WORSHIP 73 



adding again to the customary benediction the words, 

 ** Drink ye all of it, for This is My Blood which is shed 

 for many for the remission of sins/* 



He had used the same figure of speech at least once 

 before, and His meaning would be far more obvious to 

 His disciples than it is to us* In our minds the thought 

 of communion is not associated with the thought of 

 sacrifice. But in theirs it was* They might well 

 remember how, in times gone by, countless sacred 

 animals had been slain and eaten in order that men 

 might realise afresh their fellowship one with another 

 in communion with God. But this time He, their Lord 

 and Master, was to be the sacred animal for sacrifice, 

 and they, by spiritually partaking of Him, would be united 

 together in holy fellowship, to live His life, to think 

 His thoughts, and to carry on His beneficent work when, 

 in the flesh. He would no longer be with them. Their 

 lips were to proclaim His glorious message of salvation. 

 Their hands were to carry on His work of healing. Their 

 hearts, like His, were to throb sympathetically with the 

 woes of their fellow-men. 



And this Holy Communion is ours to-day, and daily 

 we may partake of it, and that without any priestly 

 mediation. For wherever two or three are gathered 

 together in His Name there is He in our midst. His Hand 

 outstretched, offering to us the bread of life, and the 

 sacred chalice of His blood. And thus not only our 

 meetings for worship, but our family gatherings, as when 

 we meet morning and evening to read the Scriptures 

 in His Name, or when at grace before meat we seek to 

 recognise the Giver of every good gift, all such times as 

 these may be, and ought to be, times of Holy Communion 

 when we realise afresh our fellowship with Christ and 

 one with another. 



Moreover, without this sense of fellowship no true 

 worship, in any full and complete sense, is possible. 



