Communion Meditation

May 6, 1990

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How do you celebrate Holy Communion during Eastertide? This is Resurrection season, after all, Victory season, the triumphant time of the year.... Between now and Pentecost, while all the flags are flying; do you observe the commemoration of suffering and sacrifice?

Can you talk about anguish when there is victory to celebrate? Can you talk about grief when you’re surrounded by glory? Can you talk about death when you’re surrounded by life?

Doesn’t Easter change everything, and make all that precedes it largely inconsequential, even as a mother’s joy at giving birth to a healthy, beautiful baby makes the pain and discomfort of delivery recede into the background?

The Church says BE CAREFUL HERE..... Don’t make a false distinction. Don’t draw too sharp a line between sacrifice and vindication, death and victory, surrender and triumph.... These things are all part of one big package.

The Christ who rose was the Christ who died, truly died, truly suffered, and did so voluntarily, without any assurance that His dying was any different from that of other people. He did not know in advance exactly what the outcome would be, or else the whole meaning of the Gethsemane experience is undercut.

HE DIED AS WE HAVE TO DIE, EVERY ONE OF US, with loss, and pain, and the surrender of control, only He gave Himself up with a conscious exercise of free will, out of a motivation of love and utter obedience.

That He was raised from the dead in no way makes a charade out of the poignancy

of His death...... That He lives does not undermine the reality of His death.

The Christ who meets us in Communion is the Christ who died for us on Calvary... they are the same. One who walked, and ate, and sweated, and laughed, and cried, and dreamed, and cared about people.... more than anybody who ever lived.... even enough to die for them.... That’s who meets us here at the Table.

It seems to me that observing the Eucharist, the Supper, Communion during Eastertide gives the experience an even greater dimension than usual. It helps us see the whole, big picture in one dramatic focus. There is help here at the Table..... help available for the living of the Christian life.

We come at the explicit invitation of One who has been there before us, who knows, firsthand, what it means to be tired, and lonely, and rejected, and in the minority.... He is no stranger to those kinds of experiences.

He knows what it is to have friends who say one thing and do another, because He had some like that. He knows what it is to have people turn their backs on you when you need them most..... HE HAD THEM DO THAT TO HIM. He knows what it is to be misunderstood, and to have your words twisted, and to be ridiculed.....

He knows what it is to face implacable hostility, to look hatred in the face and see its rage explode into violence. He’s been there. The One who comes to us in Communion, who offers us His very life in these simple elements is not One who is unacquainted with the depths and tensions of human existence. He Himself has drunk deeply from the wells of human experience and for that very reason we can have confidence in His power and capacity to understand the experience we have to face.

We are invited to the Table to have Communion with One who knows first-hand what it’s all about. Because He, too, has suffered, we know we are walking with a seasoned Guide.

But it’s EASTERTIDE. We’re in the season of Resurrection. That’s the other part, the OTHER half of the equation that leads to the full dimension of this great story.

Not only did He taste life to the fullest, He overcame it. HE TRIUMPHED OVER IT. Not only did He experience the depth, and bumps and rigors of what it means to be people, what it means to be human, what it means to live under finite restriction, HE OVERCAME THOSE RESTRICTIONS WHILE YET STILL ADHERRING TO THE RULES.

He was like us in every respect, YET WITHOUT SIN---that’s how the Letter to the Hebrews puts it---

He was one with us, completely, IN the world, yet He did not let the world around Him squeeze Him into its mold---That’s how Paul put it--- He overcame the world, beat it on its own terms, and now lives in triumph as IT’S Lord, not vice-versa.

We are invited to the Table to have Communion with One who knows first-hand what it’s all about, yet who by the power of the Resurrection has shown us that NOTHING has the strength to usurp His Sovereign Lordship. He meets us here, both at pauper and as Prince... it’s the story and miracle of our Gospel.... He meets us here both as victim and as Victor, both as participant and as King, both as fellow sufferer and as Triumphant Lord. He meets us here both as Son of Man and as Son of God......

He is with us in our struggle, but with the power and will to help us overcome.

It is no light thing, no trivial matter to take these elements of His passion to our comfort.

FOR IT IS NO SMALL THING HE HAS DONE TO RECONCILE US, and to make us whole again.

Let me invite you to His Table this morning. I count it a high and joyous privilege to be able to do that.

Eat and drink in humility; eat and drink in gratitude; eat and drink in the knowledge that your life counts for something, that YOU count for something, because His victorious life has been spent for you.

The Lord who suffered has risen and is with us. Meet Him here at His Table and

rise in victory with Him.