Series Texts: Assorted texts

Series Subject: How Communion is one of the most meaningful moments in the life of the church

Series Purpose: To recapture the power and purpose of Communion in the life of the church

Series Relevance: Communion can quickly become "just another thing we do" when we gather for worship. But isn't it more than simply passing the trays? Isn't more than a quick closing of the eyes and bowing of the head? The bread and the wine—what do they really say to us as believers? Communion is one of the most meaningful moments in the life of the church because it speaks of the Bread of Life and a covenant cup, represents a sinner's feast, allows for deep fellowship, stirs remembrance of Christ's great salvific work, and pushes us to think about our glorious future.

Series Big Idea: Communion speaks of the Bread of Life and a covenant cup, represents a sinner's feast, allows for deep fellowship, stirs remembrance of Christ's great work, and pushes us to think about our glorious future.

Title: Bread of Life

Subtitle: Discovering the nourishment of Christ

Text: John 6:25–59

Subject: How Christ is the Bread of Life, far greater than any earthly bread

Purpose: To show how Communion reminds us that true hunger is met in Christ alone

Relevance: Many today will chase after the "bread" of this world. But there is greater bread offered from heaven—the Bread of Life. Christ allows everyone the opportunity to gain life by way of his flesh and blood. Each week, the Communion celebration remembers the nourishment for life that is found in Christ alone, the Bread of Life.

Big Idea: Jesus is the complete meal for the heart, and Communion presents us with the opportunity to dine and believe again in Jesus—not for salvation, but for our spiritual daily bread.

Introduction
• Illustration: Communion Bread Isn't What It Seems [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• When we come to the Lord's Table, is this bread what it seems?
• The Gospel of John doesn't say much about the Last Supper, but does say a lot about bread.
• The context of John 6:25–59 is the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
• The text begins with the people in a feeding frenzy over a teacher who can produce bread out of thin air.

"Make our lives easier!"
• John 6:25–35
• Illustration: Dostoevsky on the Temptation of Christ [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• The temptation to offer earthly bread lurks in this story, but Jesus did not give in to it.
• Christ told the people to work for bread that would feed them forever.
• It was a type of bread they could not work for—available from Christ alone and given in grace.
• The people were confused and demanded a miraculous sign—a Moses-sized miracle.
• Jesus refused, saying, "I AM the Bread of Life."
• As both food and drink, Jesus is the complete meal for the heart—come and believe, and you'll never be hungry or thirsty of heart again.

"We'll think about it and get back to you!"
• John 6:36–51a
• Jesus sensed the crowd's hesitation, and threw them yet another curveball, saying it was up to God, not them.
• Whomever God chooses receives life through Jesus.
• The message was (and still is) this: no one is safe without Jesus, but with Jesus you cannot be lost!
• Before anyone comes to Christ, God starts talking to them in his quiet and mysterious way.
• However God speaks to them, this one thing is sure: God will point them to Christ, because only Jesus is the Bread of Life.
     -Illustration: Girl Follows Mysterious Path to God [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
• John 5:51b–58
• We eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood by believing in him and coming to him.
• We think Jesus is speaking metaphorically here, but he's not; his real death on the cross—in a real body—is how we live.
• The flesh and blood of Jesus show his humanity; we needed him to stand in our place for our sin (since our own flesh and blood was shot through with sin and death).
• Notice the effects of ingesting Jesus' body and blood by faith—life and resurrection.
• The God-life within us simply cannot die; it is eternal, indestructible, joyful, and abundant.

Conclusion
• Colin Brown: "John 6 is not about the Lord's Supper; rather, the Lord's Supper is about what is described in John 6."
• Communion takes us back to the truths about the Bread of Life; taking the bread and cup reminds us of our source of life.
• Communion presents us with the opportunity to dine again—to believe again in Jesus, not for salvation, but for our spiritual daily bread.
• Jesus is present in this meal by his Spirit—he is at this table as the Bread of Life, our host!

Communion Bread Isn't What It Seems
Some days test our sense of humor. A loaf of bread … used to stand on the Communion table. It had been kneaded from real flour and baked in a red-hot oven with a mom's loving touch, only to be lacquered into permanent staleness to preside … over many a celebration of the Eucharist.

One day, without warning, it vanished, to be replaced by wheat spikes in a vase—hardly what we usually think of as the Bread of Life. The bread loaf, it seems, was a casualty of an over-conscientious visiting preacher. In the middle of a Communion service, according to reliable sources, the preacher mistakenly took the mummified bread with both hands, blessed it in the ancient tradition … Yielding to 200 pounds of preacher, the crisp shell vaporized with a thunderous explosion before the startled solemn assembly.

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, I think of God's words to Ezekiel: "Son of man, you are to tremble as you eat your bread."

Dostoevsky on the Temptation of Christ
In Dostoevsky's tale of the Grand Inquisitor—a story embedded in his great novel, The Brothers Karamazov—the Devil/Inquisitor comes to Jesus a second time, just as he did in the wilderness, tempting him to turn stones to bread.

"Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after You like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though forever trembling, lest You withdraw Your hand and deny them Your bread … You promised them the bread of Heaven, but … can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? … You rejected the one infallible banner which was offered You to make all men bow down to You alone—the banner of earthly bread; and You have rejected it for the sake of freedom and the Bread of Heaven."

Girl Follows Mysterious Path to God
A woman named Tricia once wrote her personal story. Let me read some excerpts:

"Time went by and my unfulfilled longings continued to ache within me. I prayed to God, 'God, you know I am seeking you with all I've currently got—my mind, my heart, my soul, my strength. I need more. Could Christ be the only way—the right way? I hate to ask, but I need a sign or something to help me get unstuck. I need new information that I haven't considered.'

"My friend Nick sent me and Joe a long, thoughtful letter which spoke to something I had not considered. He said that many of the disciples died for their beliefs. Had they known it to be a lie, they would have backed down in the face of death.

"Some time went by, and I prayed again. 'God, you know I've taken that in and considered it and I value it. But you know my heart, and you know I'm still struggling. I need more, and my heart is open.'

"A day or two later, I was cleaning my shelves with a rag and a five-gallon bucket of water. I took the bucket of dirty water out and dumped it. Then I put it under the spigot. With about two gallons of water in it, I saw something shiny in the water. I scooped it out, and behold, there was a pristine, plain, shiny gold cross earring. I had never seen it before and haven't seen it since. I couldn't believe it …

"More time went by. I knew that I would not ask any more from God on this matter—that the ball was totally in my court at this time. At Christmas, I was at the bookstore, looking for a present. I turned around to find the Christian shelf behind me. I pulled a book, The Case for Christ, and bought it. The book was written for me, I think. It answered the questions I've had all along about Christianity and gave dignity to our desire to know these answers. Then I read the Gospels … and the floods came rushing in!

"And it hasn't stopped. I believe Jesus forgives us no matter what we have done, loves us right where we are …

"This is the God I believe in, and that I surrender my life to."

Tricia hungered for God, and God drew Tricia to Jesus. She came to Jesus and believed in him, and Jesus gave her eternal life.

Title: The Covenant Cup

Subtitle: Rejoicing over a marriage made in heaven

Text: Mark 14:22–25

Subject: How Communion is a time of covenant reflection and renewal

Purpose: To recapture the covenant significance of our time at the Lord's Table

Relevance: It's easy to lose sight of the covenant element of Communion. The bread and wine remind us that God created a New Covenant in Christ that sets us free from our unfaithfulness to the Old Covenant. Our time at the Lord's Table also renews our hope that one day we will celebrate the wedding together of bride (the church) and Groom (Christ)—the day when the covenant will reach its ultimate goal of true community between God and mankind.

Big Idea: Communion allows us the opportunity to refresh our covenant love and renew our hope in Christ.

Introduction
• Illustration: Marriage Is a One-sided Covenant [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• There are three moments in every wedding I never get used to: When they each make their vows to the other, when I get to say, "I pronounce you husband and wife," and when I introduce them for the first time by their new covenant name.
• A wedding is love wrapped in a covenant.

God's love is always wrapped in a covenant.
• We often talk about having a relationship with God, but relationships in our world are pretty casual things.
     -Illustration: The Disposable Nature of Relationships [see Illustrations and Quotations
     below]
• According to the Bible, no one ever has a relationship with God without being in a covenant with God.
• You can't just be casual friends with God; you can't just "move in."
• We can be in a covenant-wrapped, loving relationship with God; we can be married!
• God made a covenant with the nation of Israel 1,500 years before Christ.
     -Exodus 19:3–8
• God vowed to make Israel his "treasured possession," blessing them in every way; Israel vowed to keep all God's laws in return.
• Both God and Israel said, "I do."
• At its core, a covenant is a binding promise of faithful love.
• In a covenant with God, nothing is more important than faithfulness; the one thing the Old Covenant could not do, though, was make people faithful.
• God was married to a wife—Israel—who turned out to be chronically unfaithful.

Because his people couldn't keep their covenant with him, God promised a New Covenant.
• Because of Israel's unfaithfulness, God had to make a New Covenant.
     -Jeremiah 31:31–34
• Instead of writing his commands on tablets of stone, God impressed them on the hearts of his people.
• While the first covenant was sabotaged by sin, this covenant would have a "sin-fix" built into it.
• If unfaithfulness was forgiven, God could have a covenant relationship with his people.
• The secret to the New Covenant is that it isn't just an exchange of vows; it is a person who binds God and his people together.
     -Isaiah 42:1–9
• The covenant is the Servant, for both Jew and Gentile.

Jesus Christ is how God wrapped his love in a New Covenant.
• Hebrews 8:6–7
• Jesus is the reason why the New Covenant is superior to the Old Covenant.
• The essential idea of God's covenant doesn't change: "I will be their God, and they will be my people."
• The New Covenant solves our faithfulness failure, and it solves it through Jesus.
• Death was the only means to dealing with unfaithfulness.
• By dying in our place, Jesus made it possible for God and his people to be in covenant-wrapped love with one another.
     -Illustration: Christ Suffered for Us [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• When we put our faith in Christ as our Savior, he performs those New Covenant requirements that we studied; he writes God's law on our hearts and provides a blood baptism to cleanse us from our sins.
• Thanks to those miracles, God now counts us as faithful!

At the Lord's Table, we celebrate our covenant of love with God.
• It is absolutely essential that Christians remember Jesus has given us a covenant relationship with God; that is why we come to the Lord's Table.
• Mark 14:22–25
• The Communion service is a sign and a seal.
• The bread and wine are signs that remind us of Christ's death and the forgiveness and life he has brought us.
• The bread and wine are signs that remind us of the nourishing, cleansing, and joyous nature of our relationship with God through Christ.
• The bread and wine are signs that remind us we are the beloved bride.
• Communion is also an opportunity for Jesus to press the signet or seal of his love into the soft wax of our hearts, leaving a permanent impression.
• If we listen to Jesus when we come to this table, we will receive an inward assurance—a deep confidence—that we are loved, and God's promises can be trusted.
     -Illustration: Being Certain of God's Love [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

Conclusion
• We also have a part in this covenant; we, too, must refresh our commitment to our beloved Lord.
• At this table, we have the time to specifically think about how we can better warm our love for Christ—how we can refresh our covenant.
     -Illustration: Puritan Thought on Communion [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• According to Matthew 26:29, Communion is like a unique anniversary dinner; at the Lord's Table, we remember when Jesus brought us into a covenant of love with God.
• At this table, we're also like an engaged couple, counting down the months until our wedding dinner.
• We come to the Lord's Table to refresh our sense of love for God and his love for us, and to renew our hope that all the waiting will be worth it.

Marriage Is a One-sided Covenant
I am struck, as I reflect on the vows Jo and I exchanged at our wedding, by the one-sidedness of our commitment. There were no qualifiers or disclaimers. I promised to love Jo for better or worse until death, regardless of her actions or attitude. Likewise, Jo promised to have me for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, for life, regardless of how well or poorly I behaved. No doubt we both assumed we'd reciprocate in our love for each other. However, our vows said nothing about being loved back. By our words, each of us assumed 100 percent responsibility for the marriage. That's the nature of covenant. Each party makes an irrevocable vow.

When the husband places the wedding ring on his wife's finger, in the traditional marriage service, he says, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." In other words, the husband gave everything he had to his wife, including his body and his earthly possessions. No longer were there "his or her" possessions. Everything was theirs. Why is this important? Because in giving our all, we actually gain what we want.

The Disposable Nature of Relationships
Some years ago, the toy manufacturer Mattel came up with an interesting scheme to promote the latest version of its world famous doll, Barbie. The new Barbie being brought out was both slimmer and had more movement than her predecessor. In order to attract interest, Mattel said that, for the first time, any girl wanting to purchase the new Barbie would receive a trade-in allowance for her old one. What Mattel did not say was that in trading in her old doll for an improved model, the little girl was learning something about the world in which she was going to grow up––a world in which things you love become disposable. This is actually quite ironic, isn't it? A little girl pours out affection on Barbie for three years, and now Barbie can be replaced with a better model.

Mattel did that 30 years ago. Since then, most of us have grown up in a culture that has moved increasingly in the direction of the disposable, so that we now have disposable marriage; we call it divorce …

Relationships increasingly become a means to an end, something to be enjoyed as long as they are comfortable.

Christ Suffered for Us
Our son coughed a little one Saturday night. At church the next day, he started running a fever, and as his temperature went up he started having trouble breathing. We left the service early and by nightfall, he was struggling to draw each breath.

No doctor had officially labeled the problem yet. I grew up with asthma. I know all about the days missed from school, the constant medication, and the innumerable trips to the doctor. I have known the bitter disappointment of preparing for months for a sports event only to experience a sudden attack that robs strength, breath, and the opportunity to compete.

I thought of all this as I tried to help my son get to sleep that night. I rubbed between his shoulders, which were hunched in the way asthmatics naturally roll their shoulders to take the pressure off their lungs. I listened to him inhale in wheezing misery and exhale through lips pursed as his body instinctively tried to create back pressure to expand his bronchial tubes another micro-millimeter.

My son was miserable, but the difficulty he was having was not greater than the pain I was feeling. I had already experienced each of these asthma reactions a thousand times. I knew the life that lay ahead for my son, and my heart was crying out, "Oh, my child, how I wish I could spare you what I went through."

It was in those moments of heartbreak for my son that I thought of mercy. I remembered another who went through such misery that it took his breath away. I thought of other shoulders rolled in suffering against the wood of a cross. I recalled the one whose weight hung on nails so cruel that each breath was torture. He willingly took the agony my sins deserve, all so that his lips pursed with pain could express, "Oh my child, now I will spare you what I go through."

Being Certain of God's Love
In his book Doubting, author Alister McGrath shared the following story to illustrate how we can know God loves us:

An aunt of mine died some time ago, having lived to be 80 or so. She had never married. During the course of clearing out her possessions, we came across a battered old photograph of a young man. My aunt had, it turned out, fallen hopelessly in love as a young girl. It had ended tragically. She never loved anyone else and kept a photograph of the man she had loved for the remainder of her life.

Why? Partly to remind herself that she had once been loved by someone. As she had grown old, she knew that she would have difficulty believing that, at one point in her life, she really had meant something to someone—that someone had once cared for her and regarded her as his everything. It could all have seemed a dream, an illusion, something she had invented in her old age to console her in her declining years—except that the photograph gave the lie to that.

It reminded her that it had not been invented; she really loved someone once and was loved in return. The photograph was her sole link to a world in which she had been valued.

The communion bread and wine are like that photograph. They reassure us that something that seems too good to be true—something that we might even be suspected of having invented—really did happen.

Puritan Thought on Communion
In the 1600s, Puritan Edmund Calamy wrote, "Every time we come to the Lord's Table, we must vow and engage that we'll continue as Christ's faithful servants, subjects, and soldiers, and never do anything against his crown and dignity as long as we live."

Title: The Sinner's Feast

Subtitle: Coming home to the Father

Text: Luke 15:11–32

Subject: How Communion is an opportunity to celebrate the grace God shows a sinner

Purpose: To encourage the more celebrative side of Communion

Relevance: We often come to the Lord's Table heavy-laden over our sin. Though there is a time and a place to reflect on our rebellion, we must allow that solemn reflection to turn into an unbridled celebration of God's grace.

Big Idea: When we come to the Lord's Table, we join our Father in celebrating lost sons found and dead daughters alive again.

Introduction
• Illustration: Tony Campolo on Taking Communion [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• Sin is on our minds when we come to this table—maybe too much!
• To help us remember what our time at the Lord's Table should feel like, let's look at the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32.

Prodigals get desperately hungry.
• The first dictionary definition for prodigal is "exceedingly or recklessly wasteful."
• People are like that with God-given trusts; like the son in this story, they consider God as nothing more than an open wallet.
• They squander every treasure entrusted to them until they're broke and broken—penniless prodigals in a bankrupt land.
• In the story, the young man was hungry and headachy, thinking of the full tables of his father's house.
• He remembered how rough-hewn tables in the servants' quarters always had enough food.
• The young man rehearsed his speech, and off he went to see his father.
• The tax collectors and sinners who were listening to Jesus knew the prodigal's hunger, but they feared God would never accept them at his table, should they ever return.
     -Illustration: An Unforgiven Prodigal Son [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

God's welcome for returning prodigals is not what anyone would expect.
• It's hard to imagine God waiting and watching for sinners to come home; isn't God more like a judge, shaking his head in disgust at all-to-familiar faces?
• That's what the Pharisees thought God would do with the people crowding around Jesus; that's what a lot of us think God does when he sees sinners coming toward him.
• The welcome was unexpected; the father ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
• A surprising thing in this story is how the father doesn't even allow the son to finish the speech he had prepared; once the father sees you coming in repentance, it isn't your confession he's waiting for—it's you!
• God responds more extravagantly than any broken prodigal could ever imagine.
• The second dictionary definition for prodigal is "extremely generous" or "lavish;" one writer called this "the story of the prodigal father."
• God gives returning sinners the best he has, brings all his servants together for a party, and refuses to dwell on all that's been wasted; he celebrates when prodigals come home.
     -Illustration: Erwin Lutzer on Forgiveness [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

At the Lord's Table, we join our Father in celebrating lost sons found and dead daughters alive again.
• Matthew 26:27–28
• There are a few things you should not do at the Lord's Table.
• Do not come to this table to grieve over your sins; come here to celebrate your forgiveness.
• Do not dwell too long on the sufferings of Jesus on the cross; think of what it is like to come home to the father.
     -Illustration: Cheering for Church [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

Conclusion
• There is one more thing you should not do at the Lord's Table: you should not play the elder brother to your own heart or anyone else's.
• Do not begrudge sinners this meal; don't begrudge yourself this feast!
     -Illustration: Prodigal Brings Christ Home [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• This table of the Lord isn't where sinners find Christ but where sinners celebrate being found.
• Maybe some morning, instead of solemnly passing these trays, we should dance for joy, sing every "born again" song we know, tell our coming home stories, and laugh like people who no longer fear death.
• Maybe we should ask if anyone wants seconds and hold our little cups high to toast lost brothers found and dead sisters alive.

Tony Campolo on Taking Communion
In his book, Letters to a Young Evangelical, Tony Campolo shares a story from his youth about taking Communion:

Sitting with my parents at a Communion service when I was very young, perhaps six or seven years old, I became aware of a young woman in the pew in front of us who was sobbing and shaking. The minister had just finished reading the passage of Scripture written by Paul that says, "Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). As the Communion plate with its small pieces of bread was passed to the crying woman before me, she waved it away and then lowered her head in despair. It was then that my Sicilian father leaned over her shoulder and, in his broken English, said sternly, "Take it, girl! It was meant for you. Do you hear me?"

She raised her head and nodded—and then she took the bread and ate it. I knew that at that moment some kind of heavy burden was lifted from her heart and mind. Since then, I have always known that a church that could offer Communion to hurting people was a special gift from God.

An Unforgiven Prodigal Son
An ancient Asian legend tells the story of a man who had a wild and impetuous son. In The Man with Dirty Hands, Curtis E. Liens writes:

The boy became involved with the ruffians of the village who persuaded him to join them in a robbery of his own father's treasury house. After the robbery was over, his friends fled with the stolen treasure and left him to face the guilt of the crime alone. The young man was desperate. He was deserted by his friends, and he had betrayed the trust of his father. But his greatest crime was that he had brought public dishonor on the family name. And, in a culture where ancestors are worshiped and family integrity is a sacred trust, this was the worst wrong of all.

Broken and deeply repentant, he went to his father and begged forgiveness. Graciously, it was granted. The father called all of the members of the family together to celebrate the reconciliation and return of his son.

When all had enjoyed the banquet to the fullest, the father stood and lifted his cup of rice wine for a toast. But after the son drank deeply the contents of his cup, he grabbed his throat and fell lifeless across the table. The son had been poisoned.

With ceremonial dignity, the father nodded to the guests. Each, in turn, graciously and politely bowed to the father as they silently left the banquet hall. All was now put right. The son had paid the price of his pardon with poison. His honor had been restored. The family integrity and honor were reestablished. The unfortunate incident was closed.

Erwin Lutzer on God's Forgiveness
"There is more grace in God's heart than there is sin in your past."

Cheering for Church
"Like a victorious locker room, church is a place to exult, to give thanks, to celebrate the great news that all is forgiven, that God is love, that victory is certain."

Prodigal Brings Christ Home
My son called. Through years of drug abuse, Scott had stolen from our family, manipulated us, and failed us. It had been a relief not to hear from him for two years.

Scott told me he'd been through a rehabilitation program a year and a half ago that provided something no other had offered. "I met Jesus Christ. I've been forgiven for my past. I want to ask you and Mom to forgive me, too." He said he was now helping other addicts get straightened out.

I was torn between hope and cynicism. The well-groomed, bright-eyed young man who arrived at the airport looked like a stranger. In the days that followed, Scott told how, in the midst of drug withdrawal, he'd seen a vision of Jesus Christ on the cross and cried out to him for help. His withdrawal symptoms ended instantly. That experience had led him to a church. "I asked Jesus to be my Lord," he quietly explained, "and my life hasn't been the same since."

The change in Scott was too dramatic for my wife and me to ignore. Today, Jesus has given us the same new life he gave our prodigal son.

Title: Table Fellowship

Subtitle: Loving whoever's on the guest list

Text: 1 Corinthians 10:14–22 and 11:17–34

Subject: How Communion is a time of fellowship with both God and fellow believers

Purpose: To challenge believers to love one another as they gather at the Lord's Table

Relevance: If we are to be honest, Communion can be quite difficult. There are some members of the body of Christ we are not particularly pleased with. To share even a loaf of bread with them is a chore! Perhaps the meal's subtle reminder that we are one in Christ is essential. The Christian life is a "common union," and we must gather in shared love, over Communion, to celebrate this reality with the Lord of love and life.

Big Idea: This meal is only the Lord's Supper if we, as his guests, love one another.

Introduction
• Illustration: Children Better Off With Regular Family Meals [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• Communion is something we do together with the Lord; it's the reason why we call it communion and not "alone time."
• Let's now look at the fellowship dimension of Communion as seen in Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth.

The Lord's Table makes for intimate relationships.
• 1 Corinthians 10:16–17
• The context must be noted: Paul was particularly incensed about how the Christians in Corinth would eat meat sacrificed to idols.
• Though idols are nothing—just wood or steel—they suck people into a supernatural, evil world; a real spiritual connection happens with Satanic agents.
• People who dine with the devil dare not come to the Lord's Table because there is only room for intimacy with God.
• When we eat and drink at the Lord's Table, we're participating in the body and blood of Christ alone.
• The Greek word for "participating" means, "sharing, fellowship."
• We have fellowship with Jesus when we come to this table: As the bread nourishes our bodies, Jesus nourishes our hearts; as wine washes through our systems, the blood of Christ washes through our souls, cleansing us of sin.
• We also have fellowship with one another; because there is one bread, we—who are many—are one body.
• We don't just share a common belief in Jesus; we have taken him in together.
• One heart—God's heart—in all of us; this makes us profoundly alike.
• Though it isn't a sin to take Communion alone, it's not particularly useful; it clouds the reality that our union with Christ is best found in communion with Christ's body of believers.
     -Illustration: Communion Shared in Psychiatric Ward [see Illustrations and Quotations
     below]

This meal is only the Lord's Supper if we love each other.
• 1 Corinthians 11:17–34
• Some people were being excluded from the church's dinners—perhaps because they were poor.
• Ironically, those doing the excluding were actually the ones who had no business at the Lord's Table!
     -Illustration: Reality, Not Perfection [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• You'll never be an approved dinner guest if you do not love your brothers and sisters in the Lord.
• In fact, the Lord himself won't come to this table if some guests have been deemed unwelcome.
• Paul reminds us, by way of the church in Corinth, that the Lord's Supper is a mutual declaration of the Lord's death.
• If we are divided by pride and selfishness, we can hardly proclaim the Lord's selfless and sacrificial death!
• If we're divided by pride and selfishness, we can hardly represent the holiness Christ died to give us!
• If we're divided by pride and selfishness, we can hardly sustain our witness to the world that Jesus will come again!
• If you are fighting with other Christians—if you bear a grudge or have said hurtful things through gossip—you mustn't take Communion with those you are not recognizing as the body of the Lord.

Conclusion
• Come to this table, loving your Christian brothers and sisters.
• Remember: This meal is only the Lord's Supper if we as his guests love one another.

Children Better Off With Regular Family Meals
The byline of a June 2006 article in TIME magazine states: "Kids who dine with the folks are healthier, happier, and better students, which is why a dying tradition is coming back." The article was based on an in-depth study conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University—a study whose research consisted of nearly a decade of gathering data.

After sifting through the raw data, researchers identified several important patterns. For example, 55 percent of 12-year-olds say they have dinner with a parent every night, compared with only 26 percent of 17-year-olds. Along ethnic lines, 54 percent of Hispanic teens say they eat with a parent most nights, compared with 40 percent of black teens and 39 percent of white teens.

The benefits of eating meals as a family were also clearly defined. Children who eat meals most often with their parents are 40 percent more likely to say they get mainly A's and B's in school than kids who have two or fewer family dinners a week. In addition, children who participate in family meals less than three times a week are more than twice as likely to say there is a great deal of tension among family members, and are much less likely to think their parents are proud of them.

Finally, the study showed a correlation between the frequency and quality of family meals. For example, among those who eat together three or fewer times a week, 45 percent say the TV is on during meals (as opposed to 37 percent of all households) and nearly one third say there isn't much conversation.

Communion Shared in a Psychiatric Ward
It's been more than 25 years since a young friend called me to say she'd admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital. She was going through a terribly difficult time. While she was there, I visited her when I could. One of my visits was on Good Friday. I asked her beforehand if she'd like me to bring Communion to her. She said she would and asked if some of the other hospitalized Christians could join us.

On that spring afternoon, five or six of us gathered in her room and shared the sacred meal. I think it was the most meaningful Communion service I ever shared—half a dozen people, each scarred by heartache, relative strangers to one another, sitting helpless in a locked ward.

Yet Jesus was there, because we were there as his beloved. He was not only among us as one more of us, but he was there within us, even as broken people; because of him, we were one with each other. We were strengthened by his presence among us together; we were healed, in a way. We were nourished, washed, and rejuvenated. We had Communion.

Reality, Not Perfection
The search for the perfect church is an illusion. Appetite by itself is the sepulcher, the death of reason, judgment, and discipline. Some form of satisfaction doesn't even stand a chance unless one settles down at a place and serves. The church is a feast, not a taste a meal, not a nibble.

One sits and serves with the same people week after week, receiving and being received, disappointing and being disappointed, hurting and being hurt, caring and being cared for. Church people are in it for the long haul, not the short term. The ordinary is more crucial than the extraordinary. The glory of church is the routine, not the exceptional.

Title: In Remembrance of Me

Subtitle: Taking time to remember

Text: 1 Corinthians 11:23–26

Subject: How Communion is a crucial opportunity to remember important truths of our faith

Purpose: To urge believers to use Communion as an opportunity to recall who they are, what they believe, and what Christ has done

Relevance: We often forget that Communion is a special time of remembrance. If we allow it, this sacred meal calls to mind a number of essential truths about our identity and the many reasons we celebrate the work of God in Christ.

Big Idea: At the Lord's Table, we remember our identity as disciples, what we treasure most, and the great sacrifice of Christ.

Introduction
• Illustration: The Feast That Cost Everything [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• With Communion, we come to a meal designed to bring Christians together under the sacrifice of Christ.
• We have learned that the church in Corinth was deeply flawed—gross immorality was rampant, believers were suing each other, rich Christians paid little attention to the poor, and everyone was arguing about who was the most spiritual.
• Into this mess, Paul wrote about the Lord's Supper.
• 1 Corinthians 11:23–26
• If Communion is observed in a proper way, we'll have the same kind of unifying, strengthening, joy-inducing effect as Babette's Feast.
• One phrase stands out in the passage: "in remembrance of me."
• There are three things we must take time to remember while at this table; such remembrance will keep our fellowship strong and our own hearts tuned to Christ.

At the Lord's Table, we are reminded that we are disciples.
• Communion helps us remember we are part of a group of disciples—those of the past and present.
     -Illustration: We Do Not Come to Christ Alone [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• As we take this meal together, we're reminded that we're part of a group; we look around and think, This is my tribe, my family, my kind—my church.
• Coming to this table is an antidote to all the things that divide us as believers—an antidote to factions, pride, feelings of superiority, and the insensitive treatment of others.
• In 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, Paul says: You need to remember that at this table there is only one Lord, and we are all Christ's disciples, chosen by God.
• At the Lord's Table, we remember we are ever and only disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ; here we remember we follow Jesus.

At the Lord's Table, we taste what we treasure.
• In Communion, we don't just taste bread and wine; we taste our faith.
• At the Lord's Table, we remember there is food for our souls (Christ's flesh) and wine that cleanses (Christ's blood).
• We remember Jesus came into our lives like food; he has become part of who we are because his Holy Spirit is within us, working his way through our mind, body, and spirit.
• Tasting the treasure changes us by sharpening our conscience; personal sin comes into focus.
     -Illustration: Sobering Power of Communion Wine [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• Eating these elements connects us to our heritage and its hope; the taste reminds us that we can live righteously because we have "eaten" the very righteousness and power of Christ.

At the Lord's Table, we memorialize our Savior.
• Jesus was saying, in essence: Do this to memorialize me—to keep my memory alive.
• God has always been big on memorials because man's spiritual memory is so short.
• The Passover celebration—the precursor for the Lord's Supper—was a memorial, helping Israel remember God's deliverance.
• Jesus transformed the Passover Feast, saying, "I am the Passover."
• We now memorialize Christ, the great liberator and covenant-maker.
• When we memorialize Jesus' broken body and shed blood, we are keeping Christ's death alive; we're saying, "It wasn't in vain; I am the proof."
• If you and I remember we are the living proclamations of Jesus' death for sinners, the church will be strong.
     -Illustration: Communion Incarnates the Word [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

Conclusion
• This meal has memories; these memories make us a holy people.
• At the Lord's Table, we remember our identity as disciples, what we treasure most, and the great sacrifice of Christ.

The Feast That Cost Everything
There's a wonderful story by Isak Dinesen called Babette's Feast. It's about a strict, dour, fundamentalist community in Denmark. Babette works as a cook for two elderly sisters who have no idea she was once a chef to nobility back in her native France. Babette's dream is to return to her beloved home city of Paris, so every year she buys a lottery ticket in hopes of winning enough money to return.

Every night, her austere employers demand she cook the same dreary meal—boiled fish and potatoes—"because," they say, "Jesus commanded, 'Take no thought of food and drink.'"

One day, the unbelievable happens—Babette wins the lottery! The prize is 10,000 francs, a small fortune. Because the anniversary of the founding of the community is approaching, Babette asks if she might prepare a French dinner, with all the trimmings, for the entire village.

At first, the townspeople refuse: "No, it would be sinful to indulge in such rich food." But Babette begs them, and finally they relent: "As a favor to you, we will allow you to serve us this French dinner." Still, the people secretly vow to not enjoy the feast, choosing to occupy their minds with spiritual things. Surely God wouldn't blame them for eating this sinful meal—as long as they do not enjoy it!

Babette begins her preparations. Caravans of exotic food arrive in the village, along with cages of quail and barrels of fine wine.

Finally, the big day comes and the villagers gather. The first course is an exquisite turtle soup. The diners force it down without enjoyment, but their usual silence is broken by much conversation. Then comes the wine—Veuve Cliquot 1860, the finest in France.

The atmosphere changes. Someone smiles. Someone else giggles. An arm comes up and drapes itself over a shoulder. Someone is heard to say, "After all, did not the Lord Jesus say, 'Love one another'?"

By the time the main entrée of quail arrives, the austere, pleasure-fearing people are giggling, laughing, slurping, guffawing, and praising God for their many years together. The pack of Pharisees is transformed into a loving community through the gift of a meal.

One of the two sisters goes into the kitchen to thank Babette, saying, "Oh, how we will miss you when you return to Paris!"

Babette replies, "I will not be returning to Paris because I have no money. I spent it all on the feast."

Can you think of anyone else who gave his all to make us a loving community through the gift of a meal?

We Do Not Come to Christ Alone
Communion is not an event in which autonomous individuals have parallel religious experiences. We do not come to Christ alone but with and through one another. The meaning of the term "priesthood of all believers" is not that we can come to God privately, but that we come to him on one another's behalf; each is a priest for the other.

Sobering Power of Communion Wine
"The world drinks to forget; the Christian drinks to remember."

Communion Incarnates the Word
Why do we need the sacrament of Holy Communion alongside the Word? The sacrament offers us something the Word alone cannot: deep assurance that is exactly fitted by God to our human need and receptivity. The Lord's Supper is a physical handle that faith grabs hold of, allowing us to grasp God's promises with our bodies as well as our minds. … The sacrament "incarnates" the Word, in a way analogous to how Christ was the original incarnate Word.

Title: Mountaintop Experience

Subtitle: Anticipating the great feast to come

Text: Isaiah 25:6–9 and Revelation 19:1–9

Subject: How the Lord's Supper anticipates the great wedding supper of Revelation

Purpose: To show how Communion is a time to look forward to the feast to come

Relevance: It's easy to be so wrapped up in the present moment of Communion that we forget how this sacred meal whets our appetites for the feast to come. The Lord's Supper is a special time for believers to worshipfully anticipate the great wedding supper with Christ, our Groom and perfect Lamb.

Big Idea: The Lord's Supper whets our appetite for the wedding supper of the Lamb.

Introduction
• One purpose of the Lord's Supper is to whet our appetite for the wedding supper of the Lamb.
     -Illustration: Jesus Left Us a Meal [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• Certain things must be present for a meal to be considered a feast; the Bible tells us the great banquet awaiting us has all the makings of a feast.
• The Bible is full of feasts, and most of them have prophecy mixed in with the meal—hints of the great feast to come.
• We'll look at two important texts: Isaiah 25:6–9 and Revelation 19:1–9.

A feast requires a special place; we will gather on God's holy mountain.
• Isaiah 25:6 tells us the great feast will be held on Mount Zion, the holy mountain.
• Mount Zion will be the most important place on earth; it will be the place peoples of every nation will call the "City of Peace."
• Mount Zion—Israel and its chief city, Jerusalem—certainly isn't like that now.
     -Illustration: City of Peace? [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• It's hard to imagine, but I believe Mount Zion will one day be the hub of peace that disarms the whole world!
• Even still, it is at this most sacred place on earth—this place where God himself took up residence in his Temple and where the Son of God displays his glory—that we shall feast.

A feast requires a special meal; the Lord himself will prepare a feast of the finest foods.
• For ages, God has been whetting the appetites of his people for this feast.
• In the Old Testament, God gave a religion full of holy food, special feasts, and even loaves of bread in the tabernacle.
• In the New Testament, Jesus offered wine to a wedding party, gave fish and bread to the 5,000, and established the Lord's Supper.
• These elements are hors d'oeuvres, whetting our appetites for the Lord's wedding dinner.
• The ancient rabbis thought God would serve the righteous "the meat of the Leviathan" (the great sea beast in Job) and "wine stored away since the creation of the world;" others expected heavenly manna and milk and honey.
• But the food the Lord has prepared is more than just food; Jesus gave us the spiritual feast of his own broken body and shed blood.
• As Charles Spurgeon pointed out, the "feast of rich food" is "the blessings of the gospel"—justification, adoption as children of God, union with Christ, and resurrection that leads to everlasting life.
• Our sense of peace and communion with God, our security in Christ, and the pleasures of our hope represent the heart's banquet.
• The food of this earth never satisfies our deeper hunger; it only arouses our senses to the real thing to come.
     -Illustration: Hungering for God [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

A feast requires special guests; the Lord's guests will be the redeemed of every nation.
• Isaiah promises people from every part of the world will be at the feast.
• But there's more to it than that; the riff-raff of the world are invited.
• The parable in Luke 14:15–24 shows God bringing in the poor, crippled, blind, and lame, from streets and alleys, roads and country lanes.
• Those who have faith in Christ are the honored guests at this feast—no matter who they are or where they've come from.
     -Illustration: Communion According to Paul [see Illustrations and Quotations below]
• The roar of Revelation 19:1–6 has the accents of every nation and the shouts of the riff-raff; it is the cry of those whom God honors simply because they've trusted him.

A feast requires a special occasion; we will celebrate God's ultimate victory and our wedding to Christ.
• At this feast, we celebrate God's comprehensive and ultimate victory.
• Isaiah 25:2–5
• Revelation 18 shows a great cosmic battle between God and the powers of this world (shown in the example of Babylon).
• The great "Hallelujah!" of Revelation 19:1 is because God has defeated the awful powers-that-be.
• In Isaiah 25:7–8, we read of another victory: the victory over death.
• It is no wonder we will have a feast; the day every enemy—including death—is defeated is a day for rejoicing!
• There is another reason we feast: we are celebrating our wedding to Christ.
• Revelation 19:7–9
• The victory feasts will pale in comparison to the long-awaited wedding feast of Jesus Christ and his Bride, the church.
     -Illustration: Bitter Wine to Sweet [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

Conclusion
• What should the prospect of such a feast mean to us?
• We must trust that when the time is right, God will save us; do not lose hope, nor let your love for Jesus grow cold.
• While Jesus tarries, let us continue to invite others to the feast.
     -Illustration: "Wake Up, Church!" [see Illustrations and Quotations below]

Jesus Left Us a Meal
What Jesus gave us when he left us was a meal. Don't ever forget the "high tea" most of us do once a month or so, with a little tiny piece of bread and a little tiny cup, is supposed to be a foretaste of the heavenly feast of the Lamb we will celebrate for eternity. It is the most ordinary and extraordinary experience all at once.

City of Peace?
The feeling of being beset by blind forces is especially strong in the mixed city of Jerusalem. … Hardly a day passes in the "holy city" without a riot or a stoning, without cars being torched or firebombs thrown, without attempted lynchings or the stabbing of an Israeli by a Palestinian (or vice versa). After each incident, municipal cleaning machines, marked "CITY OF PEACE" in three languages, appear on the scene to wash the blood from the streets in time for the next group of pious pilgrims to pass by, fingering their rosaries and muttering solemn prayers.

Hungering for God
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

Communion According to Paul
According to Paul, it was not truly the Lord's Supper unless everyone from any social status ate it together, signifying equal inclusion. Bread and wine eaten in the context of a full meal also symbolize care for the poor, for when all eat together, there are no needy.

Bitter Wine to Sweet
For centuries, we have drunk the wine of the Lord's Supper, reminding us of the bittersweet truth that Christ's blood was shed for us. Jesus has been waiting all these centuries to drink it anew with us at the wedding supper of the Lamb. When he does, there will be no thought of death.

Konstantin Makovskii, a prominent Russian painter of the 19th century, once painted an enormous picture, depicting a wedding feast. The bride is standing, and the guests are holding out their cups toward her. The explanation with the painting says they are shouting, "Gor'ko! Gor'ko!" meaning, "Bitter! Bitter!" The shouts are in reference to the wine, which had turned bitter. Much like our wedding custom of tapping on glasses, Russian custom says the newlywed couple must kiss in order to make the wine sweet again.

Isaiah 25:6 promises, "On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines." When we are finally together with Jesus, when the Bridegroom and his Bride kiss, Isaiah's promise of a feast with "the finest of wines" will come to pass. The wine, once bitter, will be sweet indeed.

"Wake Up, Church!"
Heidi Baker ministers to the poor in Mozambique. She writes about a vision she had:

I saw the wedding feast of the Lamb. There were huge, long tables laid out with the most beautiful food I have ever seen.

I heard the Lord say, "Wake up, Church! Wake up, Church! The feast is about to begin! The poor have not yet been called and My house is not yet full. I want My house to be full!"

Then I saw the Lord Jesus dance on the garbage dump, and I was with Him. As He called, the children and youth began to follow and dance with us. Together, Jesus and I would stop and touch them; their bloated bellies would become flat, and their infected wounds healed. Their hair, turned brown by malnutrition, would become black and shiny.

He put beautiful garments of purple, blue, gold, and silver on them. He led them out of the dump and into the wedding feast and said, "You sit in front!" And the hungry children from the garbage dump sat at the head table.

I've worked in the garbage dump ever since, and many hundreds of children and youth have met the Lord and are being fed physical and spiritual bread.

Lee Eclov is senior pastor of Village Church of Lincolnshire in Lake Forest, Illinois.