What Happens in Communion?

Our scripture is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 23 to 28.

1 Corinthians 11:23–28

For I received from the Lord what I also pass on to you.

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given

thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this whenever you drink it. in remembrance of me.

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So then whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy.

Manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Steve Cornell tells that that

two things about Communion Sunday stood out for him when he was a kid.

First, he said he knew it would be a long service because the pastor had no

intention of cutting short his sermon for the communion. So settle in.

Second, he was afraid because of his deep voice, the pastor would always make

a strong point of reading our scripture for that day from his King James Version.

And he would speak about guilt, the body and blood of Jesus,

damnation, and even death itself, if you took the elements with an impure heart.

Communion can be a strange experience for many, even believers,

but maybe even more so for visitors and non-believers.

It can also be a time when we don't even really take it for its serious worth.

One speaker tells the story of a friend of his who attended worship the very

first time, and it was a communion Sunday, when they called people to receive

the elements. He thought it

was pretty cool that they were taking a break in the service for a snack.

So you can imagine the shock when this person serving communion saw the man

rip off a handful full of bread, eat it, and then drink not one individual cup of juice, but four.

Drinking one after the other, the guests didn't quite understand why they used such a little cup.

From the outset, looking in, communion can be a very strange,

frightening, confusing, and even uncomfortable event.

It's a bunch of people standing in a line to take a little piece of bread and

a little cup of grape juice that's not even big enough to test the taste of

and say they're eating the body and blood of Christ.

But there's a reason why followers of Jesus have gathered around this table for over 2,000 years.

Today, we're going to take a closer look at Holy Communion, what it was and

what it does. Communion is a sacrament.

A sacrament is considered a holy rite, a holy ritual.

The early church borrowed this word sacrament from the Roman army.

A recruit for the Roman army became a soldier by undergoing a sacramentum or an initiation rite,

which included taking an oath of office and being branded behind the ear with

a number of his troop, the number of his legion,

that resulted in new responsibilities as a soldier and new advantages, as well as a sore neck.

Soldiers live better than the average citizen, and veterans receive special

privileges and benefits.

The church chose the word sacrament because community is a rite or a ritual

that is simultaneously a spiritual and a physical act.

And in that way, the one taking part in the sacrament simultaneously receives

new responsibilities—let me say that again,

the one participating in the sacrament takes on new responsibilities as well

as new spiritual status before God.

A sacrament is basically an outward or visible sign of an inward change in a

person's life, and communion is one of two sacraments that we observe in the

Free Methodist Church, the other one being baptism.

Whether something is necessary sacrament is determined by two simple questions. Did Jesus do it?

And did Jesus encourage us to do it? Communion was given to us by Jesus during

the Passover celebration on his last days here before he was crucified.

It was during the Last Supper, what we call the Last Supper,

which was the Passover meal, and which was the last meal before they entered

the Passover holiday, the special Sabbath.

Jesus changed the focus of the meaning of the Passover bread and wine with these

words, take and eat, this is my body.

The loaf or flat cake of bread that he would have used for the one representative, his,

body was the fourth of the loaves that they used in the Seder meal, the Passover meal.

And it was the one signifying a Messiah to come, one who would give his life for the people.

The cup was the last cup of the meal that was remembering that the Messiah would

come into Jerusalem and redeem the people.

So after he took the bread, he took the cup, and when he had given thanks,

he gave it to them and said, drink from this, all of you.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

It's a new covenant that God had made with man, a new covenant,

contrary, not contrary, but replacing the old covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Paul's letter to Corinth is the oldest book in the New Testament and written before.

All four Gospels, this letter to the Corinthians provides an early glimpse into the early church.

What we see from Paul's letter is the Corinthians played a very important role

in the life of the church from the very beginning.

They were one of the first churches that Paul established on his missionary journeys.

According to Paul's writings, they had all sorts of issues,

one of which was thinking that since they professed their faith in Jesus and

were assured of eternal life, They could keep on living in their life of sin

and sensual pleasure that Corinth was known for.

As long as they had accepted Jesus, they could continue on in their life of sin.

They could say that they were saved, but continue to live in sin.

Some of this dysfunction also had to do with how they were treating each other in communion.

Back then, communion took place during a communal meal, a time when they all

gathered together and had a meal together.

And some wealthy Corinthians had turned this gathering into an excuse to eat

too much and to drink too much, to get drunk,

leaving little left over for

their employees or their slaves or their servants who really needed it.

Paul wrote this to address these and other issues.

You see what had happened? The wealthy owners, business owners,

would come to this meal ahead of everybody else, And then when everybody else

got off of work and were allowed to come,

they would get the leftovers of the communal meal.

So we're going to look at some of these things. What does communion mean?

What happens in communion?

The first thing we see is that in communion, during communion,

we participate in Christ's death.

Now, does that mean everyone gets slain on Sunday morning when we take communion?

Well, not physically, hopefully, prayerfully.

If you do, let us know. But anyway, we participate in his death.

We participate in his death in dying to the sin that has come over us,

because what Christ did is he replaces us.

It says in there, for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup,

you proclaim or agree with the Lord's death until he comes.

Communion isn't just something we do in memory of Jesus, But somehow,

by receiving communion, we're kind of caught up in the work of Jesus on the

cross right now in the presence.

Paul also said later, I die to self daily, and I suffer for Christ in these things.

So in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 18, Paul asks, Is not the cup of thanksgiving

1 Corinthians 10:18

for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?

And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

When we take communion, we respond to Jesus' call to die to ourselves and to sin.

And so one of the questions we need to ask when we come to this table is,

what needs to die in me so that I may be like Christ?

What things need to be put aside in my life?

What things am I doing need to be put aside so that I may be like Christ?

What self-serving ways in me need to be removed before I can participate with God's body and blood?

The second thing we see is we experience the presence of Christ.

These ordinary everyday elements become vessels for the very real presence of

Jesus and his sacrificial work on

the cross to meet us in the physical and tangible way. It's not a snack.

You can do that later on Sunday afternoon when you're watching the Cubs.

That alone should slow us down a bit.

When we come to this table, the very presence of Jesus is here with us.

Jesus said, wherever two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of you in your presence.

The Holy is always with us, but the mystery about communion,

that Jesus himself meets us in this time.

He comes and he's here in his presence as we continue to remember and participate

in the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we think of it in this way, is there anything else, anywhere else you'd

rather be than in the presence of Christ?

That's why Paul said that to mistreat the communion meal is to mistreat Jesus himself.

Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will

be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And when we encounter the presence of God in the presence of Jesus, it changes us.

I wonder when we take, participate in the Lord's body and blood as we do in

communion, I wonder how often we allow God to search our hearts and minds during

this time and say, Lord, is there anything in me,

any wicked way in me, that is not pleasing to you and not representative of

the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?

We're participating with him. We experience the presence of God.

And then third, we receive God's grace.

When we take this bread and drink this cup, we are receiving the benefits offered

to us through Christ's sacrificial death, his grace and his forgiveness.

That's why John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement,

referred to communion as a means of grace.

This isn't just a snack, and it isn't something we do to simply remember Jesus.

The Lord's Supper presents us with an opportunity to encounter the grace of

God offered to us through Jesus Christ in a very real way.

It is not the saving faith, a saving grace. It's the representative of that.

It's a sustaining grace. It's an empowering grace.

It's a grace that helps us to know the life and love of Jesus Christ.

So what is grace? Grace is God's unmerited favor or an undeserved gift of love

and forgiveness from the certain punishment of the death sentence for our crime.

It's given. it's not earned and the only way to experience grace is to receive it.

The author, Brennan Manning, told the story of Fiorello LaGuardia,

who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression,

was called by adoring New Yorkers, the Little Flower,

because he was only five foot four inches tall and always wore a carnation in his lapel.

He was a colorful character, this LaGuardia was, who used to ride the New York City fire trucks,

raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball

games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the

radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids.

Manning told the story that on one bitterly cold night in January of 1935,

Mayor LaGuardia showed up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city.

LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and said he'd take over the bench himself.

Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him,

charged with stealing a loaf of bread.

She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had deserted her,

her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving,

but the shopkeeper from whom the bread was stolen refused to drop the charges.

The shopkeeper told the mayor, it's a real bad neighborhood, your honor.

She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.

McGuarty sighed. Then he turned to the woman and said, I'm sorry,

but I do have to punish you.

So the law makes no exceptions. Your sentence is a $10 fine or 10 days in jail.

And then he reached into his pocket, took out a $10 bill and paid the woman's fine.

But what happened next was the real part of the story.

He turned to the crowd in the court, including the shopkeeper, and said,

I'm going to fine everyone in this courtroom, 50 cents, for living in a town

where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat.

Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.

So the bailiff went through, collected $47.50.

Cents that was turned over to the bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf

of bread, not even worth a dime, to feed her starving children.

Fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner.

While some 70 people, petty criminals, people with traffic violations,

and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the

privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.

That's grace. That is unmerited favor.

That is the mayor paying the fine for somebody else, and on the other hand,

fining everybody else for living in a world that people have to starve.

The mayor paid the penalty for the woman's crime and turned around and blessed her in addition.

Grace blesses us when we don't deserve it. Grace is received when we fall down and we fail.

When we fall flat on our faces, when we are exposed and are found out for our

wickedness and our sin, and forgiveness and restoration is granted to us and meets us.

In fact, it is grace that finds us out.

Grace puts us in the middle of the mess that we live in and offers us a hand.

To be lifted up. And grace takes away the power and control that fear,

sin, and failure have over us.

We do not have to live in sin anymore.

We do not have to live in fear. We can live in the grace and power of our Lord

Jesus Christ that was exemplified to us, not only on the cross,

but in the resurrection and in life that he lived and continues to live.

Grace frees us from our baggage. You know, I don't know how many of you have

gone through airports with,

backpacks on your back to put in the overhead compartments of the thing,

but by the time you get down to that gate that you're supposed to be at and

they've changed it three or four times and you've walked to three or four other gates to go there,

by that time you think your backpack has rocks in it.

You kind of think you're in basic training again, right?

It just seems like it's ever so, but grace takes away the fears and powers and

control over us, so we don't have to run anymore.

We drop the backpacks of sin that are weighing us down, and when we come to

this table, we admit we are broken, and yet we need ourselves ready.

We need to make ourselves ready to receive God's grace. Grace calls us beyond ourselves.

It speaks a fresh word into a life. It tells us who we are created for and what we are created to be.

To the woman who was caught in adultery, Jesus said, go and leave your life of sin.

He doesn't say your sins are forgiven.

In fact, he didn't even say that. He said, neither do I condemn you.

Now go and leave your life of sin.

This is why Paul says in.

Romans 2, verse 4, God's kindness or God's grace leads us to redemption and

Romans 2:4

repentance. It leads us to ask forgiveness.

It leads us to a restored and transformed life.

God's unmerited, undeserved love and acceptance moves us beyond where we are

and points us in new direction.

Yes, Jesus will take us where he finds us, but he doesn't leave us there.

And we shouldn't expect him to leave us there, and we shouldn't want him to leave us there.

We need to be moving on. N.T. Wright says Jesus wants not just to influence us, but to rescue us.

Not just to inform us, but to heal us. Not just to give us something to think about, but to feed us.

That's what this meal communion is all about.

Communion grounds us in the truth that God loves us just as we are,

but God also loves us enough not to leave us that way.

It can be way too easy to forget about what is true and lose our contact with

the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit and His grace. I heard a story about

a four-year-old boy who was his parents' firstborn and only son.

His mother was pregnant again, and the little boy was very excited about having a new brother or sister.

Within a few hours of his parents bringing a new baby girl home from the hospital,

They asked if he could be alone with the baby and with the door shut.

That makes parents nervous, right? It made the parents a little bit uneasy,

but they had installed an intercom system.

When they found out they were having another child, they installed the system

in the child, the new baby's room.

And so they let the little boy go into the baby's room, shut the door,

and then they listened to the intercom in the bedroom.

As they listened, they heard the little boy say to his three-day-old sister,

You just came here from heaven.

Tell me what God is like. I've almost forgotten.

Communion is our opportunity to have a fresh encounter, a fresh reminder of

who God is, to be in his presence, to be reminded we are loved and accepted and made new.

We receive grace from that which is greater than us. You cannot receive grace

from somebody who is lesser than you.

In a contract, when you receive grace, when you have—I mean,

how many of you have, well, credit cards, you know those things?

When you get your bill, you have a grace period in which to pay that bill,

right? It's called a grace period.

That is a period of time that you can pay your bill without penalty.

Now, does that mean that the credit card company is lower than you or higher than you?

Unfortunately, that credit card company has more power over us than we think.

They are the only ones that can grant that grace to us.

You cannot grant grace to somebody if you are less than they are.

Communion in the Freemathist Church is open communion. You do not need to be

a member of our church to participate with us in this communion.

But you do need to be a member of the body of Jesus Christ.

You'd be born again. You need to know that your sins are forgiven and that you

are going on and releasing and removing those things of sin in you,

allowing God to cleanse you and transform you into the life.

The first step in being put back together is admitting you're broken and in need of a Savior.

The first step is admitting that you have sinned and deserve only punishment.

And then, while we are all broken, we know we're all sinners or have sinned,

for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we accept that redemption

that comes through the blood of Christ.

That's what we're exhibiting today, not just as a reminder, but as a participation

in the blood of Christ as we experience his presence.

Heavenly Father, as we participate in the Lord's Supper, the communion which

is talking about all of us being in communion with you and being redemption,

we celebrate what you did on that night so many thousands of years ago in the Last Supper.

But Father, we ask that you would help us to be transformed into your image,

so that we may live out the body and blood of Jesus. Amen.