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As we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, today we need to be honest with ourselves as we ask the question “do we really know why we celebrate this sacrament?”
We celebrate to Remember. We are called to remember the night that Christ was betrayed. That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’. In the same way he took the cup also, after supper saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ When we remember we place ourselves at the table in the upper room with Christ. Where are you sitting? Are you confused about what you have just heard and seen? As you leave the table you know that you have just taken part in a special event, but its not until you look back on that night after Christ has risen when the full implications of that meal come to light. But we are also called to remember more then the meal itself. Communion is not an event made to be administered in solitude. It’s about the body of Christ coming together to collectively remember the sacrifice of the personal, yet commotional Savior. So as we gather at the table today we are also called to remember our neighbor. We are called to keep in mind those who couldn’t be with us at the table today. To think of our brothers and sisters around the world who don’t have the privilege to worship God publicly. And our family who is going hungry.
Forgetting others is why Paul is so pointed at the beginning of the lesson today. Look at verse 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry while another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? When Paul is writing this letter to the church of Corinth, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was part of a great feast, sometimes referred to as the Agape or Love Meal. Each person brought what they could to the table to share. Only class divisions quickly sprang up and the rich were seated at better places at the table, given the finest food, and had more to eat and drink on the whole, while the poor starved. Paul pointed out that this is not what the family of God is about, giving first and foremost to yourself. No, the body of Christ is about thinking about others, putting others needs first as Christ did and sharing all we have. I realize words such as self-sacrifice and sharing are not popular today. But as we show contempt for those words we have to ask ourselves why. Is our heart in any better place then the church of Corinth? Or as we approach the table do we think only about ourselves and our needs and what Christ has done for us. Christ did not die just for you, Christ died for all. So as we approach the table today let us dwell on the sacrifice that Christ made for all of us and remember our brothers and sisters who are struggling. We need to remember those who are half way around the world, but we also need to remember those right next to the table with us.
We celebrate the Lord’s Supper because it gives us the opportunity to confess our sins. Confession really can be ugly at times because it requires us to remember the things that we have done that are rather shameful. We don’t want to go back to those moments when we brought dishonor to God. But we cannot hide these moments from Him, he knows our heart, so we must ask him for forgiveness. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment on themselves. All too often we take this passage of scripture and use it to say who should or should not take in communion. Some denominations say that only those who are members of that particular congregation or denomination should take communion. Others say that the baptized are the only one’s worthy of eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table. But what if these verses really mean, those who enter the table without confessing their sins should not be there. When we approach the table without confessing our sins we are trivializing why it exists in the first place. We all have sinned. We need a safe place and time to admit that. Here at the table we find that opportunity.
A word of caution, the Lord’s Table is not the place where we come and just lightly say, “Forgive me, I have sin.” No this is the place where we get down on our knees before God and confess our particular sin. This requires examination. Looking back on our lives and asking God to point out to us the dark blotches of sin so that we can lay them before him, and knowing that His grace will cover all that we have forgotten if only we approach confession with an open heart.
We should also confess our sins to our neighbors. I once had a professor that said that we have avoided confessing our sins, because then people will see us just as we are. The table today gives us that opportunity. We will continue to struggle with sins that we keep secret. When we seal our sin inside of ourselves, then we don’t allow others to minister to us. We miss opportunities for accountability as well as sharing our struggles and triumphs with sin.
We celebrate because we are forgiven. At the table, where all of our sin has been laid at the feet of the cross, we find forgiveness. Forgiveness cannot be separated from confessing our sins, admitting that we are in need of Christ, or remembering the sacrifice made. Today as we kneel at the table we come broken, but we arise remembering that Christ has made us whole and has deemed us his worthy children.
As we approach the table, we also must seek forgiveness and forgive others. This past week we have wronged others, in thought and action. We have dishonored God by dishonoring other people. We have been short tempered. We have gossiped. And we should seek forgiveness for our sin not only from God but from those we have sinned against as well. How can we approach the table that signifies so much love, when we have acted in an unloving way?
We also need to seek forgiveness for the things that we have done that have not directly hurt one person. What I mean by this is that all of our sin affects other Christians, because we are a body. We are no longer judged solely as individuals, but rather as a collective body. How many times have you heard claims about the wrong doings of Christianity that come from a place of deep wounding or brokenness? We need to seek forgiveness from one another for giving Christianity a bad reputation, because we have not acted like Christ.
And as people seek forgiveness from us, for personal hurts or on behalf of the body of Christ, we must forgive them, over and over again. Forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting, because sometimes our actions have consequences. But forgiving does mean loving another person as Christ would love them. Which is hard.
Finally, when we come to the table we must forgive ourselves. All too often as Christians we punish ourselves for our sins more then God would. Repeatedly confessing a sin that God has washed away, but we cling too out of guilt. When God pronounces us forgiven, we need to shed our guilt and shame. Freeing ourselves from the chains of sin that we have been wrapped in for so long. We have been transformed through this forgiveness. We are like the bread and wine before us today. Bread and wine seem like ordinary elements, but both involve an act of God to become what they are before us. Yeast must rise and wine must ferment. And like these elements, it takes an extrodary act of God to meet our ordinary sinful being at the table and transform us into a forgiven child of the King, but that is what God does, if only we will accept it.
Finally, we celebrate with thanksgiving. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. The Lord’s Supper prepares us to celebrate in Heaven someday. It’s supposed to remind us that we are going to be at banquets in Heaven with the Triune God when he deems the time to be right. And as we leave the Lord’s Table, the table we approached so somberly remembering and confessing, we can celebrate because we are forgiven. At the Lord’s table we face a spectrum of emotions. And we can be thankful for each and every one of them, because God has created us to be so emotionally complex. We can celebrate our brother and sister who joins us at the table and their ability to be a vital part of the body. And we can celebrate because at the table, relationships are healed and sin is forgiven. But above all we can celebrate because the Lord’s Supper, the event that was a precursor to his death, cannot be separated from his resurrection. We have so much to be thankful for as we leave the table.
As we reflect on the fact that we celebrate communion in light of remembrance , confession, forgiveness, and thanksgiving, the Lord’s Supper has shed the trivial nature that we sometimes treat it with. We see that the table means so much more then we give it credit for. Let us now come to the table with an open heart, seeking the Lord, and the grace he bestows upon us.
Amen.
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