The Bitter-Sweet Cup of Communion

TheJewish wedding traditions are somewhat different than ours are. Yet there are similarities. It is traditionally comprised of 2 parts. There is the kiddushin which is the betrothal period similar to our engagement period, and then there is Nisuin, where the marriage is fully consummated and finalized. Both stages are preformed under what is called the chuppah or canopy, and both are legally binding. If a person desires to get out of the marriage contract even during the betrothal period then he must provide the bride with a “get” or certificate of divorce.

The entire thing closely parallels the idea of the Lord’s table, and it should not surprise us since the church to whom the sacraments or signs of the covenant promises has been given is called the bride of Christ.

During the betrothal ceremony vows are exchanged under the chuppah, the groom gives the bride a gift usually a ring to signify the promise and the two share a cup of wine which ends with the groom breaking it.

The bride and groom will not drink the cup together again until the marriage is finalized, often up to a year later. This is incredibly symbolic because it signifies that the groom must go away and prepare a place for his bride at his fathers house. Usually he would go back and add on to the family home, and only when the father determined that all was ready would the groom be permitted to take a procession to his brides home to begin the wedding ceremony.

It is during this time that the bride must be diligent, to be busy preparing and keeping herself set apart this to avoid any other suitors. In many ways this is a bitter sweet time for her, she longs to be with her beloved but must remain in her fathers house for a while.

In eating and drinking, a man is not a producer but a consumer. He is not a doer or a giver forth; he simply takes in. If a queen should eat, if an empress should eat, she would become as completely a receiver as the pauper in the workhouse. Eating is an act of reception in every case. Charles Spurgeon

Joke about mother in law

BURDEN: To eat and drink at the Lord’s table is to proclaim the Lord’s death and anticipate His coming.

1. The Bitter Cup

The cup that we drink at the table is bitter. It is bitter because it represents the death of Christ for us and in turn our death with Him.

Narnia’s table for Asland

Luke 22:42 ESV

saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

John 18:11 ESV

So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Christ’s death especially His blood represents a new Covenant has arrived, that through death we are free to marry another namely Christ.

Paul uses this argument in Romans 7:2-4

Romans 7:2–4 ESV

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

The Jewish betrothal period was often a trial and difficult period of waiting. The bride and groom would enter under what is called the

The table is a place therefore where we must come to die. This is why we must examine our selves as we come to the table to and to constantly die to our old self, because our former fling keeps showing up.

Transition: In one sense the establishment of the Lord’s table was the promise or the marriage proposal.

The marriage proposal is just that it is a promise, but it is not the wedding. That comes at a future date, once all of the plans have been arranged. There are dates to set, and invitations to send, dresses to get fitted for, and all of the stuff, and all of the while the bride gets ready she reminds herself of the promise that was made how???

By looking at the giant rock on her finger, the sign of the promise.

Transition: So in this sense the cup is sweet, because it reminds us of the the promise of His return. Until he returns.

2. The Sweet Cup

It (the Lord’s Table) is a spiritual offering of the highest possible praise to God for that sacrifice.

1689 London Baptist Confession Article 30:2

We must remember this memorial is a perpetual memorial meaning that it is to be repeated. The phrase until means that we are in the period between the last passover meal that the Lord had with His disciples and the meal that we will share with Him in His kingdom which is not the promise but the fulfillment of it. The actual wedding feast.

Revelation 19:6–9 (ESV)

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Transition:

On his wedding day the groom, stands at the front by the altar where he will say his vows, and he anxiously waits with anticipation as his bride whose face is hidden by a veil makes her way to the front, and as the two are standing there facing each other holding hands and imagine with the the surprise of the groom as he lifts the veil only to discover some stranger standing there in front of him. What will he do, this is a complete stranger and not the woman whom he has made a promise to. He will be angry and feel betrayed and wonder where the woman whom he loves has gone. So it is with the Lord’s table, there is a strange person to the Lord who comes to his table who is outside of His covenant promise. His table is only for those who are in Christ. That is who the promise is for , not strangers. Secondly where is the actual bride. It is interesting that Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:20

1 Corinthians 11:20 ESV

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.

For the believer I don’t know what your are participating in you may be eating bread and drinking the wine but you are not communing with Christ, when you are off visiting your old boyfriend namely living in confessed and unrepentant sin. Infact this grievance is so serious that Paul warns such a person that they drink and eat judgement on themselves, and it is why some die prematurely.

Because the Lord’s table is the sign of the covenant promises between Christ and His bride,

Please note that the Lord’s table is not meant to satisfy some hunger, or even some social need in your life, but meant to bear testimony through eating and drinking of the grace of God on your life through Christ’s death

“One day” at Poitier in 1534, “when a discussion had arisen on the Lord’s Supper,” Calvin having his Bible before him said, “Here is my mass.” And, throwing the hood of his cloak on to the table and raising his eyes to heaven, he exclaimed, “Lord, if on the day of judgment you hold it against me that I never went to mass and that I left it, I shall say and with reason, Lord, you did not command it. Here is your law, here is Scripture which is the rule you have given me, in which I have not been able to find any sacrifice other than that which was offered on the altar of the cross” John Calvin

Be of good comfort, brother; for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night. John Bradford to John Leaf