3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

The breaking of bread has great value

We are reminded that he was a sufferer: that it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Our own part at present is very much one of suffering, and we are enabled to bear it properly by the exhibition of this body given and this blood shed. We are made to realize that the first stage of our development as sons of God is necessarily one of humiliation, and that in this stage the Lord himself has preceded us, in having been made to "learn obedience by the things that he suffered"

...Why was the Lord called upon to suffer? Why was the Holy One commanded to allow himself to be put to death by sinners? –This commandment" he said, he had –received of the Father," and he prayed unavailingly in the garden of Gethsemane that the cup might pass from him.

It has to do with the greatness of God and the smallness of man. He has said "I will be exalted." He has said "I will be sanctified" - (held in holy reverence and deepest and highest honour) – "in them that approach unto Me." He has invited man to approach. He has said

"Come unto me." "Look unto me." "Draw nigh to me." "Come out from among the unclean, and I will receive you."

But between these two points - the point at which man is invited, and the point at which his compliance is accepted lies this awful ceremony of holiness, - the condemnation of sin in the public crucifixion of one who bore the sin nature, but who was himself obedient in all things.

A condemnation with which we are required to identify ourselves in the ceremony appointed for the purpose - baptism into his death. We do not "show forth the Lord's death" to any effectual purpose if we do not see the terrible majesty of God which was vindicated in it. The principle is illustrated to us in the vision of the seraphim covering head and body in the presence of God, and saying

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts."

If the angels of His presence humble themselves thus before God, what attitude becomes mortal man but the very one provided in this institution: "crucified with Christ," yet saying with Paul,

"Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Seasons 2.92