Dear Christian friends:

On this night almost 2,000 years ago Jesus took bread and wine and said to His disciples, "Whenever you eat and drink this, remember Me!" Jesus wants us to remember Him. Why? He has a good purpose.

Every year we celebrate July 4. Why? That we can remember how our fathers fought to get freedom and so we get new spirit and strength to keep our nation free. Jesus wants us to remember Him every time we have the Lord's Supper so that something good can happen to us. We remember Jesus for a purpose.

When we come to the Lord's Supper we should remember that Jesus has freed us.

The Jewish people today celebrate the Passover meal to remember that God freed them from slavery in Egypt. Jesus during the Passover meal gave us a new meal by which we remember how He has freed us from sin and Satan's rule. By nature we are slaves to Satan and sin. Our pride and greed force us to do bad things that hurt others and ourselves. But Jesus has freed us!

The Bible says, "He has come to destroy the works of the Devil, and free them, who through fear of death were all their life time in bondage." Jesus resisted Satan for us and conquered him. Now we can love again and do right.

When we come to the Lord's Supper Jesus also wants us to remember that He has saved our life by His blood. The Jewish people when they eat the Passover meal remember how their fathers in Egypt had to kill a lamb and then take some blood of that lamb and paint it on the door posts of their houses. Then at midnight when the angel of death passed through the land he did not kill the first born son in that family where blood was painted on the door posts.

But in the Egyptian homes, where no blood, the first born son was killed. During the passover meal the Jewish people eat a lamb that had been slain and offered in the temple. That's how they remember that their lives were spared by the blood of the lamb. Same do we when we eat the Lord's Supper. We can never forget our slavery to or the punishment of sin, God's curse against sin. People die, die, all around us daily. We see God's anger and curse everywhere.

But when we eat and drink the bread and wine we sign-sing, "O Christ Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us." Jesus is the Lamb whose blood spares our lives. Our door posts are painted with Jesus' blood when we are baptized, and the angel of death passes by us. The lambs were killed instead of Israel's children. The Lamb of God is killed instead of us. That's what we remember when we come to the Lord's Supper.

When we come to the Lord's Supper we should also remember that our life now belongs to God who saved it. When the Jewish people eat the Passover meal they remember that they are God's people because He freed them from bondage and from death. They are His holy nation and should live for His glory.

Now in the Lord's Supper Jesus has established the New Testament. The Old Testament was sealed with a lamb's blood painted on a door post. But the New Testament is sealed with the blood of the Lamb of God blotched on a Roman cross. As we come to the Lord's Supper tonight let us sing:

Chief of sinners though I be,
Jesus shed his blood for me,
died that I might live on high,
lives that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine,
I am his and he is mine!
Chief of Sinners Though I Be, Hymn

That's what we remember when we eat and drink the bread and wine. We are His holy people now. His priests. And as we remember these things it should make something happen to us to really change us. We can't remain the same.

In the Passover meal the Jews ate the meat of the lamb and in that eating they became joined with the lamb that had been slain and offered in the temple. It is the same with us. When we eat the body and drink the blood of the Lamb of God offered on the cross we are joined with Jesus in His death. When people first come to a Christian church and see the members go up and eat the bread and drink the wine, they think that is a strange way to remember someone. Yes, it is strange! But wonderful! By eating and drinking we are joined with Jesus.

Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ." "We are buried with Him by baptism into His death." "The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)

"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Galatians 2:20)

Jesus tells us to eat and drink to remember Him. We don't come to the Lord's Super to please the pastor or because others come, but to remember Jesus and join in His death and resurrection. We come to remember that He has freed us from Satan's bondage; spared our life from death and "made us God's special holy people, priests of the King that we should know forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness to come into His marvellous light!" (1 Peter 2:9)

Let us eat and drink often that we can remember Him.

Amen.