Is this at all like the mass? The supper is to be eaten in remembrance and for nothing more. But that, as we shall have to show you, is no little thing. “This do in remembrance of Me.”