The Lord's Supper and Discipleship
How this meals makes us better followers of Jesus
What does the Lord’s Supper have to do with discipleship?
If the meal is merely a remembrance, why do we have to keep doing it so often? How many times do I have to be told to remember something? Why not just wear a cross-shaped ring or a necklace with a cross to remind myself and others that Jesus did for my sins?
The answer is that while the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance, it is more than a remembrance, it is a means of grace, to the individual and the community. It means: believe, receive, eat, repeat!
The meal is a participation/fellowship with the blood and body of Christ (1 Cor 10:16), it brings the church together around the story of the gospel (1 Cor 10:17), it rehearses covenant institution (1 Cor 11:25), it is drinking and eating upon Jesus in our hearts by faith in order to receive life and union with Jesus (John 6:53-59), it orientates us towards our future hope of Jesus’s return (1 Cor 11:26), and its a way to celebrate the love of God and our love for each other (Jude 12).
My dear colleague Dr. Rhys Bezzant recently gave a public lecture on “Deep Things We Share: Discipleship and the Lord's Supper.” He said that we celebrate the Lord's Supper as Jesus instructed, but for many its role in daily discipleship has been neglected. We need to recover how the discipleship agenda for our churches might be strengthened by sharing in the deep things of the Lord during the Communion service.
Video and audio below:
I have been bothered for a long time by the changes and positioning of the church’s furniture, in many evangelical buildings. Gone is the communion table positioned front and center in the church. In its place, front and center in the church is the podium with its speaker. The communion table is either rolled out, or added on a monthly basis. While we continue to see celebrity pastors failing, we forget we already have our hero who has overcome. Who is remembered and celebrated in his body and blood.
And to answer the question, why are asked to remember, because we to easily forget.
I've always had a little bit of a problem with the wording, 'Do this in remembrance of me'. It all too easily becomes a memorial feast, looking back and remembering Jesus death and nothing but Jesus death. I wonder whether its equally legitimate to translate Jesus command as 'Do this and remember me' with the accent not so much on Jesus as a figure we're remembering from the past but on Jesus as the living Lord who has conquered Sin and Death and who is with us even now by his Spirit.