Category: Communion Meditation

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Communion Meditation: Welcoming Us at His Table

For those redeemed by the Word of Yahweh and brought into covenant with Him through their baptisms, this table offers no gloom; in Christ you have light, which means full joy and participation in the activities of the light. The wicked have their meals in darkness, but the godly eat in the presence of the True Light who communes with us in this meal.

Even during the Lenten Season, we are at this table. The table is always here for us because we know that the story does not end on a tree, but in an empty tomb. We do not eat in sadness, but in joy, for we have been rescued from the dark exile of sin into the glorious and bright kingdom of our beloved Savior.

By God’s grace, we have a place at the Father’s Table, for He has washed us in baptism and welcomed us with a feast!

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Communion Meditation: Food Factions

The topic of food is one that comes up quite often in this season of Lent. Providence Church believes fasting is biblical, but we have not issued a fast for the Church. So we have not approved any any practice over another. Individual practices or the lack thereof are left to the discretion of the individual family during the week. Rather, as a Church, we focus on the worship observance of Lent in preaching, singing, and colors. We don’t want any Lenten food factions; no eating of a particular brand or a particular type of food will give you any greater special grace in God’s sight. Similarly, no giving up of a particular food or habit will get you closer to God unless it is grounded in the act of repentance and good works towards God and man.

In this Lenten Season I want you to remember that “Christians have only one food law: Take, eat; this is my body. Only one food unites us, the bread and wine of the Lord’s table.”[1]

We can have all the diversity on our nutritional choices, but at this table there should be no division or doubt that this is God’s food for us.

[1] Leithart, http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2013/02/24/exhortation-128/

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Communion Meditation: God Has Made It Clear

The good news of the Kingdom is that Christ has conquered the devil. But how He conquered is the important part of this text. He conquered Satan not by arguing with temptation, but by rebuking temptation with God’s Word.

He did not allow the devil to set the rules for the game. The rules were set long ago. We are not to give the devil the privilege of interpreting what God has made so clear.

We come to this table this morning with the full assurance that Word and Sacrament are clear means of grace for us this morning. God gives us His word for our nourishment and He gives us Bread and Wine as eternal signs that no temptation is greater than that which we can bear, but God is faithful and just to provide us a way to escape it.

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Communion Meditation: Hungering for that Place

God looks at you this morning as His beloved ones, chosen to serve Him before the foundation of the world. This is a noble task; one we must embrace with great joy, but also with a profound sense of responsibility for we are serving the Lord of Light.

The Transfiguration urges us to live the good news in the valley and to taste of the dazzling glory of Jesus when we gather together. Indeed, worship is heavenly because it is in the heavenly places, and there we get a glimpse of why Peter so desperately wanted to stay. But we can’t stay, because Jesus urges us to live out our worship in all that we do.

This morning we partake of the body and blood of our blessed Lord, so that we may hunger more and more for that place of wonder and delight where clothes turn dazzling white and where faces are changed.

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Communion Meditation: Service for Others

These exorcisms (Luke 4:31-44) are pictures of what Jesus does with our sins when we confess them. He takes them away and calls us to serve, as Simon’s mother-in-law. In service, we are equipped to exorcise the pain of others. In service, we are equipped to heal our brothers and sisters.

This table is Jesus’ service to us. We come as baptized saints to enjoy and benefit from this meal. In this meal, Jesus is given for us, that we might be given for others.

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Communion Meditation: The Meal of Unity

This manifestation of Jesus in the synagogue is filled with vivid imagery (Luke 4). The anger of the Nazareth audience demonstrates that in this world we will have tribulation. The promises of God fulfilled in Jesus have severe repercussions for the authorities of this world who despise Messiah and His claims.

The visual and edible meal before us is also a threat to another group: those who would like to tear the church asunder. This meal is a meal of unity. And God says if you destroy this body you too will be destroyed. So this meal is for those who desire peace.

This morning we drink and eat for the sake of unity and to celebrate the God who gave us His life for our peace.

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Communion Meditation: Wash Yourselves and Eat with Jesus!

We celebrate today the baptism of Jesus, because all the events in the life of Jesus are significant to our own lives. The baptism of Christ is that initial moment where he presents himself to the world as the God/Man sent with a divine mission to accomplish the Father’s will.

Baptism is not optional. If the Son of Man was baptized, if the Son of Man, who in Luther’s words “is holier than the waters of baptism” needed to be baptized, so too God calls us to submit ourselves to this act.

Baptism gives us access to the table. Baptism means you are clean to come to Jesus’ Table.  Baptism is God the Father saying: “Children, wash yourselves, so you can eat with my Son, Jesus Christ.”

Those washed in baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from whatever Christian tradition, baptized through immersion, sprinkling, or pouring, are welcome to this table. This is not Providence’s table, this is the Lord’s Table, and so it belongs to those marked with His name in baptism. Come and eat with our Lord.

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Communion Meditation: Washing

The desirable effect of purification is to make us more valuable, more Christ-like. God comes to us this morning as a washer and refiner. He possesses all the ingredients to make us clean, and He has done so by His mercy and love.

It is the goodness of God that would dare provide us with anything at all. But this is the God we worship: a God who refines, washes, and makes whole.

This table is for those who have experienced the glories of a true washing. This table is for those who have been baptized by the waters of baptism and sanctified by the continual refining of God the Father through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit.

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Communion Meditation: Manna from Heaven

This marks the end of the Pentecost Season, and thus the end of the church calendar. The Psalmist says that “In God we have boasted continually,

and we will give thanks to His name forever.” This is a day to boast in the God we serve. We boast in Him for who He is, what He has done, and we give thanks because God never ceases to display His abundant love to His children. We are participants in this great thanksgiving agenda. Every time we sit and eat and drink together we are demonstrating to the world that we have abandoned a life of selfishness and pride, and thanksgiving now forms us a people.

The table of our Lord is a table of finality. The table is the final act before God commissions us into the world to serve our Risen Lord. And so as we come to the end of the Church Year, let us respond with thanksgiving, for God has led us through this journey of exile and deliverance, and now He will lead us to the expectation of the Manna who will come from heaven to be given and broken for us.

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Reformation Communion Meditation: A Table of Blessing

The Reformation got rid of the mysticism that surrounded the Lord’s Table. This table is a table of faith: young and old belong at this table. The God the Reformers believed was not a miserly God, He was an abundant God. This God did not give a stone when His children asked for bread. He did not give water to the wedding guests, He gave the best wine. The God the Reformers believed loved to shower His children with blessings. This table is a blessing to us baptized and forgiven by the God who is Three and One.