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Last Supper: Quotations from Burning Words

Not worthy, Lord, to gather up the crumbs With trembling hand that from Thy table fall, A weary, heavy laden sinner comes To plead Thy promise and obey Thy call.— E. H. BICKERSTETH

We do not presume to come to this Thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table. But Thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful souls and bodies may be made clean by His death, and washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us.— METHODIST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE

We do not come to the Lord's Supper to testify thereby that we are perfect and righteous in ourselves; but on the contrary considering that we seek our life out of ourselves in Jesus Christ, we acknowledge that we lie in the midst of death. Therefore, notwithstanding we feel many infirmities and miseries in ourselves; as namely, that we have not perfect faith, and that we do not give ourselves to serve God with that zeal as we are bound, but have daily to strive with the weakness of our faith, and the evil lusts of our flesh; yet since we are by the grace of the Holy Ghost sorry for these weaknesses, and earnestly desirous to fight against our unbelief, and to live according to all the commandments of God; therefore we rest assured that no sin or infirmity, which still remaineth against our will in us, can hinder us from being received of God in mercy, and from being made worthy partakers of this heavenly meat and drink.— LITURGY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH

Dear Lord! while we adoring pay Our humble thanks to Thee, May every heart with rapture say, - "The Saviour died for me!"— ANNE STEELE

37j This bread and wine are the simple but eloquent monument to the infinite love of the Son of God, around which we gather with tender, tearful gratitude, because He loved us so, and because we know that our garlands of affection and consecration are pleasing to Him.— A. E. KITTREDGE

Surely there is a fitness in the institution of the Lord's Supper as a standing memorial by which the church at large may commemorate the grandest act, and by which the heart of each individual believer may be reminded of his dearest friend. You, who have learned to love the Saviour, will prize His ordinance for the Saviour's sake. You who rejoice in the salvation purchased by His dying, will not fail with gratitude and faith to show the Lord's death until He come.— Wm. M. PUNSHON

Love and grief our hearts dividing, With our tears His feet we bathe; Constant still, in faith abiding, Life deriving from His death.— JAMES ALLEN

To turn one's back on the memorial supper is to disregard the most tender and loving and melting of all our Saviour's commandments. It is not needful to know just how obedience will help us. It is enough to know that it was His dying command that we keep it till He come.— HENRY M. GROUT

Attendance at the Lord's table is not a subject left to human choice; but to every disciple of Jesus His express and solemn command is, "Do this."— J. G. PIKE

Beloved, I congratulate you, that you are at the feast of redeeming love, that you know the riches of grace in Christ Jesus; but this is only the "early meal" (introductory feast); the "grand supper" is awaiting you, at the close of the day, in the palace of the King, where the fellowship will be perfect and eternal, where the table will be beyond all the mists and fogs of sin, where death never enters to disturb the festivities, and where we shall see the Lamb face to face. O! if the feast with Jesus here is so precious, what, what must heaven be!— A. E. KITTREDGE

Brethren, here in the sacrament is the rainbow of the new and better covenant, the renewed pledge of salvation purchased, and strength imparted, and blessing conferred on the believing soul. And now, as in your covenant you pay your vows - time, talent, influence, property, life, all God's, - He the Infinite, in boundless condescension stoops to whisper, "My light, my strength, my purity, my joy, my heaven, all yours." Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes and His commandments, and His judgments, to hearken to His voice; and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath promised thee. And thus, brethren, in a mutual covenant of blessing, you do show forth His death until He come.— Wm. M. PUNSHON

For they truly know their Lord in the breaking of bread, whose heart within them so vehemently burneth, whilst Thou, O blessed Jesus, dost walk and converse with them.— THOMAS À KEMPIS

We, too, must enter into the Saviour's sorrow. For us, if we believe in Him, He breaks the bread, and pours the wine; and when we eat and drink, we do show the Lord's death until He come. His death, not His life, though that was lustrous with a holiness without the shadow of a stain. His death, not His teaching, though that embodied the fullness of a wisdom that was Divine. His death, not His miracles, though His course was a march of mercy, and in His track of blessing the world rejoiced and was glad. His death! His body not glorious, but broken; His blood, not coursing through the veins of a conqueror, but shed, poured out for man. His death! Still His death! Grandest and most consecrating memory both for earth and heaven!— Wm. M. PUNSHON

We We cannot embrace His cross, and yet refuse our own. cannot raise the cup of His remembrance to our lips, without a secret pledge to Him, to one another, to the great company of the faithful in every age that we, too, hold ourselves at God's disposal, that we will ask nothing on our own account, that we will pass simply into the Divine hand to take us whither it will.— JAMES MARTINEAU

Christ has given us, not only the ritual of an ordinance, but the pattern for our lives, when He took the cup, and gave thanks. So common joys become sacraments, enjoyment becomes worship, and the cup which holds the bitter or the sweet skillfully mingled for our lives becomes the cup of blessing and salvation drank in remembrance of Him.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN

A heart-memory is better than a mere head-memory. Better to carry away a little of the love of Christ in our souls, than if we were able to repeat every word of every sermon we ever heard.— FRANCIS DE SALES

Your participation of the holy communion must be regarded as the fresh act of your espousals, as the solemn renewal of your the fresh act of your espousals, as the solemn renewal of your covenant; as your surrender, entire and unhesitating, to the service of the Lord. It is thus that you confess Christ, and witness of Him to the world. If you eat and drink without discerning this great purpose, you eat and drink unworthily; if you repudiate such purpose, either in thought or act, you crucify in your measure the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. By your profane use of the means of grace without the slightest desire for the grace of the means, it is as if you cut and wounded the Saviour in this the house of His friends, and sharpened the daggers of your treachery upon the tables of the violated law.— Wm. M. PUNSHON

The Lord's Supper! the marriage supper of the Lamb! There are vacant seats around the table here. Will there be are vacant seats around the table here. Will there be dear ones missed at the table there?— A. E. KITTREDGE