There is a point of deepest interest presented in verse 11 of Deuteronomy 16 in
connection with the feast of weeks:"And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God."
We have no such word in the passover feast, or in the feast of unleavened bread. It
would not be in moral keeping with either of these solemnities. True it is, the passover
lies at the very foundation of all the joy we can or ever shall realize here or hereafter;
but we must ever think of the death of Christ, His sufferings, His sorrows _ all that He
passed through when the waves and billows of God’s righteous wrath passed over His
soul. It is upon these profound mysteries that our hearts are, or ought to be, mainly
fixed when we surround the Lord’s table and keep that feast by which we show the
Lord’s death until He come.

Now it is plain to the spiritual and thoughtful reader that the feelings proper to such a
holy and solemn institution are not of a jubilant character. We certainly can and do
rejoice that the sorrows and sufferings of our blessed Lord are over, and over
forever_that those terrible hours are passed, never to return; but what we recall in the
feast is not simply their being over, but their being gone through, and that for us. "Ye
do show the Lord’s death." We know that many blessings accrue to us from that
precious death. Yet when we are called to meditate upon it, our joy is chastened by
those profound exercises of soul which the Holy Spirit produces by unfolding to us the
sorrows, the sufferings, the cross, the passion of our blessed Saviour. Our Lord’s
words are, "This do in remembrance of Me," But what we especially remember in the
supper is Christ suffering and dying for us; what we show is His death. And with these
solemn realities before our souls, in the power of the Holy Ghost, there will, there
must be, holy subduedness and seriousness.

We speak, of course, of what becomes the immediate occasion of the celebration of the
supper_the suited feelings and affections of such a moment. But these must be
produced by the powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit. It can be of no possible use to
seek, by any pious efforts of our own, to work ourselves up to a suitable state of mind.
This would be ascending by steps to the altar, a thing most offensive to God. It is only
by the Holy Spirit’s ministry that we can worthily celebrate the holy supper of the
Lord. He alone can enable us to put away all levity, all formality, all mere routine, all
wandering thoughts, and to discern the body and blood of the Lord in those memorials
which, by His Own appointment, are laid on His table.

(From Notes on Deuteronomy, Vol. 2.)