This week on Things Unseen we've been thinking about the significance of the Lord's Supper,

and we've done that by reflecting already on three words that Paul uses to describe it,

proclamation, blessing or benediction, and yesterday participation or communion.

And our next word also rhymes. It's anticipation. Says Paul, as often as you eat this bread and drink

this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. That's 1st Corinthians

chapter 11 verse 26. And incidentally, by as often, he's not saying you should do this often,

although that may be true. What he means is every time you do it, you're proclaiming the Lord's

death until he comes again. And that means,

doesn't it, that the church is to celebrate both baptism and the Lord's Supper all the way to the

end of the age and to do it everywhere. Sometimes you may meet professing Christians who suggest

that they're fine without baptism

or the Lord's Supper.

But clearly Paul didn't think so.

And one of the reasons is this.

Each time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, it reminds us that there is still more to come.

Perhaps it was that just as many Christians today say amen out loud at the end of a

prayer in church. At the end of the Lord's supper, the early Christians would say out loud together,

Maranatha, our Lord come. We've already talked on the podcast about the way the New Testament teaches us that one

of the most basic structures of the New Testament is that it stresses there is an already and

a not yet about the gospel.

We've already been raised into new life with Christ, but we've not yet been finally resurrected with him.

The not yet is still to come when he returns. So, in a way, it's not surprising that this

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