Brothers and sisters, in our exhortations we come this morning to the Lord’s Supper. I think this is a good place to park for a few weeks before we move on to other aspects of our liturgy. While most people are agreed with the necessity of the preached Word, very few evangelical churches in our culture give much attention to the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
If you have visited with us for a short while, you have noticed that we celebrate the Lord’ Supper weekly. We do this because the Lord commands us to break bread every time we meet.[1] The Apostle Paul thought the Lord’s Supper was so significant that he spends an extended part of I Corinthians dealing with this issue. The Feast Christ spreads for us is the centerpiece to true spirituality.[2] It is the culmination of celebration. Just as there can be no feast without food, there can be no faithful liturgy without bread and wine. This is why it is imperative that we not forsake this God-given means of nurture to the body. There are other times when we can sit together simply for teaching and singing songs of praise, but the Lord’s Day is set aside for us to come to together and eat together as a family.
How can we expect to go forth into the world starving? How can we expect as a people to declare the Great Commission without first being nourished?[3] The Supper provides just that! The meal is a meal of peace; it is the Shalom of God. “Therefore, the culmination of the covenant renewal service occurs when we sit down and eat dinner with Jesus, receiving from Him by faith His own life-giving flesh and blood.”[4]
At this congregation there is no compromise when it comes to this matter. It is a normal part of our weekly service. Perhaps you have heard others say that weekly communion will become routine and before you know it, it will become meaningless. This statement is usually made by traditions that care little about the Lord’s Supper to begin with. They trivialize it as an important, but secondary issue with little relevance to our own spiritual well-beings. But have you ever considered the rituals that we have daily in our own lives? Do you hug your child only once a month so that you don’t get bored with the ritual? Do you kiss your spouse only once a month because if you do it more often it will become boring? “Do you come together as a family to eat dinner once a quarter so that the children will learn how special and important the family meal is? Of course not! These are necessary rituals for our physical and spiritual well-beings. That is precisely the point we make with the Lord’s Supper. If it is everything the Bible says it is, and if it is everything our Reformed heritage says it is, then to relegate it to some secondary monthly or quarterly activity is simply unthinkable. I exhort you this morning to come and eat for this is our family and this is our meal!
Prayer: Our Lord Jesus, you have given us wine, which is communion in your blood, and bread, which is communion in your body. Unite us as we eat this morning as your people.
[1] Acts 2, Lusk’s article on weekly communion is very helpful.
[2] Rich Lusk: http://www.trinity-pres.net/essays/wine-and-weekly.pdf
[3] Meyers, The Lord’s Service, pg. 214.
[4] Ibid.
