re, with obvious allusion both to his earlier miracles and to the sad
hour in the upper room, he came 'and taketh the bread and gave it to
them.' Blending these two together we get most blessed, though dim,
thoughts of that future; they speak to us of an eternal home, an eternal
feast, and an eternal society. We have to reverse not a few of the
characteristics of the upper room in order to reach those of the table
in the kingdom. The Lord's Supper was followed for Him by Gethsemane and
Calvary, and for them by going out to betray and to deny and to forsake
Him. From that better table there is no more going out. The servant
comes in from the field, spent with toil and stained with many a splash,
but the Master Himself comes forth and serves His servant.

In the eternal feast, which is spread above, the bread as well as the
wine is new, even whilst it is old, for there will be disclosed new
depths of blessing and power in the old Christ, and new draughts of joy
and strength in the old wine which will make the feasters say, in
rapture and astonishment, to the Master of the feast, 'Thou hast kept
the good wine until now.' There and then all broken ties will be
re-knit, all losses supplied, and no shadow of change, nor fear of
exhaustion, pass across the calm hearts.

III. The Lord's Supper is a token of the present union of the two.

If it thus prophesies the perfectness of heaven, it also shows us how
the two communities of earth and heaven are united. They, as we, live by
derivation of the one life; they, as we, are fed and blessed by the one
Lord. The occupations and thoughts of Christian life on earth and of the
perfect life of Saints above are one. They look to Christ as we do, when
we live as Christians, though the sun which is the light of both regions
shows there a broader disc, and pours forth more fervid rays, and is
never obscured by clouds, nor ever sets in night. Whether conscious of
us or not, they are doing there, in perfect fashion, what we imperfectly
attempt, and partially accomplish.

'The Saints on earth and all the Dead
But one communion make.'

Heaven and earth are equally mansions in the Father's house.

To the faith which realises this great truth, death dwindles to a small
matter. The Lord's table has an upper and a lower level. Sitting at the
lower, we may feel that those who have gone from our sides, and have
left empty places which never can be filled, are gathered round Him in
the