“Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with one another.” ~ UMH A Service of Word and Table, page 7
I love the first Sunday in October because it is the day we celebrate World Communion Sunday! For those who have gone to church for a while, you’ll know Communion as that part of worship where we eat bread and drink juice that serve as the body and blood of Jesus. But what is communion really?
The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, or Eucharist, is one of the many ways we celebrate God’s grace and show our love for God. It is that special moment where we get to gather around the Lord’s table with all who follow Jesus and share in a holy meal together. We gather and give thanks, celebrate fellowship, remember God’s acts in the past and the present, offer ourselves to God in love, recognize and accept the work the Holy Spirit, and celebrate that Jesus will come again. We get to experience Jesus in real and tangible ways through the community around us, the scripture and story that is spoken, and in the bread and juice. We celebrate that God calls everyone to the table to experience grace and love, regardless of age, physical or mental ability, race, gender, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation.
We are all called to come to the Lord’s Table to experience God’s grace.
But what actually happens when we celebrate Holy Communion together?
Well first and foremost, we confess our sin before God and one another and hear assurance that our sins have indeed been forgiven. Then, we pardon the actions of others so that we might live in peace with one another. Then we offer ourselves to God as we pray “The Great Thanksgiving” together- a prayer that holds celebration and remembrance for all that God has done since before the world began to the work God has done through Jesus Christ to the work God is doing in our lives today to the celebration that is yet to come when Christ returns.
When we partake in the bread and juice, the body and blood of Jesus, we experience the presence of Christ, and receive sustenance for our lives as disciples. We partake in the bread and juice as a “the grace of his Spirit [is] conveyed to the souls of all the children of God” (John Wesley, “Sermon on the Mount-Discourse six,” III.11). In other words, our accepting the bread and juice opens up our hearts to the Holy Spirit to work deeply with in us and then in the world around us. As our final act of the celebration, we commit to “go into the world, in the strength of [God’s] spirit, to give ourselves for others” (UMH p 11).
Celebrating and partaking in this holy meal is how we receive, live in, and grow in grace and love. We can’t explain how it happens, but it does. I don’t know about you, but ever since I was a young disciple taking communion for the first time (as I did not enter church life until middle school) I could tell that this was something special that made a real difference in the way I felt and acted. I had no clue what was really happening, but I knew that I was participating in something that was way bigger than it seemed, and the experience was transforming me in ways I did not understand. It began to be something that was important to me, and that I wanted to partake in regularly so that I could feel that change, be renewed and restored for ministry.
What is your experience of Communion?
Blessings friends,
Pastor Nicole