March 3, 2009: Now It Means Something To Me

My son Ben once asked me if I had ever changed my mind about anything big. He knew I was mystified by people who managed to dismiss convictions they once held dear even though they could not be bothered to articulate reasons for the change. I think he also perceived me as one who did not move easily from one spot to another.

But I have changed, everyone has, and though I had no good answer for him then I have been able to think of one now. Over the years I have done a U-turn on the value of participating in the Lord's Supper. Once it meant nothing to me; now it has become the centerpiece for my worship of God.

When I was very young, Communion annoyed me. In the church our family attended we celebrated it once a month after the service. When the sermon ended, I just wanted to go home and eat lunch and watch a game on TV. Communion stretched out the time spent sitting in that pew a whole 15 minutes as we waited for the plates to be passed: "Come on, let's chew the cracker and drink the thimble of grape juice so we can go already." Then we moved to a church where Communion was served just four times a year, and that seemed like an improvement.

But then in college I was blessed to attend a Brethren fellowship where we partook of the bread and the cup every Sunday. Communion there was not "tacked on" to the worship hour: it was part of a separate 45-minute service before Sunday School. We prayed quietly, sang a few hymns a cappella, listened to Scripture, confessed our faults, contemplated Christ, and ate and drank the symbols of him.

That was the start of my change in attitude. Now more than 25 years later I'm positively thankful for regular opportunities to partake of the Lord's Supper. Some reasons:

(1) It is an act of obedience that I can actually do without too much difficulty. I am one who finds the Christian life hard, who wishes it were easier to submit to God, whose conscience rightly reprimands both active iniquities and countless sins of omission. It is a relief for someone like me to see a commandment like "Do this in remembrance of me" and realize that it is an absolute piece of cake, a walk in the park, a fat pitch down the middle. Even I can obey this one! All I have to do is show up on Sunday and thank Jesus as I take the bread and drink the cup. Given that so many commandments are hard, isn't it a joy to have one that's a gimme, a two-inch putt?

(2) The Lord's Supper is a time when I am compelled to think of Jesus and honor him and thank him. Do I do that with appropriate regularity and discipline on my own? Probably not. Every day my head fills with thoughts that I know are vapid, mundane and insignificant. But by regularly participating in the Lord's Supper I guarantee that, at least once a month, a worthy thought will hold my attention: "Jesus Christ, righteous Son of God, died for me, unrighteous sinner. Praise be to him."

(3) It connects me to other believers like nothing else. Perhaps the most meaningful times of Communion I ever celebrated were in the home of an elderly Rumanian couple. The wife was blind, wheelchair-bound, diseased and soon to die. But how her face lit up when she heard my voice! And what an honor to share with her and her husband the tangible reminders of Christ! Outside of Christ it is hard to see how we would ever meet or have any connection at all. But in Holy Communion, when we directed our hearts not toward each other but toward Jesus, we found the Lord creating between us a mystic bond of fellowship that no earthly tie could mimic. I have also been privileged to find and revel in that same oneness of spirit in larger settings ranging from "High Church" Episcopal to "Low Church" Brethren to "Loud Church" Pentecostal.

If you are a Christian believer but somehow lack (as I once did) a "taste" for the Lord's Supper, then work to acquire it. May the Lord grant you grace to know the joy of remembering him in the bread and the cup.