It is well to recall to our minds what the meaning of this Supper is, and what we do when we partake of it. We have now again broken the bread and drunk of the cup; and what has that meant? We have shown the Lord’s death, and this will go on until He comes. Death is an awful thing, and man does not like to think of it. It is the king of terrors to man; it is the wages of sin, the ending of all the pride of life, the end of flesh as fallen. Who among men love it, to show it forth? But this death is the Lord’s death, death of the Prince of life!

Yes, He was once here, and man put Him to death; and He will come again to judge the living and the dead. But our thoughts flow upon another line than this. They begin with God and the Father, who has enabled us to feed upon death, to find our nourishment in it, to take it and bear it about in us continually. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His way our ways.

Man rebelled, and God pointed His Son to the ruin, as the occasion in which He could glorify God and the Father. He came from the Father, the gift of God, to lay His life down. Never did the marvels of His person as Son of God and Son of Man shine forth in their glories more preciously. As Son of God, He would give effect to His Father’s counsels and carry out His Father’s plans, though death and hell withstood Him. As Son of Man, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and could show His integrity—obedient unto death, the death of the cross—and His fitness to be a ransom. What a combination of marvels came out in that death!