Before the Lord’s Table - Matthew 26:26-29
[29th September 2024]
I think we would all hope that our time here at this conference would be a time of refreshing and spiritual growth. When we talk about aids to spiritual growth, we often list off things like: worship, personal prayer, bible reading, witnessing, fellowship, and perhaps even the exercise of the spiritual gifts, all very good things …… but I believe that communion, the Lord’s Table, is ‘ground zero’ for spiritual growth. Eating and drinking, sharing bread and wine around this table. Remembering Christ’s death until he comes … because we easily forget about its centrality in the intensity of a conference. It is a reminder of why we are here, and the foundation for our our ministry.
We of course desire Christ’s presence at our conference, and in a communion service, in a mysterious way, we DO come into Christ’s presence. No matter how we might feel, at this table we receive the promise that our sins are forgiven … and that we can stand in God’s presence without shame because of the cross. The Bible is the written Word of God; Holy Spirit inspired preaching is the spoken Word of God; and communion bread and wine are the visible Word of God. There is a sense that we really can see Him among us today.
Hear these words of institution from Matthew ch26 …
Mt 26:26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Taking communion ‘worthily’ is not a matter as to whether we have confessed all our sins, which is something we can never fully do anyway. We come not because we are worthy … but because we are unworthy.
Who are ready to take communion? Those who believe these words of Jesus:
“Drink of it, all of you 28 this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
With a relatively large number of people gathering here this morning there will be a mixture of emotions and feelings and sense of the presence of God. Some come to this conference thrilled by the experience of God at work this past year, others come with secret, crushing, disappointments and even spiritual barrenness. But this bread is the same bread and the same wine to us all …. whether we are ecstatic with the sense of God’s presence or in the depth of despondency. We will all eat of the same unchanging loaf, irrespective of the state of our Christian souls.
The Lord’s Table is a gift from God to us, it is God who is the active party here this morning, we bring nothing, we just receive. This is a real spiritual transaction. It is in a mysterious way a real food for the soul no matter where we feel we are with God. The bread and wine don’t change, it remains bread and wine. It is a visible word from God to us. One loaf, at the end of the meal this one loaf will spread around the room, uniting us in the one Christ - we are thus woven together, as our conference theme beseeches God for us to be.
But for an organisation like ours, there is a wee nag in the Lord’s Table, in the institution of Mt 26, because I failed to read out that 4th and final verse, v29:
29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.”
It seems that Jesus eagerly awaits that day when he can drink the fruit of the vine with us after his return … but we know that that event can only happen after the gospel is fully preached to all the nations.
As a new worker in England in the 1980s we were busy celebrating the 75th anniversary of our organisation’s founding with the call to complete the missionary task with the motto, “Bring back King Jesus!” We all had little crown lapel badges celebrating this motto. Here we are 36 years later, there is still a lot to be done. However it is only with everything represented here at this table, bedded down in our hearts, that we can go into all the world and preach the gospel.