Communion Meditation

There’s something about a meal. A meal can be both ordinary and extraordinary.

Ordinary - 3 meals a day; some eaten “on the run” - we hardly think about them

Extraordinary - a banquet; a wedding reception; a state dinner

A meal goes beyond the simple act of eating; there is a social dimension to it. We don’t often eat alone, if we can help it.

Eating together is a way of connecting with the people we care about; those who are important to us. The conversation around the table, the sharing of food in a relaxed atmosphere, leads to a lowering of suspicions and defensive barriers—it forges and strengthens the bond between us.

• e.g. At the Camp David peace negotiations, I was encouraged to hear that Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat have eaten together several times

In most cultures—particularly Middle Eastern culture—the act of eating together has become highly ritualized. The showing of hospitality is highly important. When you welcome a stranger to your table and share a meal with him, you make that stranger your friend.

It isn’t surprising then that when we look at the Gospels, we see Jesus involved in many meals.

• he performed his first miracle at a marriage banquet

• the very last time we see him with his disciples, they were having a picnic breakfast on the beach

• he frequently scandalized the Pharisees by sitting down to eat in the homes of notorious sinners like Zaccheus the publican

• we know that he also went to the house of at least one Pharisee to eat

• and—wonder of all wonders—Jesus has invited us to a banquet at his father’s house.

Jesus loved meals. It’s no wonder then that when Jesus established a way for us to remember him, and to remember what we’ve received from him, he told us to have a meal together.

That seems rather simple, doesn’t it?

• he didn’t ask us to remember him by reciting a doctrinal statement

• he didn’t ask us to remember him by carrying out a code of conduct

He simply gave us something to eat. Anyone can do that—the wise, the simple, the young, the old. There’s nothing to learn. There’s nothing to do. There’s just something to receive.

This simple meal that Jesus established has come down to us through almost 2,000 years of history. That is an extraordinary record of persistence. We are about to partake of the same meal, using the same words, with the same elements—the bread and the wine—that countless Christians around the world over twenty centuries have done. There’s a solidarity around this meal that exists nowhere else.

As Christians, we’ve had our doctrinal squabbles, we’ve been at odds about many things, but we all eat the Lord’s Supper. We eat it in different ways, and with slightly different understandings of its nuances, but we all eat it.

The eating of this meal is a way of making unseen truth visible. Jesus the Son of God died for us, and in so doing effected a spiritual transaction by which he took upon himself the guilt of our sin and gave us his righteousness. And because of what he did, we now stand in right relationship to God—united with Jesus by an unbreakable bond.

That’s a pretty awesome concept to get your mind around. The bread and the wine bring that awesome, invisible truth into the realm of the tangible. The bread represents his body; the wine represents his blood; the eating of them represents our intimate connection with him—we receive them into ourselves. They become a part of us just as Jesus has become a part of us.

As real as the texture of the bread on your tongue; as sweet as the taste of the wine in your mouth—so real is your union with Jesus; so real is the salvation He has provided.

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Let’s think on these things for a few moments, and if the Lord leads you to share a thought, a prayer, a verse of Scripture, a hymn you’d like us to sing—whether you are a man or a woman, please feel free to do so.