Category: Communion Meditation

Posted on

10 Reasons for Weekly Communion

This should be an ever increasing list:

  1. Jesus says, “Do this.” We desire to do all that Jesus tells us.
  2. Paul says that to partake is to participate (I Corinthians 10:16). We desire to participate in Jesus’ life.
  3. The Table builds fellowship (Acts 2:42). It is our desire to be ever increasing in fellowship with one another.
  4. The table builds glad and generous hearts (Acts 2:46). We desire more gladness in our hearts.
  5. The pattern of worship demands what Augustine called the “visible word.” We need word spoken and word tasted.
  6. We are all members of one body and drink of one Spirit (I Corinthians 12:13). Therefore, we should taste of that oneness weekly when we gather.
  7. Jesus says, Do this “as often” as you drink of it (I Corinthians 11:25). Therefore, when we meet, which is weekly (often) we should Do This.
  8. The Supper is a gift and we should never refuse a gift.
  9. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). If the Lord gives us bread each week and we refuse, are we then refusing his answer to our prayer?
  10. We need grace. If the Supper is a means of grace, why would we simply desire it monthly or quarterly?
Posted on

Theology and Missions

We are typically placed in scenarios where we have to decide between false choices. Either theology or missions? But this is not a question we have to answer, because in Jesus we have the greatest theological fact of history: the fact that he embraced our humanity and became like us. Jesus’ arrival on planet earth through a virgin birth was a missional arrival. He came to be for us a theology to be embraced and to set a mission to follow. Jesus came as a missionary from heaven’s mission agency and now calls us to participate in his mission of making earth like heaven. Theology is mission and mission is theology. These are inseparable.

This is why when we eat bread and drink wine we are not communing based on an abstract theology of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but on a theology that actually moves us to enter into his missionary story. Jesus comes as bread from heaven to heal broken humanity. He comes as the new wine to give humanity hope. We are not bound by false choices. Our choice is to follow Jesus and to commune with He and his people.

Posted on

Weakness that turns the world upside down!

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. –Jonah 3:3

This could serve as a great motivational speech. Here is a city known for its brutality. It is great, yea, exceedingly great! This is David and Goliath re-told. The odds are against you. The magnitude of the opposition is evident. How can God break this army of barbaric men?

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.

That’s it! A message? But it’s too simple; too foolish, one might say. Too weak! Yes, too weak; the type of weakness that turns the world upside down. “Not by might or power, but by your Spirit.

This is what we have at this table: a meal that by all appearances seems weak: a little bread and wine. But by the Spirit, this meal becomes to us a meal of life and abundant life. Bread represents the body of our Lord. The wine represents the blood our Lord. The weakness of the crucified body and blood given for us is the means to transform the opposing army; to form us into obedient servants, so that the greatness and exceeding might of Nineveh will become the exceeding might of our blessed Lord Jesus.

Posted on

Down and Up: Jonah and Jesus

 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.-Jonah 1:3

A few words ideas to keep in mind: First, in the beginning of verse three Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord. At the end of verse three Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord. In the middle of verse three he goes DOWN to Joppa and then he also goes down into the ship. Away from the presence of the Lord and away from the presence of the Lord, and the middle makes that primary point that Jonah is going down and then down again. He goes down to Joppa and down into the ship, and then he goes down into the belly of this creature. Down into the city; down into the ship, and down into Sheol. This is the progression of death; the progression of disobedience.

At our table today, Jesus offers you a progression of faithfulness. He was faithful by not abandoning His Father. He took on Jerusalem and proclaimed the gospel of peace and reconciliation. And at the end, after going down for three days, He came up in His resurrection and up into the right hand of God where He sits ruling and reigning.

Posted on

On Hearing: From Confusion to Clarity

And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” –I Samuel 3:10

The text says that Samuel has gone through the phases of confusion and he has now reached the phase of clarity. From confusion to clarity. That seems to be a summary of the Christian life. The chaos of our day-to-day, the voices that are constantly seeking our attention, so much happening all the time that at times we forget to hear. Samuel is ready to hear. The sins both locally and nationally that plague his nation do not keep Samuel in the state of perpetual confusion. He is finding clarity. He knows well that clarity can ultimately be found in the One who makes all things new and who brings us from chaos to community; from corruption to careful reflection. Speak, for your servant hears!

God has spoken! And as you come to eat and drink as one body, you come ready to hear. This entire service has been a systematic plan to get you to listen. And if you have listened, now you can eat in peace for God is ready to feed you and there is nothing confusing about that.

Posted on

The revealing

…so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. Luke 2:35

Jesus comes so that we may receive him and reveal him in our thoughts and actions. He comes as our consolation, but also as our confrontation. He confronts us in our misery and sin and asks us to respond with pure hearts and humble voices.

Our hearts are made clean by the appearance of the God-Man whose heart revealed nothing but purity and love.

Today we eat and drink together expecting that God would reveal what is within us and in this revealing we may be found worthy of the gospel we have been called to proclaim.

Posted on

The Table that Unites

What is the Lord’s Table but a family gathering? When we eat and drink together we are eating and drinking the Gospel that unites us with one another in the past, present, and future. This Gospel transcends time. It is that which brings us together. We are forming a great cloud of witness to God and to the world, and the more we eat and drink together the greater the cloud becomes. And when that cloud becomes a cloud of victory over the whole world, which sight cannot be denied by the world, Christ will return and gather this great cloud into everlasting life.

What we are doing at this table is a clear picture of what is being formed in the world—a communion of saints marching and warring against principalities and powers rejoicing and proclaiming the Lord who has made us one.

Posted on

The Sacraments: True, Good, and Beautiful

What does the Lord’s Supper mean for us as a people? It means so much to the partaker that we could spend a thousand years and yet not fully cover its wonder and splendor. The reason the Lord’s Table says so much to the people of God is because it is given by our Lord. This is not a Reformed table, it is the Lord’s Table, and it is an open table to all baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And as an open table, it communicates all that is true about Christ—his power, his grace, and his mercy; it is communicates all that is good about Christ—his provision, his desire to complete the work He started in us; and it communicates the beauty of Christ—his majesty, his love for His saints.

The Lord’s Table means that Christ is true to His promises, good to His people, and lovely to those who put their trust in Him.

So, come and dine, infant and aged, weak and strong, this table is true, good, and beautiful, and the Lord invites us to join in this meal!

Posted on

Time to Eat

“Come and have breakfast.”

My P.E. teacher in college always stressed that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.” I confess I have not followed those words too well.

What Christ established for us in that simple breakfast was a type of what he would convey before His ascension. A new day, a new meal, a new world. That’s the slogan of the New Covenant.  And this is where we are gathered. Here we are in this new day, called the Lord’s Day; the day set aside by God for his people to come and gather and worship. A new meal: a glorified feast to partake of the One who is our bread and our wine. A new creation: the celebration of God’s people in a world where death is no longer king, but is a slave to the king of life, Jesus Christ. This risen King says to us, “come and eat.” The fire of the Spirit is here. Come and find warmth in Me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come and eat!

Posted on

The Meal and Community

“The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”

Adam’s acceptance of Eve’s role reverses his rejection of his wife earlier. He chose to restore community with his wife, rather than pursue the game of blame. The pain endured by all the women in the Old Covenant came to an end in the last Eve of the Old Covenant, Mary. Eve, then, is the mother of all living. She is the mother of life and from that life, Jesus, life is given to all those united to him.

This morning it is the Supper that restores community. The meal Adam and Eve shared at the Tree of Knowledge destroyed their community, even though it had the outward marks of community. The meal we share with Jesus restores all true community in the bond of the Spirit. This meal is an affirmation that the Seed of the Woman is our life.