It was ordained for the continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of the
death of Christ, a commemoration of Our Saviour's meritorious Cross and
Passion. This commemoration is made before God, before ourselves,
before the world.
(_a_) It is a commemoration of the Saviour's death before God. The
whole service of Holy Communion as celebrated in the Church of England,
with the exception of certain exhortations and invitations, consists of
prayers addressed, as all prayer must be, to God. The most important
of these prayers is the one which we call the prayer of consecration.
In this prayer the Celebrant, as the commissioned leader and mouthpiece
of the Congregation, commemorates before God that which Our Lord did in
the upper room as the Passover feast on the same night in which He was
betrayed.
Before God in this prayer commemoration is made of His gift of His only
begotten Son to suffer death for our redemption, before God
commemoration is made of that which Christ did for us upon the Cross,
before God the institution of this Sacrament of perpetual memory is
recalled, before God the very acts and words of Our Saviour Christ in
instituting and ordaining this Holy Sacrament are solemnly rehearsed
and enacted. It is impossible for any Priest of the Church of England
to celebrate the Holy Communion, or for any member of the Church of
England to take part in the celebration of this Holy Sacrament, without
making before God the most solemn commemoration of the death of Christ
and His all sufficient Sacrifice which it is possible for the mind of
man to conceive. And in so doing we are at one with the Historic
Churches in all ages. If it be objected that God needs no such
reminding of what Christ did, then the objection is equally valid
against all mention of Christ's holy name in prayer as the ground and
basis whereby we trust such prayer will be accepted and answered by
God. The commemoration before God in the Eucharist is but the doing in
act by the whole body of the faithful of that which each individual
Christian does when he says, at the close of his prayers, "Grant this
for Jesus Christ's sake," or, "through the merits of Christ Jesus Thy
Son Our Lord."
It is the doing in act, and by use of those very elements and words and
actions which Jesus has Himself commanded, of that which we do when in
the Litany we supplicate, "By the mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation; by
Thy Holy Nativity and Circumcision, by Thy Baptism, Fasting, and
Temptation, by Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by Thy Cross and Passion;
by Thy Precious Death and Burial; by Thy Glorious Resurrection and
Ascension and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord deliver us."
This aspect of the Eucharist is perfectly expressed in Canon Bright's
well known hymn, a hymn which by many not of Dr. Bright's School is
regarded as their favourite hymn, and which has commended to them the
truth of the commemoration before God, in a way that might not have
been possible had the same form of words been cast in a prose setting.
And now, O Father, mindful of the Love
That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree,
And having with us Him that pleads above
We here present, we here spread forth to Thee
That only offering perfect in Thine eyes
The one true pure, immortal Sacrifice.
Look, Father, look on His anointed face
And only look on us as found in Him
Look not on our misusings of Thy grace,
Our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim
For lo! between our sins and their reward
We set the Passion of Thy Son Our Lord.
Our Blessed Lord is therefore present as the Head of the Church which
is His Body, as the great High Priest to enable us in union with Him to
plead His Sacrifice, which is the sole ground of our approach to and
acceptance with God. In that which has been called the Companion hymn
to Dr. Bright's, part of which I have quoted just above, the Saintly
Bishop Bickersteth expressed the same great truth from his standpoint
as an Evangelical Churchman.
O Holy Father, who in tender love
Didst give Thine only Son for us to die,
The while He pleads at Thy right hand above
We in One Spirit now with faith draw nigh,
And, as we eat this Bread and drink this Wine,
Plead His once offered Sacrifice Divine.
(_b_) But not only is the commemoration of the Lord's death made before
God, it is also made before and amongst ourselves. The breaking of the
Bread, the blessing of the Cup with the use of Our Saviour's words do
remind us in the most solemn manner of the cost of our redemption and
the great love wherewith He loved us and gave Himself for us.
The more we ponder God's amazing love in Redemption, the more wonderful
does it appear and the deeper and more ardent becomes our love whereby
we love Him who first loved us.
Perhaps the chiefest essential in the Christian life is that we should
have a living faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful
remembrance of His death, and nothing helps us to secure this essential
so much as the due and devout observance of the Lord's Supper ordained
by Our Blessed Master Himself in the same night in which He was
betrayed and on the very eve of His tremendous death and Sacrifice.
(_c_) There is a third aspect of the commemoration which must not be
overlooked. The Eucharist is a means of proclaiming or preaching the
Lord's death before the world until His coming again. "For as often as
ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till
He come" (1 Corinthians, XI. 26). There is not space at my disposal to
do more than merely call attention to the evidential value of the Holy
Eucharist to the truth of Christianity and to the Gospel history. But
its constant celebration week by week is a fact, a fact which even the
world must take note of, a fact which proclaims as no other institution
of religion does that Jesus died and rose again. And He, Who has
promised to be present where two or three are gathered together in His
Name, He, Who has pledged His presence to His Church in the
proclamation of the Gospel, is ever mindful of His promise when His
followers meet together at His table, and amongst themselves and before
the world proclaim and herald the death of Him Who died to be the
Saviour of all mankind.