On Sunday we will be sitting in our quaint, beautiful chapel,
sharing bread and wine. Yet this experience will call upon our senses and our
memories and we will find ourselves being taken 2000 years and a continent
away, to an upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus and his 12 disciples first
shared this very Supper.
That night started as a Jewish Passover meal. They
dined on lamb, bread, wine and gravy with the aromas of bitter herbs. They
often shared this meal in the past. They shared it with family since their
childhood. They remembered God’s strong hand that delivered them as a people
from slavery. They remembered that they were a covenant people and that God
solemnly promised to be their God, and the God of their children and
grandchildren, forever!
But later on, after Jesus went to heaven and they
received the daunting task to spread the Good News about him, and when they
carried his cross to the ends of the world, what they would have remembered is
that as the meal came to a close that night, Jesus blessed the bread, and
breaking it came to each one personally saying:“Take and eat, this is my
body, which will be broken for you.”
Jesus knew about the events that would follow that
night: his arrest, his unfair hearing and
his cruel crucifixion. So as he passed the cup to them, he said: “Drink of the blood of the new covenant.” They would remember that at that moment they
did not understand that he was telling them that soon their Redeemer would die
for those who crucified him.
They would remember that the new covenant would
replace the sacrament of the Passover with the sacrament of the Supper of
Christ. They would not remember the deliverance from the slavery in Egypt
anymore, but the delivery from the slavery of sin and evil. They would realise
that Passover became a lot more than a Jewish feast, but a feast that included
both Jews and Gentiles who were made God’s new people - of a new covenant.
Certainly the disciples would later clearly remember
that Jesus said: “As often as you repeat this meal, do it in memory of me.” As if they could ever forget!
Every time we celebrate the holy communion of Christ’s
Supper, we will through the work of the Holy Spirit be with the living Lord,
hearing his voice, believing his promise and experiencing his love with all our
senses.
Our experience will disregard logic and reason.
It will be a mystery. And our experience will be
spiritual, and by his grace, through faith, we will see that we are with him,
hearing his voice, seeing his love and believing his promise: “This is the blood of the new covenant”
and that it means, “I will be your God, and the God of all the many
generations that will come after you, who will be my people and I will be their
God.”
The mystery that we experience at the Lord’s Table is that
it is Christ who breaks bread with us and shares his cup with us. And as we in
faith feed on the living Christ, his sacrifice, his resurrection and his grace,
we will know that this Meal will never end, until the glorious day when we
gather for Christ’s eternal banquet in heaven.
For the disciples who carried the gospel of Jesus to
the ends of the earth, the Holy Communion they shared with Jesus on the night
he was betrayed, was given to them as comfort and source of strength and faith
throughout their earthly lives.
And so it is with us. When we take the bread and the
cup, Christ is in our midst, offering himself to us all over again and making
covenant with us saying: “This is the blood of the new covenant.” I will
be your God and the God of your children, forever!
I pray that you will taste and see the mystery of
sharing in the Lord’s Supper on Sunday. And that this Holy Meal will change
your life.
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