Communion

A couple of weeks ago, I got the privilege of going with my whole family to an all-inclusive resort in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. While it snowed and was cold here in Ontario, we got to sit by the pool in 30 degree sun, listening to the waves of the ocean. It was a wonderful holiday and one I have been saying I needed for about two years now. And while there, I shut off from work. No emails, no texts, no calls. The only thing that was close was I said hi and watched the Instagram live of our last youth group for a few minutes and I watched the livestream of Sunday service, for as long as my wifi held.

But even though I shut down, I had two experiences while in Mexico that made me contemplate one of our church rituals and I wanted to share those with you today.

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The first experience I had that made me think of communion happened on the Friday night we were there. There was a show that the resort put on at 8:30pm that night. Abby’s feet were blistered and sore from all the walking we did, Hannah wanted to be on her iPad in the room and my mom was tired, so Bekah and I went. There was this outdoor area set up for this event and it seemed like most of the resort was there, with no one practicing any COVID wisdom like masks or physical distancing. After one of the staff sang some lovely songs, which was the best part of the show in my opinion, the “real show” began. You can see here an image of it that I took.

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The show consisted of people dressed up like ancient Aztecs and dancing around some fire pits. The dancing was repetitive and maybe best described as “fine” but not great. But what struck me the most was there seemed to be some narrative at play, but you couldn’t figure it out and it felt like they were trying to have a sacred moment but there was no explanation of what was going on. We were just observers and any sense of sacredness to the event was lost by the people ordering their drinks, by the vendors selling food and by the chatter of a mostly disengaged audience.

I realized that true participation in sacred moments requires knowledge of what’s going on, what symbols mean and why we are doing it. Which brings me to today. In the church, we have a couple of sacred rituals. One, that we practice infrequently, in baptism. But the other, we do every month and I wonder if the sacredness of communion is lost because we don’t really know what’s going on and why we are doing this.

The other experience I had that connected me to communion happened in a cave. On the Saturday of our trip, Bekah and I went on an outdoor adventure.

We drove ATV’s through the mud

We leaped off of a platform and swung in the air

We even ziplined into a cenote - which is a natural pit or sinkhole that has fresh water in it.

After we ziplined though, we stripped off our harnesses and swam in the cenote. We went through a small, narrow passage- which, if you have claustrophobia, isn’t for you - and it opened into a cave. There were bats flying above us and the only light was from the flashlight of our guide. As we swam, he pointed out some really interesting details about the cenote, the stalacites and the ancient Mayans who used to come into this place. Here is a picture of Bekah and I in the cave.

They had named the cenote Iglesia - which means church - and our guide encouraged us to experience it the way the ancient Mayans used to, so he extinguished his flashlight and he wanted us to just float in silence and be present to the moment. It was a sacred moment. Well, it was supposed to be.

There was a family there. I won’t say where they were from, but they made me appreciate how our good friends Stuart and Cathy are nothing like them. This family couldn’t engage. Just as we were settling into the moment, they would talk loudly and shout and say, “who touched me?’ while laughing. They simply couldn’t be silent, at any point whatsoever during the tour. They, through their disengagement of the moment kept the rest of us from experiencing this sacred time.

I realized that sacredness requires buy-in. You can participate in anything and not experience any soul connection if you don’t really buy into what you are doing. Sacredness requires intentionality and effort. This is true in your scripture reading, your praying, your participation in our worship services, in everything you do where you connect with God. And it’s true when we participate in communion. For communion to be a sacred ritual, we have to approach it with intentionality and effort.

So today, we are going to talk about that sacred ritual we practice called communion and my hope is that by understanding it deeper, and by approaching it with intentionality, our sense of the sacredness of this ritual will increase and that our intimacy with and worship of God deepens. Speaking of worship, let’s spend a couple of minutes getting our hearts and minds connected to God. Would you pray with me?

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Pray

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Communion has a few names in the church world. It can be called Communion, the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist The word communion is a compound of two words: common and union and it goes back to the 4th century to Augustine. The idea is that it is something that unites us as believers to each other and to God. The term “the Lord’s supper” is taken from 1 Corinthians 11, when the Apostle Paul talks about a specific meal that Christians shared, upon which much of our basis for communion stands. The term Eucharist comes from a greek word that means “thanksgiving, or gratitutde.” But whatever you call it, we are speaking of the same event.

At North Park Stratford, we usually host communion once a month, often the last Sunday of each month. During this time in our worship service, we distribute two things to all who want them - a small piece of bread or cracker, which represents the body of Jesus and little cup grape juice, which represents the blood of Jesus. Then, whoever is leading (which is usually me) will read from the Bible in 1 Corinthians 11, and we will eat the bread together. Then the leader reads another verse or two and we drink the grape juice together. Then we close in prayer. That is often how we do it and other churches have other customs. I remember as a teenager going to a friend’s Anglican church and there we all had to go up to the front, kneel before the priest and he would do the sign of the cross while holding the very tasteless wafer which he would place in our hands. We would eat it and then he would give us a sip from the one communion cup that we all used that he held of red wine. It wasn’t what I would call COVID safe by any means but for the believers in that church it still had spiritual significance to it. For me, at age 13, I wasn’t a believer yet so it didn’t have any significance; it was simply a chance to drink wine on Sunday morning. Maybe it didn’t have any significance because I didn’t understand what it meant.

So what does communion mean? Why do we practice this ritual each month in our church? To answer that, let’s look at communion as three acts: an act of remembrance, an act of faith, and an act of hope.

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Communion as act of Remembrance

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a great memory. Not for life stuff anyways. My wife always goes to me, “Remember on June 2, 2003 when we saw that commercial that only aired that one time while we ate pepperoni pizza and you wore that blue shirt and Rebekah said ouch?” And I go, “No. I don’t remember that. I don’t doubt that it happened, but I don’t remember it.” And sometimes, I think God gives us ritual to help people like me to remember the important things.

Communion is an act of remembrance. It invites us to remember two historical events - separated by more than 1000 years and yet intimately connected - and the importance of them in our lives.

1. It invites us to remember the Exodus.

In the last week of Jesus’ life, Jesus and his disciples participated in an ancient and holy meal called Passover. It was a meal that was celebrated every year to remember when God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt. For those who are new to the Christian faith, you may not know that the Israelites all moved to Egypt during a famine and settled there for years. But when a new Pharaoh arose, he enslaved the Jewish people for hundreds of years. But then God raised up Moses and Aaron to lead Israel to freedom. God used them to perform amazing signs and wonders to convince Egypt to let the Israelites go. The last sign that God gave was a plague that killed the firstborn of every family. But to his people, the Jews, God told them to take a pure, spotless lamb, sacrifice it, eat it and brush their doorposts with the blood. Then the angel “passed over” those houses, sparing the Israelites and breaking the hard heartedness of Egypt. God then led the Israelites out of Egypt and gave them their own land in Canaan.

Since that event, the Jewish people created a holiday called Passover where they remembered that they were once slaves, but God set them free. It helped them to both be grateful that God intervened in their history and gave them hope that he would do so again. And Jesus celebrated this event with his disciples in Matthew 26.

Matthew 26:26–29 NLT

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”

So Jesus takes the passover meal and co-opts it. By associating the passover with himself, he adds to its meaning. He is calling his followers to remember that just as God freed Israel from slavery to Egypt, he frees us from our slavery to sin.

Colossians 1:13–14 NLT

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Some people have accused Christianity of enslaving people to rules and to be fair, some people have. But true Christianity is about living in freedom both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. True freedom allows us to say no to things that don’t draw us nearer to God and yes to those things that do. And through Jesus, God purchased for us true freedom.

2. It invites us to remember the cross

1 Corinthians 11:23–25 NLT

For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.”

The image of breaking bread and Jesus connecting it to himself is meant to draw our minds and our hearts back to the cross. After Jesus was arrested, he was beaten horribly and flogged by the guards. To be flogged is to be whipped 39 times with a whip that had 9 strips of leather with pieces of bone, glass and metal tied into it that would shred your back. After that they forced him to carry the instrument of his death, the cross, through town and up a hill, enduring the shame and taunts of the city. Then they crucified him by nailing his wrists and his feet to the boards, and putting him upright, so all his weight was against the nails. Then he slowly asphyxiated to death as the position he was in compressed his lungs, forcing him to push up against the nails in his feet in order to breathe. He hung there for 6 hours and then died. To be sure, they stabbed him in the stomach with a spear.

Jesus allowed his body to be broken because it is through his death that we are saved. He was the innocent sacrifice that took our place. He died physically so we could live spiritually.

Tied to the sacrifice of the body is the shedding of blood. In the OT sacrificial system, God says to Moses:

Leviticus 17:11 NIV

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

This is why, when doing the animal sacrifices to atone for sin, they had to drain the blood from the animal. Jesus, re-interpreting the passover meal, relates the wine they drink to his blood, foreshadowing that his death will provide an atonement for all mankind.

Ephesians 1:6–7 NLT

So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

When we participate in communion, we remember that God did not spare his Son, but gave him up for us all because he loves us.

1 John 4:10 NLT

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Play worship song “How deep the Father’s love for us.”

Communion is an act of remembrance. It is also an act of faith.

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Communion as an act of Faith

Many in the evangelical tradition, in an effort to not be Catholic, who believe that God imparts his grace to us by participating in communion, overly focus on the remembrance aspect. But there is a present spiritual dynamic at play when we participate in communion.

The apostle Paul says, “So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup.” - 1 Corinthians 11:27-28

Communion is about our identifying with what Jesus has done. More than just remembering the historical fact, it is an act of faith; a statement that says, “what Jesus did, he did for me.” And that’s why Paul commands us to examine ourselves. Taking communion is more than just a ritual, it is an act of faith that requires genuineness. It’s an invitation to examine our hearts to look for the sin that causes division between us and God and between us and others and to confess it.

1 John 1:8-9 says,“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Communion invites us acknowledge our sin and receive the forgiveness that God offers us. It’s an act of faith. To ignore that invitation and to take communion anyway is to, in some way, spit in the face of God, who, because of his love for you, gave his one and only son for your redemption. So when you come to the communion table, don’t just come casually. Come in faith, ready to confess and receive God’s forgiveness.

In addition to inviting us to deal with our sin, communion also invites us to re-orient ourselves. We all experience busy seasons at work or school, we all have struggles with our spouses, our kids or our friends. We all things that wear us down emotionally and spiritually. We all have things that easily distract us from God. Communion is an opportunity to remember that which is of the greatest importance in our life - our redemption that Jesus purchased on the cross - and to re-orient ourselves. In life, there are so many things that can pull us away from intimacy with God. Participating in communion is an act of faith that can help us re-align ourselves around Jesus; to get right with Him because in him we have life.

Let’s practice what we are talking about today. We are going to take communion together. We are going to start with just the bread. But to help us re-align, I am going to put a 1 minute on a timer on the screen and my hope is that for that minute you would spend time in prayer, bringing to God whatever you need to bring to him, receiving his forgiveness by faith and expressing to him your thankfulness for what Jesus has done. So let’s pray.

Go to countdown screen

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Pray

This bread represents the body of Christ, which was broken for you. He died so you could live. In gratitude, and in faith, we remember.

Take bread.

We have looked at how communion is an act of remembrance and an act of faith. It is also an act of hope.

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Communion as an act of Hope

When Jesus institutes the Lord’s supper in the gospel of Luke he says,

Luke 22:15–18 NLT

Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”

And Paul says,

1 Corinthians 11:26 NLT

For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.

When we take communion, we not only look back at the exodus and the cross, and we not only look at our present relationship with Jesus, but we look forward to the future. Communion reminds us that even though it looks dark out, we have hope. Jesus instituted this ritual at Passover, reminding us that when Israel was at its most broken under the slavery and oppression of Egypt, God saved them and gave them freedom. And because communion is based in Jesus’ atonement for our sin, we are reminded that when we were at our worst is when God’s love shone brightest.

Romans 5:8 NLT

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

And those events give us hope for the future. That there will come a day when our redemption will be completed - where Jesus will come back and the fullness of his kingdom will be realized. That there is a day coming when

Revelation 21:4 NIV

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Taking communion is an act of hope and anticipation and empowers us that no matter what we are going through right now, we can get through it...

2 Corinthians 4:17–18 NLT

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Taking communion reminds us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus who was, who is and who is to come.

Let’s take the juice element now.

This cup represents the new covenant - a relationship between people and God that is no longer based on the temporary and insufficient animal sacrificial system and OT law but is now based on a relationship of faith in Jesus and what he accomplished for us through the shedding of his blood. By taking this, we say, look back and say “what Jesus did, he did for me.” We look at ourselves now and we re-orient ourselves back to God. We look ahead and say, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”

The blood of Christ, for the remission of your sins.

Take the cup.

Play “Man of Sorrows” worship song video

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Conclusion

Thank you so much for joining us online this morning. Most of us know by now that church together is infinitely better than church online but we are grateful for the opportunity to help out our community and lower the risk of transmission of the omicron variant by taking these two weeks online. We will back for in-person gatherings next week as well as live on youtube at 10:00am. We are going to start a new teaching series called “Fresh Air: How the Gospel Renews and Revives” and so we invite you to participate with us. Registration for our in-person service will be open shortly so go to our website, northpark.ca/stratford, click on the events tab, and register.

If God has been working in you today, and you want to talk more about life, faith and the church, I invite you to reach out to me through email. Our email address is [e-mail] and we would love to get to know you better. I hope you have a great week and I pray that 2022 is your best year ever. See you next week.