The Lord’s Supper - Remember Now

The Lord’s Supper – 1 Corinthians 11:26

In 1982, the cult classic sci-fi Blade Runner was released. Within it, there are androids known as replicants, who have implanted memories provided for them to keep them from psychologically breaking down. These memories may have belonged to someone else or even been generated. Through various fight scenes, cool cyberpunk synth scores over classical orchestras, and Harrison Ford looking cool as ever in both the original and the recent sequel, Blade Runner 2049, the two main characters, who both happen to be replicants are posed with the open-ended question: Can a memory truly be mine if it never happened to me? Do I have to experience the memory to claim it or to participate in it?

As we have walked through thousands of years of history, across millennia of tradition, contexts, cultures, within the past twenty minutes, you might have started to ask yourself, where is this going? Why are we doing this? Have you ever considered why, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, we choose to take communion?

What Lennie did was show us that the Passover meal was established to help God’s people remember something that hadn’t happened yet, but when it did, it would reshape them forever. It was set up before the Exodus from Egypt to remind them, and future generations of how God saved them from oppression. Yet, as Lennie said,  humanity has an incredible capacity for forgetfulness. God’s people consistently forget to remember. And that forgetfulness shaped who they became.

What Shane did was show us exactly what Jesus came to fulfill. How he established and reinterpreted the symbols of the Passover meal. He was to be the sacrificial lamb, whose blood sanctifies, justifies, and ultimately provides an exodus from death to all who believe in him by dying on the cross. And just like at the passover meal, by the breaking of bread and drinking of wine, the disciples could remember forward.

At the Lord’s supper, Jesus established this new meal that would shape his followers forever. And he did it, just like the Father did it in Exodus before the event had actually happened. He gave them the tools to remember an event that would happen in the future and change them forever. And then he did it. Just like God’s promise to remove the Israelites from Egyptian oppression, God’s promise to remove his people from the oppression of death and sin came true, when Jesus died on the cross.

But as we know, the story didn’t stop there! We know and believe, and our entire faith is based on the fact that Jesus rose three days later and changed the course of humanity and creation forever. He won the victory over death and established his kingdom to renew all. To make all things new. And it was then that the church of the messiah was born.

What started as a small group of 120 disciples quickly grew to thousands, who gathered together to worship Jesus Christ as God.  Acts 2:42 shows us that, just after Peter’s great sermon, after being filled with the Holy Spirit, the church devoted itself to 4 essential practices. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

When the church came together, these things were done. When the church met, there was teaching, fellowship in the spirit, prayer, and the breaking of bread, or what we call communion.

At its Genesis the church saw the breaking of bread as an essential practice. The Lord himself, as Shane told us, instituted this practice. “When you eat this meal, remember me.”

What Jesus had foretold to happen, his death and resurrection, had now happened. And now the church came together to remember what he had done, just as he had commanded.

Partaking in the meal meant more than just eating bread and wine. To partake in this meal meant to claim to be a part of a story. A story that shapes our entire reality. This meal was life-shaping. It changes the way we both live and die. And it is a story, a memory, that, although we were not there to witness, we can claim as our own.

            We gather here today because, for thousands of years across various traditions, denominations, interpretations, and understandings, billions of Christians have understood communion as a proclamation of what was and is to come. As Paul states in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Communion is a proclamation, a testimony of what Christ did for us. It is a memory, a memorial of the fact that the son of God, the creator of the universe, the one who knows how many stars are in the sky, and the strands of hair on your head, died so that we could be in relationship with him again. Died so that we could be restored to life with God. Was beaten, spit on, whipped to a pulp, so that we could live in the reality of a loving father. So that we would no longer be bound by death and sin and darkness, but to walk in new life. To live life to the full, by abiding in life itself. A proclamation of the Savior of the world, dying on the cross for you and for me.

and by participating in communion, one participates in the body and blood of Christ. The Message Paraphrase puts it like this in 1 Corinthians 10: “What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master.” As Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.”

Meaning that we are the new shadow, we are the new story, we are the representatives until Christ returns. We get to participate in being Christ, until he returns.

It is not just another part of the service. It’s not a moment for some lay member or elder, or aspiring preacher, to get up here and practice speaking in front of a congregation. It’s not a five-minute monologue with a funny story at the front to keep your attention while the somber music plays in the background. It’s not a time for you individually to remember and make yourself right with Jesus.

It is a time to remember, to proclaim that Jesus, the way, the life, and the truth, because of his death on the cross, is in you. That he is in every one around you. That he is and has been in the billions of people who have chosen to call him Lord. That today, for just a few minutes, you join in on a memory that is not your own, but that has shaped humanity in ways we cant comprehend.

But it is also to remember forward, that Jesus will return again.

That one day, there will be another meal, Revelation 19:7–9 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”

There is a wedding feast that we are invited to. A table that we do not deserve to be at, yet there is a place with our name on it. A feast where all things will be renewed, and all things will be set right, and we will be more than satisfied. There is nothing else that will satisfy you. Not community, people, relationships, money, or sex. Nothing will satisfy your desires, the deep longing you have to belong and to be loved and to be known, except this.

So let me invite you. Let us as a church, partake in this meal. To proclaim the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. To proclaim what he has done, and will do, and our job in between those events.

Because who we are is shaped by what we remember.

At this time, , we are going to do things a little differently this morning. Here in a second, Shane and I will come and invite the first few rows to stand and participate in this meal together. After that we will leave it up to you to see when the row in front of you has gone, and when you can get up to receive communion. And for those in the room who are unable to get up for whatever reason, you wait for your row to leave and then raise your hand, and one of our staff members will bring you this meal. As we do this, we invite you to partake, and then participate in worship. Whatever you need in this moment. To stand and sing and proclaim loudy who he is and what he has done for you, or to sit and receive. Bow, get on your knees, whatever you feel the Spirit leading you to do.

Pray