566
The Desire of Ages
meets His people, and energizes them by His presence. Hearts and
hands that are unworthy may even administer the ordinance, yet Christ
is there to minister to His children. All who come with their faith fixed
upon Him will be greatly blessed. All who neglect these seasons of
divine privilege will suffer loss. Of them it may appropriately be said,
“Ye are not all clean.”
In partaking with His disciples of the bread and wine, Christ
pledged Himself to them as their Redeemer. He committed to them
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the new covenant, by which all who receive Him become children of
God, and joint heirs with Christ. By this covenant every blessing that
heaven could bestow for this life and the life to come was theirs. This
covenant deed was to be ratified with the blood of Christ. And the
administration of the Sacrament was to keep before the disciples the
infinite sacrifice made for each of them individually as a part of the
great whole of fallen humanity.
But the Communion service was not to be a season of sorrowing.
This was not its purpose. As the Lord’s disciples gather about His
table, they are not to remember and lament their shortcomings. They
are not to dwell upon their past religious experience, whether that
experience has been elevating or depressing. They are not to recall the
differences between them and their brethren. The preparatory service
has embraced all this. The self-examination, the confession of sin, the
reconciling of differences, has all been done. Now they come to meet
with Christ. They are not to stand in the shadow of the cross, but in
its saving light. They are to open the soul to the bright beams of the
Sun of Righteousness. With hearts cleansed by Christ’s most precious
blood, in full consciousness of His presence, although unseen, they
are to hear His words, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto
you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”
John 14:27
.
Our Lord says, Under conviction of sin, remember that I died for
you. When oppressed and persecuted and afflicted for My sake and
the gospel’s, remember My love, so great that for you I gave My life.
When your duties appear stern and severe, and your burdens too heavy
to bear, remember that for your sake I endured the cross, despising the
shame. When your heart shrinks from the trying ordeal, remember
that your Redeemer liveth to make intercession for you.
The Communion service points to Christ’s second coming. It was
designed to keep this hope vivid in the minds of the disciples. When-