Communion Sunday June 2022

It’s a day that’s particularly meaningful for so many people, a day we make a little extra effort sometimes or sometimes even dress differently to mark the occasion.

It’s true for members of the church…and it’s also true for pastors.

During the pandemic lockdown I would meet monthly online with pastors from my denomination, and one of the inevitable conversations we would get into was what we missed about being together with the congregation on Sunday mornings.

Time and time again a recurring comment was…”I really miss serving Communion.” Some pastors realized during that time that communion was something they had been taking for granted, and not having a chance to celebrate it reminded them how important it is for both the pastor and the church.

It’s a holy moment.

It’s a sacrament, which is a word we Protestants are sometimes hesitant to use.

But that’s what it is.

It’s a sacrament, which literally means “sacred mystery.”

It’s a mystery because we don’t fully understand how God is present to us in the sharing of the bread and the cup.

It’s sacred…because even though we don’t understand how God is present, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is.

God meets us here in this act we’re about to embody.

Not only does he meet us here…at this table God gives us a gift of grace.

In fact, that’s the typical definition of sacrament that you learn early on in your studies to become a pastor.

It comes from Augustine of Hippo, one of the great theologians of the early church, who defined sacrament this way:

“A sacrament,” he said, “is an outward sign of an inward grace.”

An outward sign…of an inward grace.

We do something outwardly, physically…we act out a scene from Jesus’ own life. And in that act of remembering we receive something inwardly, invisibly.

There is a touch of God’s mercy and love that comes to us in the sacrament.

It’s an outward sign…of an inward grace.

And the reason, I think, that Communion Sundays are so important to us is that we know, deep down inside, just how much we need that grace.

We know that apart from that grace, something is missing in our lives.

Something only God can provide.

[DONUT MAN]

“There’s a God-shaped hole in the middle of your heart, and only Jesus can fill it.”

It’s a simple and effective way of demonstrating for little kids the truth that all of us, apart from Christ, are incomplete.

We were designed…we were created for fellowship with God.

That’s the story of Genesis, the story of creation: God made humanity for relationship with himself.

But humanity, as we often do, thought it knew better than God.

We thought we could fill that missing space inside us with things apart from him: power and knowledge and possessions and unbridled pursuits of worldly pleasure…and as a result humanity’s relationship with God was broken.

It’s one of the most heartbreaking moments in all of Scripture…from the Creation story, after the man and woman have sinned, and God is calling out, “Where are you?”

Now regardless of how you interpret Genesis…that question contains a haunting truth.

God doesn’t ask it because he doesn’t know where the man and woman have gone. The question, “Where are you?” is indicative of God’s grief at knowing that the pinnacle of his creation, the ones designed for relationship with him…have chosen something else. And in doing so, they’ve rejected God himself.

And we still do that today.

What was true at the beginning is still true…we all know deep inside that something is missing, but we try to fill it with all the wrong things.

Look at all the ways our culture has developed for people to distract themselves.

Through alcohol…sex…TV…movies…videogames…you name it.

Things which, in the right context, can be perfectly fine.

But when we turn to these things in an attempt to address the emptiness of our soul, they come up short time and time again.

Because we’re asking them to do something they can never do. We’re asking these earthly pleasures to fill our spiritual vacuum.

And that’s just never going to work.

GREAT STORY FROM NARNIA BOOKS:

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

The Lion replied, “There is no other stream.”

C.S. Lewis has captured an important spiritual truth in this scene. We’re thirsty. Our souls are parched…starving for meaning and purpose and connection.

We go to so many different streams, and they all fail to quench our thirst.

Because there is no other stream.

That’s the language David used in the Psalm we heard earlier.

O God, You are my God;

Early will I seek You;

My soul thirsts for You;

My flesh longs for You

In a dry and thirsty land

Where there is no water.

King David was in a very inhospitable environment with disastrous circumstances beyond his control when he composed Psalm 63. His son, Prince Absalom, instigated a revolt against him. King David fled eastward from Jerusalem through the Judean Desert, most likely at the end of the summer. It would’ve been hot and arid and ridiculously uncomfortable.

It’s a bleak time for David, you could call it a wilderness time, a season of life when everything is in chaos and turmoil, and you are separated from everything that provides comfort and stability.

And yet during that time David comes back to the truth that it is God alone who can meet our needs, it is God alone who can provide a balm for our thirsty soul:

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.

I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

“Your love,” David writes, “is better than life itself.”

David gets it.

He knows that there is nothing in this world that can satisfy our spiritual needs.

It’s a lesson David has learned the hard way.

He’s human…he knows the folly of empty pursuits.

And he knows the disaster they can bring.

David speaks from experience when he says there is nothing in this world that can satisfy the hunger and thirst in our souls.

Only God can meet that need.

And that’s what this table represents.

It represents the length to which God was willing to go so that we could be made whole.

When Jesus says to each of us, “Come…eat this bread. Drink this cup,” he is saying to us:

“I know the emptiness your struggle with in your soul. I know all the ways you’ve sought to fill it, and I know they haven’t worked. But what I did for you, the sacrifice I made on your behalf…

…it is enough.”

That’s why Jesus says, “Do this to remember me.”

What we are remembering here is the most important part of the Christian story—it’s the moment where God comes to us at the place of our deepest need and fulfils it in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

“Do this to remember me.”

I think Jesus knows how prone we are to forget.

He knows that even those of us who have tasted of God’s grace can wander off the path and stumble and lose our way.

This table…calls us back.

This table asks us to be honest about our hunger and thirst and all the ways we’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to meet them.

And this table reminds us that there is a God who knows us, who loves us, and who sent Jesus to redeem us.

And all he asks of us…is that we acknowledge our need.

[MONK STORY]

“When you are as desperate for God as you were just desperate for air…then you will find him.”

Friends, I think it’s time for all of us to be honest about just how parched our souls have become.

It’s time to acknowledge all the things we have turned to in vain to meet the need that only God can meet.

And he can meet it…that’s the truth of the cross and the empty tomb.

It’s God’s way of saying that there is nothing we encounter in this life, no trial to large or no sin too devastating, that it cannot be overcome by his mercy and grace.

One of my favourite passages in all of Scripture says it so well, from Romans 8:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Friends that’s what we’re celebrating at this table today.

The love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is enough. It is sufficient.

It is here.

Inviting you…to come and receive.

[TRANSITION TO PRAYER]

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