Lord's Supper

An Astonishing Meal

by Ben Zornes · Jun 30, 2025

This meal is both simple and astonishing. It is simple in that it is made up of simple and common things, a loaf of bread, a cup of wine set on a folding table covered by a nice white tablecloth. But we really should be astonished in considering this simple meal. Many traditions try to jazz up the simplicity in order to make the sign itself astonishing. But we must look at this simplicity by faith, and see that it is what the sign signifies which takes your breath away.

The astonishment is two-fold. First, God guarantees that in drawing to this table in true faith, we draw near to feast with Him. Here we dine with the Divine One. We are seated at the cosmic VIP table. We are made guests of honor in the heavenly banquet hall. We––who were once scandalous sinners, who were treacherous rebels, who defied the God who made us––are welcomed here by the Father, because of the Son’s redeeming blood, and by the new life which the Spirit has given us. This really is astonishing. You, a sinner, are brought here to dine with God.

But there is a second astonishment found here. The reason we can feast here with God as righteous and redeemed saints, is because Christ took upon Himself our damnation. The One who had known no fear or faltering, the only One who was never morally inconsistent, was broken like bread, and crushed like the fruit of the vine. He did this for you, and there is nothing left for you to do in order to obtain this great gift. He simply calls you to believe all this, and so receive all this. He comes to feast with sinners, and these sinners can come as righteous saints because Christ was made accursed for You and for me.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Altar Calls & the Lord’s Supper

by Ben Zornes · May 26, 2025

The revivalism of the American frontier in the 1800s was marked by a fervent conviction that sinners must really come to feel the weight of their sins. The concept was that if indifferent men and women could be made to understand that the sword point of God’s justice was right behind them, it would cause emotional anxiety. Played rightly, this could bring folks to do whatever the revival preacher instructed.

These revival services would culminate in a rather chaotic climax of people rushing forward to what came to be known as the anxious bench. This practice became quite widespread within American religious life. Many churches simply incorporated the anxious bench as the liturgical high point of their services. Billy Graham crusades, with the hymn Just As I Am inviting folks to come forward and decide for Christ, is very much a part of this earlier legacy.

Now, you’ll notice that the culmination of our service is a table full of bread & wine. This isn’t a place where emotions comes to die. Rather, it’s where emotions come alive. The revivalism of the 1800s sought to singe off eyebrows with fears of hell-fire. Modern churches have careened off into a similar error of thinking that moody chord progressions will rouse people to encounter God in some life-changing way. In both cases, it’s hoped that emotions will precipitate faith.

But on this table we see the opposite: faith leads to right emotions. God hates your sin so much that He crushed His own Son; thus, this meal should compel you to despise your sins, and flee from them to Christ. Likewise, God delights in His Son so greatly, that in Christ you receive only welcome from Your heavenly Father. Here is a table where we can rightly feel, with reverence and joy, the horror of our sin and the glory of our Savior.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

An Unchanging Christ

by Ben Zornes · May 5, 2025

Consider that everything you’ve ever known has changed. The parents who chased you around the living room are now gray-haired and aging. The newborns you stared at for hours while they were sleeping in their cribs are now taking violin lessons, swinging a baseball bat, and driving automobiles on our public roadways! Your favorite book has coffee stains in it. Your cozy jacket has a hole in the elbow. Your childhood taste for PB&Js has been supplanted by a love for fall-off-the bone baby-back ribs.

May’s green grass will quickly become July’s withered yellow. The flowers showing off their colors right now will soon (too soon for some of us) drop their petals. The NE Patriot’s dynasty has been usurped by the KC Chiefs. AI hype will be replaced in due course with some newer tech-hype. It all fades. It all changes. It all decays.

But to keep you from falling into a spiral of mourning the futility of it all, God puts a portion of bread in one hand and a cup of wine in the other to convince you that there is One Thing that does not, will not, has not, and can not change. But bread is itself the result of all sorts of mutations and changes; from seed, to blade, to grain, to flour, to dough, to loaf. Similarly, wine is the product of a long series of transformations. Nevertheless, these two together form a meal that is God’s unchanging Word to you. That Word is a certain word. As God promised David so this meal assures you: My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him (Psa 89:28). Here is a covenant meal, made of changeable things, intended to direct your faith to lay hold upon the steadfast promise of Him who cannot change.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

A Waypoint for Pilgrims

by Ben Zornes · Apr 28, 2025

This meal serves to order our piety rightly. It is like a wise guide, leading you along mountain passes that are unknown to you. In an age where unbridled emotions are exalted, it might seem that blazing your own path up the mountainside is more holy, or noble, or “spirit-led”. But trying to hack a path through the brush is just a speed run to frustration, discouragement, and disillusionment.

So look upon this bread and wine and consider that God serves up piping hot grace to you each and every week. He knows what sufferings await you. In fact, He has lovingly hand-selected your future trials. He has good works for you to do, and often those good works are in the midst of profound difficulty, sorrow, and even suffering. But rather than leaving you to fend for yourself in trackless forests and marshlands, He brings you here to His table each Lord’s Day. Here is a waypoint where regular nourishment and refreshment is given to you.

Nourishment to remain faithful when compromise is all around you. Nourishment to fend off wild beasts of temptation. Nourishment to be strengthened to be like the Good Shepherd and deliver prey from the mouth of the lion. In the course of your life you will be tempted to despair, fear, lust, envy, self-exaltation, and self-deprecation. But each week the Father feeds you with Christ. Soon there will be some peculiar providence that you must face, and while you may never have ventured through it before, your Heavenly Father assures you that here, as displayed in this sacrament, is grace upon grace for you.

In all of this, God has taken a kindly care to guide and guard your piety. He feeds you, in order to supply you with all you need to honor Him.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ

Rejoicing in Another’s Sufferings

by Ben Zornes · Apr 9, 2025

This meal should be a comfort to you. Among the many reasons for this is that it speaks to you that God is not ignorant of or indifferent to your sufferings. Here we must grapple with the indisputable splendor that the Lord of glory descended down into the suffering of death. A death that He did not deserve.

His sufferings were undertaken to accomplish two things in relation to your sufferings. First, His suffering upon the cross ensures that one day, in the new heavens and new earth, there will be no more suffering. This truly surpasses anything you can think or imagination. All the pains you’ve suffered, all the sorrows you’ve ever carried, all the misery you’ve ever been called to endure, will one day be no more. Not only that but in that eternal glory you can be certain that there will be no temptation to fear or worry about future potential sufferings. A staggering reality that awaits us: tears shall be no more.

But the second, and more glorious, reason that Christ’s sufferings are a comfort to you in your sufferings is that it means that your sufferings mean something. Sin undoubtedly mangled the good creation of the Lord. But the cross certifies to us that Christ dealt with the consequences of sin by becoming Sin. He answered the question of why there is evil in the world by enduring the greatest evil. Because of the cross you can be certain that the sovereign God intends in the weight of your sufferings a far surpassing weight of glory.

Thus, what would be impolite elsewhere is faith’s true delight here. At this table we rejoice in Another’s sufferings. Another’s misery is our peace. You here remember with gladness the Man of sorrows. For His sufferings were undertaken for His and your eternal joy.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

You Shall Want No More

by Ben Zornes · Mar 31, 2025

Secular scientists are convinced that the world is slouching towards an inevitable demise. They speculate that the world’s ending may be a frigid dissipation of all heat and energy from the universe. Or they posit that it’ll all burn up in a final, splendid kaboom.

This world is not destined for death, however. It’s destined for glory. This is simply how the works of God are. God creates light on day one, but on day four He enthrones the light. The earth is not left void, it is gloriously ordered into sea, sky, and land. The land itself is glorified when God tenderly forms it into a man. That spiritless man is glorified when God breathes into him a spirit. The man is further glorified by being given a “same but sundered” helper: his bride Eve.

Abraham’s solitary son of promise is being glorified into a mighty heavenly host. The Passover feast was glorified into this meal, signifying to us all that is in Christ for us. But even this meal will one day be further glorified.

The Lord’s Supper is complete and sufficient; but it, too, is like a seed that will one day burst into flower. In the new heavens and earth we will taste the unbroken delight of Christ’s bodily presence. In that presence, you will finally know what it means to be satisfied.

In this life you have never experienced a moment without the pangs of unsatisfied desires. We hunger and thirst. We are tired or lonely. This meal invites us to see by faith that just as temporal food satisfies desires, we shall one day enjoy a two-fold glory. First, the everlasting satisfaction of Christ’s presence, and second, the absence of unsatisfied desire. You shall want no more, because as this meal promises the glory that awaits this world is this: Christ given to you.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Scandalous Gift of Salvation

by Ben Zornes · Feb 27, 2025

If a pushy salesman shows up at your door to hawk his wares you are unlikely to cave to his spiel. No matter how slick he is, no matter how many Jedi mind-tricks he tries to play on you, you are disposed to be suspicious of “too good to be true” sales pitches.

This is suspicion is well applied when it comes to fending off the salesman. However, our cynical suspicion can all too often leak into our understanding of what Christ holds out to us. What He holds out to you, as shown in the meal, is everlasting life. Bread for your hunger, wine for your thirst, and an assembly of fellow saints to enjoy it all with. It is beyond our comprehension that this is pure gift. Christ gives this to us as sheer grace.

There is no fine print. There are no hidden fees. The only thing required of you, He also provides. He calls you to see, and gives you eyes. He offers you this bread and gives you hands in order that you may “take, and eat.” This is, of course, what faith is. It, too, is a gift. The gift which enables you to hold all the other gifts. The marvelous glory of our salvation is that it really is entirely a gift, so that none of us can boast.

If such a gift is given, the response should be nothing other than love. Indeed, that is why the early church took to calling the Lord’s Supper a love feast. That indeed is what it is. His love is great towards His people, and if you have heard the splendor of Christ crucified on your behalf then receive it. Without objection, without cynicism, without excuses, without embarrassment at how great the gift is. Here is love, so respond in love.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…