"This Do In Remembrance Of Me"

by R. Hickling, Nottingham, UK | Category: In The Shadow Of Calvary | May 1986

A Darkening Shadow

In Matthew 16 we read of events which took place in the area of Caesarea Philippi. The Lord asked His disciples, "who say ye that I am?" Peter's assured and forthright answer was, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mat. 16:16). The Gospel writer then tells us "from that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples1 how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things... and be killed, and the third day be raised up" (Mat. 16:21). During the days of His flesh the hour of the cross was ever before the Lord (Mat. 11:22,23; 20:17-19), yet. as He warned His disciples about what lay ahead, and although they were "exceeding sorry" (Mat. 17:23), they failed to grasp the full significance of what their Master had told them.

Time passed and the shadow of the cross grew more and more pronounced. As His hour approached the Lord was troubled in His soul (John 12:27), yet His prayer was that God's Name should be glorified (John 12:28). The fact that one of His disciples would betray Him lay heavily upon His spirit (John 13:21). His familiar friend was going to lift up his hand against Him. The Lord Jesus had spoken of His death both plainly and symbolically (John 3:14; Mat. 16:21), and the time when He must leave His disciples was approaching rapidly. He spoke to his disciples about it when He said, "Yet a little while is the light among you (John 12:35). It was a time of deep sadness.

The Upper Room

Then came the first day of unleavened bread. The disciples enquired of the Lord where they should prepare the feast and He gave clear instructions to Peter and John to follow a man bearing a pitcher of water. Re would lead them to a house with a furnished Upper Room where they were to make ready.

Later, the Lord with the rest of the twelve followed. The city of Jerusalem would be thronged with pilgrims who had travelled there for the Passover and Jesus and His disciples would need to thread their way through the crowds. It was the custom of the Roman authority to draft more soldiers into the city on such occasions in case there should be any uprising on the part of the Jews. As the Lord and His own made their way through the streets they may well have seen, here and there evidences of the power of Gentile rule. So they came to the Upper Room.

The quiet of that chamber must have contrasted sharply with the noise outside. Not long before, the Jewish leaders had held their clandestine meeting with Judas Iscariot and the terrible bargain for Christ's betrayal had been struck (Mat. 26:14-16). Row keen they were to take this Man who had spoken against them so boldly! But they had feared the multitudes and this act must be done surreptitiously (Mat. 21:45,46).

Elsewhere, outside that room, the busy world was going about its business. Away in far off Rome, great Caesar was wielding his imperial power, represented at that time in Judea by Pontius Pilate, who soon at great eternal cost and with dreadful significance would yield to the cry of the crowd and put the courting of his emperor's favour above all else (John 19:12-16). To many, very many, that little group gathered in that room meant nothing. Yet there, reclining with His own was the incarnate Son of God. Only a few hours, and the gloom of Gethsemane would become a reality, and then alone Re would go to Calvary to become the great atoning Sacrifice. The types and shadows of a past day were all to be fulfilled in Him, God's promises were to be kept (Gen.3:15). The fullness of the time had come.

It was with particular desire that the Lord had wished to eat the Passover with His disciples (Luke 22:15), for it was to be, as He expressed it, "before I suffer". With Rim at that feast was a remarkable company of men of different backgrounds and characters: Simon Peter was there, that impetuous but most likeable man. Soon he would deny his Lord, only quickly to repent and afterwards suffer much in His service. Andrew, who had brought Peter to Jesus, was present. Thomas was with them, he who afterwards was to have doubts which would be swept away when he saw the signs of the Calvary wounds in His Master's resurrected body. Then there was John, a young man so dearly loved by the Lord. The rest of the twelve were there. But they were not all clean (John 13:10,11) for amongst them, but only for a time, was the traitor who would soon receive the sop and go out to perform his dastardly deed which was to end for him in eternal night.

They were all different in so many respects yet one characteristic was common to them all; they were all mortal men. Their life with the Lord must have made a tremendous impact upon them, but being human they could easily forget. When Re had gone would the memory of those days fade from their minds? And what of the multitudes who, over the centuries, were going to be reached by saving grace; how were they to remember Him whom they had never seen?

"This do..."

As they ate the Passover together, the Lord reached out and "took bread, and blessed and brake it and He gave to His disciples, and said, Take eat, this is My body. And He took a cup and gave thanks, and gave to them saying, Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto the remission of sins (Mat. 26:26-28). As the disciples sat there watching and listening to the Lord they would perceive that this was something new, outside the scope of the Passover Feast, and something about which they were to learn more in the days to come, which in turn they would pass on to those who would become His disciples. It was not for the eleven alone; it was the institution of a service of remembrance to be observed by all believers who would be prepared to keep His word.

Mark, as well as Matthew, records the taking of the loaf and cup by the lord Jesus on that night, and so does Luke who tells us also that the Lord said, "This do in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:19). It was a clear, succinct command; it allowed for no alteration by man, there was no room to deviate. Years later, in his first letter to the saints in the Church of God in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote about this night, telling them of how he had received his instruction from the Lord and bidding them to keep His word concerning the taking of the loaf and the cup. By so doing it would form a testimony to all who took notice, for they would be proclaiming the Lord's death. They would be looking back to the cross work, but not that only, for it was to be done "till He come". It was to point them forward also to the time when they would experience the full fruits of Christ's victory. Yet, joyous though such an ordinance was to be, it was not to be treated lightly, nor was there to be participation in it unless first there was self-examination before the lord with confession of sin and cleansing (1 Cor. 11:23-28).

The words "this do in remembrance of Me" call for careful consideration. It was not simply a matter of "remember Me" but "this do in remembrance of Me". It is possible to remember the Lord at any time as one meditates in private on Rim, but this was the institution of a corporate act of remembrance which was to be carried out by believers gathered together for this purpose according to the divine pattern. They were to do as the Lord had done by taking bread, giving thanks, breaking it and partaking of it. The loaf was still bread and the wine still wine, but although simple ordinary substances they symbolize that which is divine and profound:

"Only bread and only wine, Yet to faith the solemn sign Of the heavenly and divine"

The loaf speaks of His body and the cup of His blood. As we take the symbols we remember how He took the body which had been prepared for Him (Hebrews 10:5-7) and in which He dwelt among men bringing blessing. Yet that body was marred more than that of any man and in it He bore our sins upon the tree. The cup reminds us of the precious blood which was shed to pay for our redemption (1 Peter 2:24; 1:18,19), and points to the forgiveness received by believing ones.

Keeping the Ordinance

In the Acts of the Apostles we read how the command of the Lord concerning the remembrance was obeyed by disciples gathered together in churches of God. From Acts 2:41,42, we learn those who received the word of life were baptized and added to those already together forming the Church of God in Jerusalem. They continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching, the Fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.

This was true too of the disciples in Troas (Acts 20:7) and from this Scripture we find that the Remembrance was kept on the first day of the week. Closely associated with the breaking of the bread is the privilege, and indeed the responsibility, of those gathered together in churches of God to "enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus ..." (Heb. 10:19-22). This is holy priesthood service when, as the people of God in the spiritual house of God, those gathered in churches of God can offer up spiritual sacrifices of worship with bowed hearts to God (1 Peter 2:5).

Sadly, as time passed the simplicity of the ordinance and purity of Scriptural teaching concerning worship was lost and men substituted their own ideas, bringing in evil doctrines and ceremonies and ritual which had no scriptural authority. Yet, in God's mercy, in comparatively recent times the Holy Spirit has exercised the hearts of many believers to search the Scriptures and seek to return to truths taught in them. So today it is still the will of the Lord that disciples should be gathered in churches of God to keep the ordinance which He instituted in the shadow of Calvary and to do so "till He come".

R. Hickling, Nottingham, UK | May 1986
In The Shadow Of Calvary