Living Together In Faith

We call this part of the service, Communion, because that is what we do here. We commune. We eat, we drink, we fellowship with and in the Lord. We do it in a somber and controlled way. In the early church they used to have what they called “love feasts.” It sounds like they had a rollicking good time. In Corinth, they even had people drinking enough wine to get drunk and eating so much that they were accused of debauchery and gluttony. I think it would be good to figure out a way to make the service a serious feast in both senses of serious: seriously lavish, and seriously solempne, as CS Lewis coined the word.

The main point of the service is to remember that we are all one in Christ Jesus. Jesus died on the Cross for us, rose from the dead with us, and now sits at the right hand of the father on high, interceding for us.

With a sermon like the one we just experienced we may be tempted to think we aren’t worthy to participate in this sort of meal. But this is the best place to begin acting out our faith.

Do you believe that Jesus died for your sin, even your sin of unbelief? Then this table is for you.

Do you believe that Jesus lives so that you can live a new life, filled with the kind of life that many of the saints in history lived and in other parts of the world are living? Great! This meal if for you.

Do you believe that try as hard as you might, much of the time you just can’t get it right? And do you believe that that is precisely why you need an arbiter, an intercessor, and a mouthpiece? Do you believe that only Jesus can fulfill that role? Wonderful! This meal is for you. So, come and eat, come and drink.