The Gift of the Sacraments: Communion
Some of my earliest childhood memories of worship center on the sacrament of Holy Communion. I was probably 5 or 6 when my mom had a conversation with me about the meaning of communion. Until that time, I sat in worship but never shared in the taking of the bread and cup of communion. I’m not sure what sparked the conversation. It may have been my expression of the desire to participate in the sacrament. But whatever the reason, we had a conversation where my mom shared with me in the simplest of terms the heart of the sacrament – that the bread represented Jesus and his life given for our salvation, for our forgiveness, for our healing, and the cup represented his blood shed for us in love on the cross. She wanted to be sure I had some basic understanding of what I was doing before I participated in it.
Sometime after that conversation, I participated in communion for the first time, and I remember that moment so well. I remember holding the little cube of bread and the little cup of juice and feeling overwhelmed with the sense that I was participating in something big, something important, even something holy, though as I child, I would not have used that word “holy”. But I realize now that is what I was feeling – a sense of the holy mystery that we encounter in the bread and the cup of Christ. I felt awed by the love of Jesus as I held that bread and that little cup. I felt a part of something big, something bigger than I could fully understand but something of which I was very much a part.
What is amazing and holy about the gift of the sacraments of holy communion and baptism is their power to communicate the extraordinary love and grace of God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through very ordinary, tangible things. Bread becomes more than ordinary bread. Ordinary bread has the power to nourish and sustain our bodies. Through Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit, communion bread has the power to nourish and sustain our souls.
The cup has the power to quench our physical thirst. The cup of Christ, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, has the power to quench the deep thirst of our hearts and souls. Ordinary water has the power to wash us clean. The waters of baptism have the power to wash our hearts and souls clean, to renew us, to empower us for new and never-ending life. And the power of these sacraments to nourish and forgive and renew and sustain us doesn’t stop with the individual. They work in us together, as the body of Christ, making us into the living reflection of Christ in the world.
“Ordinary Things, Extraordinary Grace” is the focus of our next, short sermon series where we will explore the depths of what the sacraments mean to us and what God does for us and in us through them. This Sunday we will be thinking about Holy Communion as we celebrate World Communion Sunday. If you are worshipping with us online, you will want to set the table in your home so that you can share in the sacrament of communion with your church family. Next Sunday, we will focus on the sacrament of baptism. There are so many ways that we experience the grace of God – more than I can name. But the sacraments of communion and baptism are the unique, specific practices where we trust God’s grace to show up and work in us every time we participate in them. Our Book of Discipline refers to these sacraments as “outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace.”
As you prepare for worship this Sunday, I invite you to remember the first time you participated in Holy Communion. What do you remember about that experience? What does the experience of Holy Communion mean to you now? How does it nourish your soul? I pray you will join us for worship this Sunday, either online or in-person, where we will gather around the table of once again and be nourished by their extraordinary grace present in these ordinary things.