A Meal of Anticipation

This week on Things Unseen, we’ve been thinking about the significance of the Lord’s Supper, and we’ve done that by reflecting already on three words that Paul uses to describe it: proclamation, blessing or benediction, and yesterday participation or communion. And our next word also rhymes. It’s anticipation.

Says Paul, “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” That’s 1 Corinthians 11:26. And incidentally, by “as often,” he’s not saying, “You should do this often,” although that may be true. What he means is, “Every time you do it, you’re proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes again.” And that means, doesn’t it, that the church is to celebrate both baptism and the Lord’s Supper all the way to the end of the age, and to do it everywhere.

Sometimes you may meet professing Christians who suggest that they’re fine without baptism or the Lord’s Supper, but clearly Paul didn’t think so. And one of the reasons is this: each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, it reminds us that there is still more to come. Perhaps it was that, just as many Christians today say “amen” out loud at the end of a prayer in church, at the end of the Lord’s Supper, the early Christians would say out loud together, “Maranatha, our Lord come.”

We’ve already talked on the podcast about the way the New Testament teaches us that one of the most basic structures of the New Testament is that it stresses there is an already and a not yet about the gospel. We’ve already been raised into new life with Christ, but we’ve not yet been finally resurrected with Him. The not yet is still to come when He returns. So in a way, it’s not surprising that this basic element of the gospel is also expressed at the Lord’s Supper. In fact, sometimes I think it has almost a physical expression at the Lord’s Supper. The word that’s translated “supper” actually means a meal. This little piece of bread and this sip of wine, a meal? Really? It’s almost as if the drama of the supper is designed in part to make us say, “Surely there must be more than this.” And the answer is yes, there is. For now, we meet Jesus at the table. We see Jesus by faith, by means of His Word, with the help of the Spirit, through the bread and the wine, and we love Him. But we don’t yet see Him face-to-face.

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you probably know that I love Horatius Bonar’s hymns. He has a beautiful Communion hymn:

Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face-to-face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand th’eternal grace
And all my weariness upon Thee lean.

And that’s right—the believer can experience the presence of the Lord Jesus wonderfully at the supper. But in a way, it’s only in a secondary sense that we see Him face-to-face, isn’t it? We certainly may feel that we see Him more clearly and love Him more dearly and want to follow Him more nearly because we’ve been to the Lord’s Supper, but it’s not face-to-face yet. But the supper teaches us one day it will be.

So, even as the Lord’s Supper can bring us into the presence of Christ and give us a wonderful taste of His love, and a time to express our love for Him, it’s also a reminder to us that we’re not yet home. And that’s not meant to discourage us, but to reassure us there is still more to come. It’s saying: “This is food for the pilgrimage. He has prepared this table for you in the presence of your enemies. His cup already runs over with blessing. So keep on going and know that what awaits you is not this simple supper, but the glorious marriage banquet of the Lamb.”

Perhaps Simon Peter put it best: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9). For then you’ll see Him face-to-face and be made like Him. For then you’ll have a seat at the marriage banquet of the Lamb. And that’s why Bonar’s wonderful hymn ends like this:

Feast after feast here comes and passes by,
Yet passing, points to that glad feast above,
Giving sweet foretaste of that festal joy,
The Lamb’s great bridal-feast of bliss and love.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, and I hope you’ll join me on Things Unseen for one last wonderful word on the Lord’s Supper.