For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Several years ago in England, a man wrote to the editor of the British Weekly. In his letter, the writer reported that he could not remember any sermons preached in any of the churches he had attended. Because of that, the man questioned whether sermons were really as important as preachers thought they were. "I have been attending a church service for the past 30 years and I have heard probably 3,000 sermons," wrote the man. "To my consternation," he continued, "I discovered that I cannot remember a single sermon!" As a result of that letter, many readers of the British Weekly wrote replies. They were published in the Letters to the Editor column. One letter seemed to go to the heart of the problem posed by the listener to all those sermons. This letter-writer stated: "I have been married for 30 years. During that time, I have eaten 32,850 meals - mostly of my wife’s cooking. Suddenly, I have discovered that I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I received nourishment from every single one of them. I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago."

Week after week, sermons are preached in churches around the Christian world. While most of those who mount the pulpit pray for divine inspiration, the sermons they preach may be gripping or boring, depending on the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and talents of the preacher. God would certainly not leave the message of the Gospel to the frailties of human preachers alone. And we have in recent times seen how frail those human preachers can be! God made sure that despite human inadequacies, his message would not be lost. On the night before his death, Jesus Christ gave us the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It is known by other names, too: the Holy Communion; the Eucharist; the Mass; the Divine Liturgy. Writing about this holy Sacrament, Saint Paul said: "For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are retelling the message of the Lord’s death, that he died for you. Do this until he comes again." (1 Corinthians 11:26, The Living Bible) Above and beyond the sermons in our pulpits, there is a Sermon in the Supper!

I

The Sermon in the Supper is a message about a Person. Edward Bok was an American journalist who became editor of Ladies’ Home Journal in 1889. In 1891, he was elected vice-president of the Curtis Publishing Company, which published the magazine. For 30 years, Edward Bok and the Journal worked for such causes as the better-babies movement, teaching social hygiene to children, beautifying American cities, and improving home architecture. Bok recounted that he always kept the memory of the death of his mother sacred. April 30 was the anniversary of her death. Each year on that date, at 3:20 p.m. in the afternoon, Bok always took out his watch and thought of her, regardless of what he was then doing or where he was at the time. On one of the anniversaries of her death, Bok was with some of his friends. He saw that the time of his mother’s death was drawing near. He became quiet, thoughtful, and finally withdrew to one side of the room. Lost in his thoughts, he lived over again some of the experiences he had enjoyed with his mother. When he returned to the table where his friends were sitting, one of them said, "Do you know, you looked exactly like your mother just now when you were standing over there by the wall." Bok replied, "Yes, I was thinking about her."

The Sacrament of the Holy Communion tells us about the Person who is at the center of our Faith. That Person is Jesus Christ. As we live in holy communion with the Person of Christ, we tend to grow into his likeness. Think of some home you know where a husband and wife have loved one another and lived together for many years. Sharing ideas, developing common tastes, experiencing common feelings, they have come to resemble one another. This is the fact to which Saint Paul pointed in the third chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians: "We all reflect as in a mirror the splendour of the Lord; thus we are transfigured into his likeness, from splendour to splendour." (2 Corinthians 3:18, New English Bible) Henry Drummond paraphrased Paul’s words in this way: "We all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ are transformed into the same Image from character to character." Every time you come to church and receive the bread and wine, you are proclaiming the death of that Person in whose likeness we are to be shaped. "For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to him ... should become like his Son, so that his Son would be the First, with many brothers." (Romans 8:29, The Living Bible)

II

The Sermon in the Supper is a message about a Passion. The word "passion" means a very strong feeling. When the word "passion" is used about Jesus Christ, it refers to his sufferings in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Golgotha. The bread and wine of the Sacrament tell us again and again about the passionate love of Jesus Christ for us. Think about the piece of bread that is placed in your hands when you come to church to receive this holy Sacrament. Bread is made from many grains of wheat. This wheat had to pass through the adversities of winter. It had to be put under pressure and ground beneath a millstone. It had to go through fire before it became bread. Think about the wine you sip when you come to church to receive the Lord’s Supper. This wine was made from many grapes. To become wine, those grapes, too, suffered, as it were, by having their life crushed from them. It is because the elements of bread and wine endure such rigors that they symbolize for us the Passion and sufferings of Christ.

William Temple was a priest of the Church of England who became Archbishop of Canterbury in April, 1942 and served until October, 1944. In one of his books, Archbishop Temple wrote: "Men say, ‘There cannot be a God of love, because if there were, and he looked upon this world, his heart would break.’ The Church," replied Temple, "points to the cross and says: ‘His heart does break.’ Men say, ‘It is God who has made the world. It is He who is responsible, and it is He who should bear the load.’ The church points to the cross, and says, ‘He does bear it.’ "

In one of his books, Dr. Leslie Weatherhead recalled a night when his ship sailed past the island of Stromboli, off the coast of Sicily. He saw the bright fires of the Strombolian volcano light up the black sky. "Just as the flash of the volcano reveals the fires forever burning in the mountain’s heart," wrote Dr. Weatherhead, "so the incident [on the cross of Christ] on Calvary two thousand years ago shows the nature of the eternal God."

I sometimes think about the Cross,
And shut my eyes and try to see
The cruel nails and crown of thorns,
And Jesus crucified for me.

But even could I see Him die,
I could but see a little part
Of that great love which like a fire
Is always burning in His heart.

Every time you come to church and receive the bread and wine, you are proclaiming the Passion of that Person in whom we see the human face of God. The Sacrament announces the message of the Cross, telling us, in Leslie Brandt’s inspired phrase, "the high cost of loving!"

III

The Sermon in the Supper is a message about a Promise. After telling his Corinthian friends that by the actions of eating and drinking, they were retelling the message of Christ’s death, Paul wrote, "Do this until he comes again." (1 Corinthians 11:26, The Living Bible) Those first Christians lived under the spell of Christ’s promise to come again. In his book The Theology of Jewish Christianity, Jean Danielou, a Roman Catholic scholar, argues that the symbolism of the star in the Book of Numbers ("A star shall come forth out of Jacob," Numbers 24:17, NEB) was transformed into a Cross of Light. Danielou is referring to "the Cross of Light" mentioned in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. In this book, the Cross of Light was said to have accompanied Christ in his ascent into heaven. It was expected to precede him at his coming again. For that reason, it became the custom in the early days of the church for Christians to paint a cross on the eastern wall of their homes and their meeting places. This cross was not simply put on the wall to remind them of the sufferings of Christ which had happened in the past. On the contrary, the sign of the cross was placed on that particular wall to mark the East from which Christ was expected to come again in power and great glory. Christians in later times would forget the original reason why the cross was placed on the east wall. They did not know that it was an emblem of the future from which "the bright Star of Dawn" (Revelation 22:16, NEB) would appear. Because they had lost this sense of the forward look, they made the cross exclusively a memorial of Christ’s death in the past.

The Sacrament of the Holy Communion tells us about the Promise of Christ to return. Though men may forget that the Cross has this future aspect, God made sure that this element of Faith would not be forever forgotten. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper tells us the message: "I shall come again and receive you to myself, so that where I am you may be also." (John 14:3, NEB)

The Lord’s Supper is an acted sermon in which the message of Christ’s death is retold as it is commemorated. As we receive the bread and drink from the cup, we are announcing our love for the Person of Christ, our remembrance of the Passion of Christ, and our anticipation of the Promise of Christ.