READING: 2 Kings 20; Isaiah 38-40, Psalm 68, 1 Corinthians 11
The Lord’s Supper is a “meantime” event for the church. That is to say, we share the meal together in order to remember His death until He comes again. We live in between these two events, and we ought to do so with both gratitude for the crucifixion and expectation for His return. There are days when we desperately need to remember God’s great love for us evidenced in His death; there are others when we just as desperately need hope for tomorrow. The Lord’s Supper calls us in both directions.
Indeed, the Supper turns our view upward (we obey Jesus’ command), backward (we recall and focus on the cross), inward (we examine ourselves in preparation for the Supper), outward (we proclaim to one another and to others the Lord’s death), and forward (we anticipate His coming). That perspective, it seems to me, requires much more than simply tacking the Lord’s Supper onto the end of service just because it’s the calendar date to observe it.
This ordinance is simply more important than that. It keeps our attention on the eternal plan of God in the meantime.
PRAYER: “Thank You, God, for loving us enough to give us the Supper.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Isaiah 41-44, 1 Corinthians 12