Thoughts on Communion

The first Sunday of the month, I took communion. No great surprise that; communion is usually served the first Sunday of the month in many churches. 

But for some reason, this communion reached me deeply. It wasn’t the message (though that was good). It wasn’t the music--though that was quite good as well. It wasn’t even the act of taking communion proper; I’ve taken communion for a good many years now in a number of settings ranging from one done in a serviceman’s ministry I belonged to at Great Lakes to a Catholic church in Concord, CA, and a lot of places in between. (Okay, in all fairness I knew at the time that Catholics practice closed communion. I took it anyway.) 

No, what brought me comfort this day was the ritual of communion. In the United Methodist Church, we often start communion with the Great Thanksgiving (also known as Word and Table 1): 

The Lord be with you. And also with you. 
Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. 
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

The liturgy, of course, continues on from there. But for some reason, it was the mechanics--the doing of the liturgy, as many have for years, decades, and centuries before me, and will do long after I’ve been translated to glory, should God tarry--that spoke to me. 

The bread and cup, that representation and reminder of what Christ did on the cross for you, me, and the rest of the world is not like anything else in any other religion. Just a quick look at the Wikipedia page shows only Christian references (in terms of religion, at least). 

“Take, eat, and be comforted; Drink, and remember too
That this is my body and precious blood shed for you, shed for you”

(From the musical “Celebrate Life”)

The thought that others around the church universal were taking communion-- many of whom were using the Great Thanksgiving as well--and of those who had gone before, using the same liturgy spoke volumes to me that day. I can’t really explain why I found it so comforting. 

But take comfort in it I did. 

On further reflection, I contemplated that sometimes it is the actual act of taking communion that speaks. After all, this is the remembrance of the Last Supper. It is the revisiting of the Lord Jesus Christ’s last meal before His crucifixion, and all that means to the Christian. Sometimes it is the bread and cup itself, and partaking of it reminds us of the Wedding Feast to come. 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of

witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that

clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race

that is set before us.” (Heb 12:1, NRSV)

And yes, sometimes it is the mechanics of why we do what we do. That reminder of the great cloud of witnesses, those saints and loved ones that have gone before, looking down and cheering us on to the finish line, as we try to run the race. I can imagine my grandparents, Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, Billy Sunday, my Dad, D.L. Moody, my “maiden aunts”, John Wesley, and everyone else translated to glory looking down on us...all of us. Wesley’s own thoughts on this verse: “A great multitude, tending upward with a holy swiftness, of the power of faith.”

It is, in the final analysis, that power of faith that carries us. The mechanics of the liturgy reminded me of that power of faith that day. 

Enough for now.