We’ve just sung ‘Jesus, name above all names’. We remember Jesus, what He’s done for Us, His death, His resurrection.
And I was just thinking about that hymn we just sung. All those things are true: Jesus is ‘The Name above all names’, He’s the one Name by which we can be saved. He is our beautiful Saviour, He’s the glorious Lord, the Lord who came from Heaven to dwell amongst us, to give us Salvation.
He is Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’. And He is God with us now. He is our Blessed Redeemer, King of kings. And He came to be the life-giving Spirit, our Priest and King.
He did that by being bruised and rejected, despised, and rejected, a ‘Man of Sorrows’.
And, as we take the bread and wine, we are remembering what it cost Jesus to die for us, to be the sacrifice for the sin of the world.
The words ‘Man of Sorrows’ are in the Book of Isaiah. It says that He would be
3 … despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.4 Surely He has borne our griefs
Isaiah 53.3-6
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Those words were written some 700 years before Jesus came. They tell you the whole essence of why He came. That He was to be despised, rejected, He was to be the sin-bearer, one upon whom God would lay the sin of the world, and to be the One who would redeem us, bring us back to God because we have all gone astray, we’ve all fallen short of His glory.
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
Romans 3:10
Do not enter into judgment with Your servant,
Psalm 143:2
For in Your sight no one living is righteous.
As we come to remember the Lord, we remember both His greatness, His glory and also our failures, our sin. And we thank God that they’re all brought together in Jesus who died for us.
And we praise God that He didn’t remain dead, that He rose from the dead on the third day, and ever lives to make intercession for us.
So, as we come to remember the Lord, let’s just have a moment to be quiet before the Lord and to give thanks for what He’s done for us, to give thanks for His death, His resurrection and to ask Him to forgive us, to cleanse us from our sins, and to come and dwell within us and give us His life-giving Spirit that we might know His presence, His power, His love, His healing, His redemption. in Jesus’ Name.
Let’s just have a moment to be quiet before the Lord and then we’ll break the bread.
We thank You that You are indeed our Blessed Redeemer. We thank You that You have saved us from our sins, and we do acknowledge before You Lord that we all come short of Your glory, that we all need a Redeemer, we all need a Saviour.
We thank You Lord that You have provided all that we need through Your death and resurrection.
We would remember You with thanksgiving for what You’ve done for us, and remember Your love, Your peace, Your joy that You’ve given us in Jesus.
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Luke 22.19
Lord, we thank You for this bread, we thank You it is a reminder of Your body that was given for us. We thank You Lord that we can remember You in the breaking bread. We give You thanks for this in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
Luke 22.20
We thank You for the New Covenant that You brought us into, we thank You that You shed Your blood in order to redeem us, and we thank You Lord that we can remember You now in the taking of this cup, remember Your precious blood that was shed for the Redemption of the world. In Jesus’ Name, amen.