II. HE GIVES US HIMSELF IN THIS FEAST: HESITATION TO PARTICIPATE IS UNTHANKFULNESS. III. HE GIVES THE MOST COMFORTING ASSURANCES IN THIS FEAST SHALL WE BE UNGRATEFULLY FORGETFUL ? THE WARNING TO SIMON. "AND THE LORD SAID, SIMON, SIMON, BEHOLD, SATAN HATH DESIRED TO HAVE YOU, THAT HE MAY SIFT YOU AS WHEAT: BUT I HAVE PRAYED FOR THEE, THAT THY FAITH FAIL NOT; AND WHEN THOU ART CONVERTED, STRENGTHEN THY BRETHREN (Luke xxii. 31, 32). I. OUR LORD'S WARNING TO ST. PETER. "Satan hath 1. It was a warning of a contemplated attack. desired to have you." No better illustration of the meaning of this can possibly be given than is found in the first chapter of the Book of Job. Our Lord was acquainted with the purpose of Satan, that most potent and subtle enemy of our peace and of our righteousness. To be forewarned should be to be forearmed. 2. It was a warning of the nature of the attack. It would be severe and trying-" to sift you as wheat." Wheat sifted was tossed about and whirled from side to side, and thus the meaning was that St. Peter should be thrown into trial and perplexity. The subsequent history explains it. But is not this a plan and purpose of Satan with regard to all God's people? Christians are sifted (1.) By trying circumstances. (2.) By evil sugges tions. (3.) By sudden temptations. II. OUR LORD'S ASSURANCE TO ST. PETER, for thee, that thy faith fail not." "I have prayed 1. What a lesson is this in our Lord's self-forgetting love! Think of the circumstances in which He was now placed; of all that was about to happen, which He measured with calm presage. But His whole thought is for others. Is not this an example to us? 2. What a picture of our Lord's mediatorial work! "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." 3. What a proof of the need of faith! "That thy faith fail not." Faith is one of the main principles of the Christian life; and Christ is interested in the preservation of our faith! III. OUR LORD'S COMMAND TO ST. PETER. "When thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren" (R.V.) 1. This command illustrates the nature of repentance. It is the turning again of the sinful soul to God. We are all God's children by baptism. God cares for us, Christ prays for us, and we turn again, like the prodigal in the parable, to the Father's house. When established in the faith, we may fall and turn again. 2. This command shows the duty of the repentant towards their brethren. "Stablish thy brethren." "Brethren, if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness." (1.) Warn others. (2.) Encourage others. THE PASSOVER. "WITH DESIRE I HAVE DESIRED TO EAT THIS PASSOVER WITH YOU BEFORE I SUFFER" (Luke xxii. 15). I. CHRIST DESIRED TO EAT THE PASSOVER BECAUSE OF HIS RESPECT FOR RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. Because He was a Jew, "born under the law," He was circumcised, and He observed all the requirements of the law in worship and obedience, and this to the very last. In this, as in His baptism, our Lord is an example of obedience and readiness to do the will of God. But Judaism is giving place to Christianity, and He is now on the very eve of that grand, sublime event which is to be the burial of the ancient system of sacrifices and the uprise of a new era of worship. Hence II. CHRIST DESIRED TO EAT THIS PASSOVER THAT HE MIGHT SOLEMNLY INSTITUTE THE CENTRAL RITE OF THE NEW SYSTEM. Accordingly at this meal one of the cups becomes "the covenant in His blood," and the bread His body, by His own act and deed and will. Beyond His words we cannot go. The mystic meaning in them is patent to the eye of faith. To the reasonings of the intellect alone, here as elsewhere, the mysteries of the faith may be made to disappear; but let it not be forgotten that to bring this subject to the test of dry intellect, to try it by the lumen siccum of scientific analysis, is precisely the same, and leads to similar negative results as when the doctrine of the Trinity and the Divine humanity of the Saviour are thrown into the crucible. Nay, here is the region of faith: "Blessed is he that sees not and yet believes." The Passover gave way to the Lord's Supper, the sacrament of His body and of His blood. There are analogies between the Passover feast and the Holy Eucharist. 1. The Passover was the memorial of a nation's birth; such was and is the Lord's Supper. Israel became a nation on that night when they came in haste from the land of Egypt: the Church of God was founded in that room in Jerusalem when the Lord instituted this perpetual memorial of His death before it actually took place. How could it be a memorial of what had not yet taken place? Christ made it so as He there gave the disciples these emblems of His broken body and His shed blood. 2. The paschal lamb which was eaten at the meal was a sacrifice; the elements were given as the commemoration of a sacrifice. By the paschal lamb in the Passover and by the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper alike was Christ signified, the former to remind the Jew of the salvation of his race, the latter to be a continual remembrancer to the Christian of the redemption of mankind on the cross and a commemoration of His infinitely efficacious sacrifice before God and man. 3. The Passover was a feast; such too is this holy meal. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; let us keep the feast." Amid the haste and dread of that dark and awful night when the angel of death passed over the land of Egypt, the Jew ate the Passover with joy, and it was kept in joyful remembrance of divine deliverance from generation to generation. 4. The Passover, like circumcision, was one of the fixed seals of the old covenant; the Eucharist is a fixed seal of the new covenant of grace. In it is represented, offered, and conveyed the blessings of the new and better covenant, pardon, justification, sanctification, adoption, salvation to all who repent and believe the gospel. So it was that "with desire" Christ desired to eat this Passover with His disciples before He suffered. He knew all the far-reaching meaning, and all the rich benefits for future ages, of that mighty transaction in which they were now engaged. Already He offered Himself and gave His flesh to eat and His blood to drink (John vi.) "Christ is now our mighty Pascha, Eaten for our mystic bread; Take we of His broken body, Drink we of the blood He shed, As a lamb led out to slaughter, I. A LOVE FEAST. Passover." THE EUCHARIST (Luke xxii. 14-20). 66 With desire I have desired to eat this II. A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. "This is My body, which is given for you;" "My blood, which is shed for you." In this sacrament there is no repetition of the offering of Christ once made, but an impartation of its virtue. If it be asked how could Christ impart His body and blood before they were offered, let the question first be answered how did Christ give His Spirit: "He breathed on them," before the day of Pentecost was fully come. III. A MEMORIAL FEAST. "This do in remembrance of Me." CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE. "FATHER, IF THOU BE WILLING, REMOVE THIS CUP FROM ME" THE text shows (Luke xxii. 42). I. HOW GREAT WAS THE BURDEN WHICH THE LORD NOW BORE. "This cup." II. THAT HE EARNESTLY SOUGHT THE REMOVAL OF HIS BURDEN. There is no burden of ours that the Father cannot remove if He is willing, or if not, then give us strength to bear it. III. THAT IN HIS SUFFERINGS THE LORD WAS CONSCIOUS OF THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. IV. THAT IN HIS PRAYER HE WAS SUBMISSIVE TO THE FATHER'S WILL. "If Thou be willing." LESSONS. SECOND EVENING LESSON. PRAYER IN THE NAME OF JESUS I. THE FATHER ADMITS THE POWER OF HIS NAME. II. THE FATHER ADMITS US TO PLEAD THAT NAME. "The Father Himself loveth you." III. THE PRESENCE OF JESUS WITH THE FATHER ASSURES OF THE SUCCESS OF OUR PLEA. "I go to the Father." 187 Thursday before Easter. EPISTLE. THE INSTITUTION OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST I. THE PURPOSE OF THE INSTITUTION of the Holy Eucharist is stated in ver. 26, "For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come." The celebration of the Lord's Supper is accordingly a festival celebration, not designed for the satisfaction of our bodily needs and fleshly desires (vers. 20-22), but for a thankful offering of praise to Christ for His redeeming death. Jesus knits the invisible to the visible, and gives bread and wine as sense-signs of His death, in order that men may never forget His offering Himself on the cross, but may continually regard this sacrifice as a subject for the most constant recognition and the deepest reverence. Our Lord was great in His teaching, but greater still in His sufferings, by which He has completed the work of our salvation. And His disciples are ever to be mindful of Him, and they are to praise and honour His love by offering a sacrificial memorial of His body and blood. Therefore it is that before partaking of this heavenly meal we are to examine ourselves, and see that we do not eat of this bread and drink of this cup unworthily, in order that this feast may be not for our judgment, but eternal salvation. It is eating or drinking unworthily not to discern the Lord's body. II. THE METHOD OF ITS INSTITUTION. The way in which our Lord inaugurated this sacred meal is not only told us by the Evangelists, but also by St. Paul, who received it from the Lord (vers. 24, 25). He broke the bread as a hortatory sign of His broken, bruised body; He took the cup as a sense-image of His blood shed upon the cross. On the conclusion of the Passover meal, or during its observance, which was held in remembrance of the deliverance of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, He founded the new covenant meal with bread and wine. The eye of faith |