By John A. Huffman, Jr.
It's as if I'm meeting someone for the first time, and I pull out my wallet and open it to a picture saying, "This is my family." It isn't; yet it is.
He declares, "Do this in remembrance of me." There are memories tucked away inside each of us that some visible tokens can resurrect those long-forgotten thoughts.
The other day, our daughter Carla was in town on business. She was cleaning out some of her files, and she came across a grade school paper she had written. It was a biography of her father. She brought it in, and we read it together. We both had forgotten that she'd ever written such a paper. We laughed and then, as she left the room, I began to cry. The memories flooded back of that bright little grade-school kid interviewing me and others for that paper. When you handle the bread, when you drink the cup, it's to remind us of what God has done for us individually — the facts of history, His actions on our behalf.
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Another phrase reads, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." You know what the old covenant was. It was legalistic covenant law. Certain things happened when you broke those standards. The new covenant is one of grace. There is nothing you've ever done that is unforgivable.
Then Paul describes how, when we eat and drink the cup, we ". . .proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." The Lord's Supper is preaching without words. It's show-and-tell time. That's why it's so moving. I can try to preach thirty or forty minutes, putting together a string of emotional stories. Perhaps an occasional eloquent moment can touch your feelings. But I am coming to increasingly realize that, on those occasions in which we gather as a family of God, sing our hymns, have our prayers, listen to the announcements, present our tithes and offerings, hear the Word of God preached, and then lift up the bread and hold up the cup, something happens. Something happens that is bigger than human words. Something is triggered inside the life of a sinner who has been saved by God's grace. That bread, that wine proclaims, cries out the very grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It declares a past, a new beginning, and offers us even today a fresh new start!
Warning Three: Don't participate unworthily.
There are two kinds of unworthiness.
The first kind of unworthiness is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup if you have not been born again by the Spirit of God. You're not asked to be perfect. You're asked to admit that you're not perfect. You're not asked to understand all the technical aspects of Christian theology. You're asked to open your heart and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, claiming His forgiveness in faith. If you refuse, you are not worthy, not qualified to take the Lord's Supper. If you have admitted your sin and received Jesus Christ, you are worthy to participate with joy.
