June 5th, 2020
This is my fourth note in a series of five notes on the Lord’s Supper. There are five words that help us think about the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper: remembrance, covenant, anticipation, invitation, and examination. Last week I considered the connection between hope and Communion. We eat and drink at the Lord’s Table in anticipation of his coming, when he will drink the fruit of the vine anew with us in his Father’s Kingdom.
The fourth word is invitation. This is the Lord’s Supper. It’s not the church’s supper. It’s not our supper; it’s his supper. He’s the host. It’s his table and his food. We come to his supper and his table at his invitation. We can say with the bride in the Song of Songs 2:5:
“He calls me to his banqueting table,
and his banner over me is love.”
The banner of God’s love hangs over this meal.
Christ invites us to his table because he loves us and wants communion with us. Consider how Luke begins his account of the Last Supper, when Jesus ordained that we remember him in this Supper:
“And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’.” (Luke 22:14-15)
Again, consider how John begins his account of the Last Supper:
“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).
He called them to his banqueting table, and his banner over them was love. He calls us to the same table, and his banner over us is love. There is no greater joy than the knowledge and assurance that we come to this table at Jesus’s invitation, because he loves us and wants communion with us.