1 H. C. G. Moule, Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 173. 8 D. Smith, Christian Counsel, 39.
334 PROCLAIMING THE LORD'S DEATH
perienced which is the fullest blessedness of earth, and anticipates the glory of heaven.1
III.
A Eegard to the Future. "Till he come."
1. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper not only proclaims to us the Gospel of the Passion, it also proclaims to us that great Gospel which is the centre and basis of all Christian hope : the Gospel of the second coming of Jesus Christ our Lord. And since this holy rite is in creed and in action, they who preach it look back upon the first Advent and recognize and confess its redemptive aspect, and they look forward to the second Advent and recognize it and confess it as being the one great act in which that redemptive work on Calvary will reach to its full and to its glorious climax. And in this present, tke gaze of our faith is fixed upon the redemption consecrated in Christ's first coming ; the eyes of our hope are fixed on the glorious consum- mation of His work in His second coming, and in the meantime we wait with the repose of love, giving ourselves up to His sweet ministries, in the conviction that as often as we eat this bread, and drink the cup, we " proclaim the Lord's death till he come."
In the original words of the institution our Lord Himself makes reference to the future ; till I " drink it new in the kingdom of God." And in the text here, the Apostle provides for the perpetual continuance, and emphasizes the prophetic aspect, of the rite, by that word, "till he come." His death necessarily implies His coming again. The Cross and the Throne are linked together by an indissoluble bond. Being what it is, the death cannot be the end. Being what He is, if He has once been offered to bear the sins of many, so He must come the second time without sin unto salvation. The rite, just because it is a rite, is the prophecy of a time when the need for it, arising from weak flesh and an intrusive world, shall cease. " They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord ; at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the
1 Memoir of John Duncan, 334.
i CORINTHIANS xi. 26 335
Lord." There shall be no temple in that great city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple thereof. So all external worship is a prophecy of the coming of the perfect time when, that which is perfect being come, the external helps and ladders to climb to the loftiest shall be done away.
If Of all earthly signs and tokens, there is none which seems so wonderfully ordained to prepare us for the last Day, and keep us in mind of it, as the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Holy Scripture expressly connects the one with the other ; the Com- munion with the Day of Judgment. For after St. Paul had put the Corinthians in mind of what he had always taught them concerning that Sacrament, how that our Lord ordained it, the same night in which He was betrayed, to be done, or sacrificed, in remembrance of Him after He was gone, lest they should imagine that it was only the Apostles who had to perform this service, seeing that they alone were present with our Lord when He commanded it, the Apostle goes on and declares, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come " — as much as to say that this mode of remembering our Lord's Death, and setting it forth before God and man, should never cease, while the world should stand. One generation after another will perish from the face of the efirth; cities and empires will fade away;" the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent will be forgotten ; customs, manners, languages may change, and the outward face of things be ever so different : but still this holy memorial of' God made Man and crucified for us will go on being offered, and the holy Feast will go on to be received, from time to time, in all Churches of all lands, until that last morning break upon the earth, and the very meaning and substance of that Sacra-y ment, the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall appear openl; in the eyes of men.1
U When you go to put flowers upon a grave, what is the motive that prompts you? — to keep memory green? Doubtless; but is that all ? Why do you wish to k&ep memory green ? It is because you are looking forward as well as backward. You are convinced the old days will come again. If it were not for that hope, you could not plant your flower; you would rather let memory wither. Some have written of the pleasures of memory, and some of the pleasures of hope. But has it occurred to either that the pleasures of memory are the pleasures of hope ? Has
1 J. Keblo.