Preached in Markham Baptist Church, June 3, 2007

DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME

I drive past it every day and barely notice it. Yet it is one of the tallest structures in this Markham area. I’ve ridden my bike under the shadow of its massive white expanse but don’t give it a second look. But then the other day as I was walking along Wootten Way here in Markham I happened to look and there I see again the thing which I often forget is there – the Markham water tower. And as I look at it looming up against a beautiful blue sky I think how massive it is and how often I never really pay any attention to it. Which is kind of strange, since it is 40 metres high and has a capacity for more than 2 and ½ million litres of water. This thing is huge and you would think that every time I passed by it I would say, “Whoa, look at that.”

But I don’t, and I would guess you don’t either. Like me, you’ve probably got used to it being there and I just don’t look at it, no matter how big it is. I’m sure there are some studies done on this – but I wonder how long does a painting hang on a wall in your home before you no longer notice it? How long does that clutter in the corner of your office sit before you get used to being there and no longer notice it? What’s the effectiveness of a highway billboard after a year? When did I stop noticing the massive water tower which I pass every day on my way to work?

I don’t know. But I do know that it is part of life – we lack the ability to see that which is familiar. In some ways it’s helpful, the Markham water tower isn’t all that pretty and it’s a gift to be able to not see.

But it can also be a deterrent. Many of you teens might have heard this from your mother – “How many times can you step over the shoes in the hallway and not pick them up?” Don’t say, “I never noticed them.” It’s true the shoes are always there and you get used to them – you mean they aren’t supposed to be there? – and you just step over them.

Or I think of the rose bushes that grow just outside the front door of our cottage. They come out in gorgeous bloom and I often pass right by them without noticing them because they are always there. But when a visitor comes, they will stop at the door and adoringly say, “O, look at the roses!” and I am made aware of their beauty again.

You see. this familiarity can rob us of experiencing the unique, the special and the precious.

This is especially so when it comes to our celebration of the Lord’s supper. Because we are so familiar with it, with the words that are spoken, with the process, the prayers that are said, that it no longer holds meaning for us, we no longer stop and say, “Whoa, look at that!”

So this morning I want us to pause a moment and consider what this table is all about. I want us to pause a moment and consider the massive ideas that are expressed here. I want us to stand under its mighty shadow and think of the grandeur and grace and awesomeness that is present here.

And I’m not exaggerating here because this table points us to Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11: 23, 25) Jesus is saying, “Put me in the centre of this meal, let your thoughts be dominated by me, lose yourself here to me,” says Jesus.

And when we do that, when we remember Jesus Christ, this meal cannot be skimmed over lightly. It cannot be taken for granted. For here we remember the vibrant, living divine personality of Jesus Christ.

When you take the bread remember Jesus Christ. Remember His life. Remember how He strode through life with determination and focus yet never at the expense of relationships or His values.

Remember how He lived that perfect life in harmony with God, doing His Father’s will, and bringing the grace of the Father to all He met.

Remember how He spoke words of correction to those lost in religiosity yet always held out a hand willing to lead them to a living relationship with the living God.

Remember how He would heal those who needed healing.

Remember the time He spent with the sick, the sinful and the sorrowful.

Remember the patience He displayed with the doubting, the love toward the depressed and power toward the demon-possessed.

Remember how He said, “I have come to give my life as a ransom for many.” He gave of Himself not just on Calvary, but all day and every day He threw Himself away for strangers that He would never see again.

No one was too weary or too hurt or sinful or troubled for Christ. He gave Himself wholeheartedly to them seeking to help, feeling all the while that everything He had was given to Him not for His own use but to be spent on others.

And so it is today. He meets us here today and says to us, as you put this bread to your lips and take it in remember my life. Remember that I gave my whole life for you. All I have is yours, all that I am is yours.

Whatever He can do for you, you can be sure He will do it. Whatever He can offer you to help you along the way you can be sure that He will give it. There is no sin too big for Him, that we wonder if He can forgive it.

No hurt too deep for Him that we wonder if He can heal it.

No problem too large for Him that we wonder if He can solve it.

There is no need too big for Him that we wonder if He can fill it.

O the thrill of it! This is not dead, dry, dull personality we remember here, but the Giver of life, the Creator of life, the One who is life itself and who lives forever and ever to the glory of God, in order to give us life!

So don’t come to this table unthinkingly. Remember Jesus’ life and ask Him to fill your life with His. Bring your problems, hurts, needs and let Him address them. Remember Jesus.

Jesus is always willing to give Himself, always willing to share of His time and all that belongs to Him He offers to us. And every time we come to this table He asks to remember that. To remember His life and that He holds nothing back from us that would truly make us holy and an instrument of His grace.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said. Let us not just remember His life, let us remember Jesus’ death. Notice that the bread is broken and the drink is poured out. Before Christ gave it He broke it. “This is my body broken, mangled, done to death, for you.”

Let us remember that Christ’s death was one of sacrifice. We were lost and far from God, unable to win His favour, except through the repeated sacrifice of animals. But now Jesus’ perfect sacrifice ends all that. We now have a new covenant, a new promise.

Unlike the old covenant where God made the promises and you were to keep the requirements this will be a new covenant where God will make the promises but God will also keep the requirements. It will be a covenant made and a covenant kept by the broken body and the poured out blood of Jesus Christ. That’s what He says in verse 25. His death is one of sacrifice.

His death is also one of substitution. Our sin had one result and that was death. Someone has to die for sin, it is the nature of sin. Sin is everything that is ungodly and that can only lead to death. Death is the logical end of sin. How is sin to be gotten rid of? By death. But what if someone was to die for us, what if someone loved us so much that they were willing to push us out of the way of the rolling bus called sin and die for us? Could that be possible? Yes. A thousand times, yes! Jesus has paid the price for our sin - He died because of us, for us, and instead of us. O, the wonder of it all!

This table never lets us forget that the only ground for our salvation and acceptance with God is the cross on which Jesus Christ died. The pulpits all across our nation may tell the people something different. The great preachers of our day may sidestep the message of the crucified Saviour so as to parade personal views and ideas but the Lord’s table is always eloquent and unambiguous. It proclaims the Lord’s death until He comes.

There may be some of you today who come hesitantly to this table. You may be saying that this table is not for you. To be sure, this table is not for everyone. For some there is absolutely no meaning to it. For one walking in off the street with absolutely no knowledge of Christ’s death and its purpose, this table is nothing. For one who knows superficially of a person named Jesus who did something, somewhere, sometime, this table is nothing.

For someone who has a working knowledge of Jesus, with a few brain held details of his birth, life and death, but has not believed that Jesus is God’s Son who died for your sins and has not made Him Saviour and Lord, this table is nothing for you. This table is not for everyone.

And so if you have not confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour you should pass the elements by and not participate.

BUT. BUT … Having said that, let no one here hesitate to come to this table because we feel that this table cannot be for us because of our sin. It is.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus says. Remember how he sat and ate with what the Pharisees called tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus quickly answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

I believe it was Tom Long of Princeton University who told the story of a family who had the visiting pastor home for lunch. The mother was a “Bree” type (from the TV show Desperate Housewives) - everything had to be perfect. The linen table cloth, the fine china, the crystal, it was a perfect table.

The sermon had gone a bit long so the kids were a bit anxious and restless by the time lunch was served – not to mention how they were uncomfortable in their church clothes. But finally lunch was set, tomato juice was poured and the pastor was invited to say grace – and as soon as the amen was said the children all reached for what was closest, the mashed potatoes, the roast beef, the peas, and in all the hubbub and hurry 8 year old Joanna reaches out and spills her tomato juice, her 10 year old brother jumps back from the table and spills his juice to so that now the white linen table cloth is just dripping.

The poor mother is embarrassed and angry with her daughter. She is about to explode when all of a sudden she sees her husband who looks at her, holds her gaze and deliberately reaching out his hand knocks over his glass.

No one has ever seen a grown man spill tomato juice on the table on purpose before. To the two teenage boys at the table this looked like great fun so they knocked over their glasses too. Now there are 5 glasses of juice spilled and ice cubes too.

The mother can’t believe it, nor can the visiting pastor – he’s not had much fun in his life so he giggles and knocks his glass too. It’s the wettest mess you’ve ever seen.

But there is more tension in the air than juice on the table. Mother perfection is about to explode, her eyes are wide her jaw is clenched. Just before she speaks she looks at her husband again and he winks at her. She says, “O who cares,” and knocks over her glass too! And the table explodes into laughter, they howl, they hold their sides she leans against her oldest son to keep from falling off her chair. They laughed and laughed.

Till one by one they all stopped laughing as they noticed their 8 year old Joanna looking at her father with great tears rolling down her cheeks.

Tears of absolute adoration and love. He had done a very foolish thing but a thing very consistent with our Saviour. He was not only saying to his child, “Your feelings are more important than a table cloth.” He was also saying, “This mess you have made, if anyone is going to get you for it they are going to get me too, for I make it my mess with yours.”

Some of us are embarrassed by something in our past. Some of us are wounded deeply. Some of us are frightened to death. Some of us know the things we have done are nothing so trivial as spilled juice. But more like spilled blood, our own blood. And we can’t unspill it. There it is, to our horror, spreading out before us.

But hear the good news - God has said, “This mess you have made - I make it mine as well. The blood that has been spilled, I spill my blood with it and for it.”

Nothing has been spilled, nothing has been ruined that the love of God cannot come behind and join us in and own it and cleanse it.

And so it was on that last night of His life when He shared this meal with His disciples. He took the broken bread and placed it into each of His disciples’ hands and then similarly the cup saying, “For you, for you, for you, for you.” Twelve separate times. Not one of them was missed.

John had a temper like you and me but he was not passed by. “For you,” said Jesus.

Peter denied Jesus yet he received it.

Judas betrayed Jesus yet he received it. “For you,” said Jesus.

All of them were disappointing and heartbreaking, all had walked into that room wanting to be first, their faces hot with anger at one another and temper in their eyes, but not one of them was left out. “For you.”

And so He looks to us today. “This is my body, which is for you. It was broken for you, instead of you.”

Because of your sin and my sin, Jesus died and paid the penalty of sin, which is death. “Do this in remembrance of me.”

So often we fail to come to this table because we are overwhelmed by our sin. We think our wrongs are too great, we have ignored Him for so long, surely I can’t come to Him now. He won’t accept me. We think that we have wronged Him so often that He can’t possibly forgive us again.

That is exactly why Jesus says to us, “Remember me.” Let Jesus be the focus of this table. Come to Him, eat with Him, at this table and bring your sin with you and let Him put it away. Confess it to Him and He will cleanse you. 1 John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus purifies us from every sin.”

So we come to this table with the words of Jesus ringing in our ears. “Remember me,” He says. Remember His life, remember His death, and then remember His victory.

When we come to the table we celebrate the Lord’s death “UNTIL HE COMES”. (verse 26)

It’s as if Jesus were saying to us, “When you eat this bread and drink this cup remember what evil I endured, remember the shame I endured, remember the nails plunged into my hands, remember the mockery that was made of me, Remember how I faced evil square in the face that day and died and was buried. But remember that I won the victory.”

“Remember me,” says Jesus. Remember that He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords. O how we need to remember this when the world seems to be falling apart around us, ravaged by sin, torn apart by evil, remember that we do not worship a dead hero but a risen Lord who has overcome this world. This what John has reminded us of in Revelation 3:21, “To him who overcomes (says the Lord) I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my father on his throne.”

And again at 6:2, “I looked,” said John, “and there before me was a white horse! It’s rider held a bow, and he is given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.”

So our Lord Jesus Christ. “Remember me, “He says to us.

You can pass by the Markham water tower and not give it a second look. That’s okay. It’s not a particularly beautiful structure. But don’t come to this table unthinkingly. Remember Jesus. Place Christ at the centre.

Remember His life and bring your hurts knowing that He will give you everything you need to live this Christian life.

Remember His death and bring your sin knowing that He died for you and instead of you and you can experience forgiveness.

Remember His victory and bring your worries about the future knowing that He lives, is in control and will meet you here.

Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”