A Meditation at the Lord’s Supper

GENESIS 37. 31–35

IF YOU had visited old Jacob. I am sure he could have shown you a coat – a coat of many colours – and he would have told you it was the coat he had given to his favourite son Joseph. He could have gone on to show you that the coat was stained with blood, the blood, he believed, of his well–beloved son who had been slain by a wild beast when he was on his way to Dothan to visit his brothers who were shepherding the flocks there, Gen 37. 12–17.

Jacob often must have looked at that coat, and each time it would remind him of his dead son. Many a time as he looked at the blood stains on that coat he would shed a silent tear because Joseph had been dear to him His hopes had been centred on Joseph, but now he was dead, and all he had to remind him of his beloved son was the coat of many colours, now, alas!, stained with blood.

When we gather together to partake of the Lord’s Supper, we have before us the bread and the wine which remind us of our Lord Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, and whose precious blood was poured out in death for our redemption. We remember our Saviour who loved us unto death.

But one day Jacob’s sons came back from Egypt where they had gone to buy corn. They burst into his presence and exclaimed, “Joseph is yet alive”, Gen. 45. 26. Jacob fainted at first at the shock of this startling announcement. For years he had believed that Joseph was dead, and he had never expected to see him alive on this earth. That blood–stained coat had been the evidence that a wild animal had killed him. After the first shock had passed, Jacob revived and before long he went down to Egypt to meet his son who he thought had been dead, and now he rejoiced that Joseph was alive and exalted in Egypt, and that he was indeed “the saviour of the world”, Zaphnath–paaneah, 41. 45.

At the breaking of the bread it is possible for us to remember our Saviour and His death for us on the cross, and in effect, to leave Him hanging lifeless there. It is important to remember that our Redeemer died, indeed the broken bread and poured out wine announce His death, but let us never forget that He rose from the tomb and that we eat the bread and drink the cup only till He come, 1 Cor. 11 26.

Our beloved Lord and Saviour is not dead today: He is alive and is exalted at the Father’s right hand in glory where He ascended after His resurrection and appearances to His own.

Let us never forget that He did die for us on the cross, but He also arose on the third day and has been exalted to. be a Prince and a Saviour. Even more. He is returning in power and great glory to this earth, and the scene of His humiliation and rejection will also be the scene of His glory. Every eye shall see Him on that day: every knee shall bow before Him, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Hallelujah!