Communion Meditation

January 3, 1988

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“O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come....” We sang it just a moment ago, one of the great hymns of Isaac Watts.

If you remember your mythology, you will recall the Old Roman god, Janus...J-A-N-U-S. He was known as the god of the door. The first month of our year, of course, is named for him, the month of January.

When the Romans depicted him, they always gave him two faces.... With one he looked backward, into the past.

With the other, he looked forward, into the future...the god of the door.

I guess, in a sense, all of us are like Janus at New Year’s time, aren’t we? We’re looking backward and forward at the same time. We’re scanning the horizon in both directions, filling our minds simultaneously with memories and with hopes, with recollections and with anticipations, with remembrances and with dreams.

It’s a pivotal time, a hinge time, if I may say it that way, a beginning-all-over-again time, New Years is, and we need that.

For some of us, maybe all of us, there are somethings back there we’re not real proud of...aren’t there for you? THERE ARE FOR ME.

There are qualities I’d like to erase, there are attitudes and tendencies I’d like to eliminate. I have to confess---

There are some specific deeds for which I know I need to atone. There is some mess, some garbage back there I need to clean up. HOW ABOUT YOU?

And then, in the other direction---There are changes and improvements I’d like to see...a new outlook, a new prospect, a new vista...a scrubbed off sense of meaning and purpose, a renovated sense of motivation, a purged conscience, a fresh vision of life as a significant undertaking....

WHO DOESN’T NEED THIS? Who wouldn’t be better off with the slate wiped clean and a new, completely unspotted record book in which to make new entries? I know I would.

Who is there among us, young or old, novice or venerable, who doesn’t know and lament, in some way the intolerable burden of past error, and who doesn’t crave for a chance, through God’s mercy, to begin all over again with all the smudges erased?

At Annual Conference in Methodist tradition, dating back to the days of John Wesley himself, the character of every minister is passed, every year. It can be handled perfunctorily, of course, but it’s not a perfunctory matter. Originally every individual preacher’s name was called out loud---now in the interest of time the D.S. answers for all the ministers of his District---but the old way was for each name to be read, one by one, and someone, usually the Presiding Elder, would be poised to respond: “Bishop, nothing against him.”

Call it an antiquated practice, if you like, more at home in the 18^th Century than the 20^th, but there’s something magnificent about it...the declaration of the Conference that this preacher’s character is clean, blameless. If there was something there cloudy before, it’s been dealt with. He, or she, bears the mark and the seal of ecclesiastical endorsement, and is at least morally fit to be sent to his next appointment. NOTHING AGAINST HIM.

Well, in a sense, this is what Communion is all about. What a great thing! This is what Communion is all about. This is why we celebrate Communion, as often as we can, because this is what Christianity is all about.

FOR JESUS’ SAKE....THROUGH CHRIST, THERE IS OPPORTUNITY TO BEGIN AGAIN. THE SLATE CAN ALWAYS BE WIPED CLEAN. God, through Christ, declares in these elements, “Nothing against him.”

Now, don’t hear that wrong...don’t misunderstand. It doesn’t mean that what’s on the slate is inconsequential.

It doesn’t mean that God just blithely disregards it, that He doesn’t care. What it means is precisely that HE DOES CARE. He cared enough to do something drastic to help us put it together again.

How much does He care? How much does He love? LOOK! His broken body, His very life blood poured out.

This is what these elements represent. They become more than mere physical objects as we handle them and remember. The body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ given for you that we might know tangibly the length to which He’ll go to bring us home.

It’s His gift. I hope I’m not being presumptuous when I say it’s His JOY.

There is a new chance, there is a clean slate, there is forgiveness, and restoration, and reconciliation...for Jesus’ sake.

And through our receiving Him in surrender, through our receiving Him with empty, open hands, we can let His cleansing and fresh beginning take place in the depths of our being.

Come now and let it happen in you. Leave here at the altar whatever needs to be gotten rid of from your past....And allow the grace of His incredible acceptance to permeate your soul and body as you receive these tokens of His sacrifice.

It can be for you a new year, a new beginning, a new life...through Christ our Lord.