“Joyfully we join you at your table.”
The lyrics to Syke Peterson’s new song, Keep the Feast, caught me off guard and drew me into memories.
For most of my life, communion was anything but joyful. In fact, the best adjective I could use to describe it was ‘terrifying’. Think Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God imagery, the spider dangling by a thread over the pit of hell. No one ever told me it wasn’t supposed to be like that.
I remember watching other children in our church take communion and vaguely understanding that I wasn’t allowed to do that because I wasn’t good enough to. Church ordinances were a confusing thing in our home. On the one hand, I was repeatedly being admonished for not being baptized yet, but on the other hand, I was never allowed to. When I finally got baptized at the age of 8, I was still not allowed to take communion.
As I got older, I grew to understand why. If I took communion with any sin in my heart, any rebellion against my parents, any unforgiveness towards my bratty siblings, or even the slightest glimmer of nonchalance, I was dead meat.
I was 15 the first time I had communion. I had wanted to take it the time before, but my father was out of town and I hadn’t been able to request his permission to start the practice. I remember being in the church bathroom before the service and telling my mom I wanted to take it. She told me if I wanted to I could since we both knew my dad would probably let me but if I wanted to really ‘honor the heart of my father’ I would sit this one out and wait to obtain his permission. Like the good Baptist girl I did, but keenly remember the embarrassment I felt when the usher offered me the plate and I shook my head. Did he think I wasn’t saved?
If I thought the embarrassment of not taking communion was bad, the real thing was even worse. I remember getting lectured the whole way to church in the car, while my parents made sure my heart was ‘in the right place’. “If I even see the tiniest smile or smirk from you, I will snatch the cup out of your hand!” my father threatened.
I remember one thing about IFB communion very clearly. My mouth was always so dry from nervousness that I could barely swallow the wafer. I didn’t want to chew it too loudly either—that would be disrespectful–so I remember it dissolving slowly and stinging in the back of my throat. I also remember hurriedly confessing all my sins during the prayer before communion, promising God never to do any of them again.
Was I worthy enough? Was there a sin I had done that I wasn’t remembering?
The dread all day leading up to it. The panic. The terror. The relief after it was done.
Was I the only one? Maybe it was just a me-thing. I went on social media and asked my followers, many of who came from IFB backgrounds. I was overwhelmed with the number of responses in a short amount of time. No, it was not just me and yes, communion was terrifying. Robert recalls his time in Bible college, where he panicked while taking communion and held it in his mouth, running into the parking lot to spit it out while he begged God to forgive him for being unworthy. Shelby compared her experience with communion to Russian Roulette: “If I got everything confessed, I’d live. If I missed something I could be struck dead.”
We were all afraid of being stuck down by an angry God over a bit of cracker and Welch’s grape juice.
As I read the responses and pondered, the irony of the whole thing hit me. Communion is about remembering. And what are we remembering? The Gospel: that we are no longer sinners in the hands of an angry God, since we have put our faith in Jesus, who has taken the wrath of God for us. There is no wrath left for us. If we believe the Gospel, no matter how broken we are, in the Gospel we are free from the condemnation, penalty, and power of sin.
What was I focusing on when I took communion? Death. Judgment. The wrath of God, about
to be emptied on me. What a good or bad person I was.
Not the Gospel.
I think for many of us, communion was focused on us and our worthiness rather than the Lamb of God, through whose blood we are righteous.
What is communion supposed to be?
Well to start with, the Greek word for communion is koinonia and means “sharing” or “fellowship” and is often used in the context of sharing a meal.
The very first communion was at the last supper, the Passover feast where Jesus shared a meal with his disciples before his death. Here’s the passage, just so it is fresh in our minds.
As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said,“Take and eat it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said,“Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. But I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. -- Matthew 26:26-30 (CSB)
Before we tackle the warnings in 1 Corinthians 11, I want us to immerse ourselves in the Gospel implications of communion here: it is the key to understanding 1 Corinthians 11.
In its simplest form, communion is a Gospel centered remembrance of the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Son of God, and a celebration of what his sacrifice means for us, while looking forward to the promise that we will someday feast with him face to face.
Here’s the longer version.
Communion was foreshadowed by the Messiah multiplying wine and bread.
Most of us are familiar with the seven signs in the book of John, where Jesus showcases his deity through a series of miracles, each one of them laden with deeper Gospel implications.
When we read about the first communion, the first thing to point out is that there is an instant parallel between how Jesus “took the bread, blessed and broke it” and the accounts of the feeding of 5,000 and 3,000 in the Gospels. For example, Mark 6:41 says, “And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the disciples.” (NASB)
The miracle of the multiplied loaves and fishes was a foreshadowing to communion and the meaning behind it: that we are unable to provide enough to satisfy ourselves, but Jesus is able to supply everything that is needed for salvation and even more. Just like the disciples were not able to come up with enough food to feed the crowd and had to rely on Jesus to supply what was needed, Jesus himself supplied the sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of God and satisfy the hunger in our souls. “They all ate and were satisfied,” the Gospel accounts record (Matthew 14:20, Mark 6:42). Jesus explained the spiritual application behind this miracle later on. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them.“No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.” John 6:35 (CSB)
In communion we are celebrating that the Messiah has provided enough for our salvation, and not just enough, but more. If we believe the Gospel, we can be satisfied and never have to be spiritually hungry again.
While this application may seem fairly straightforward, the next one is a little less commonly known.
For many of us Baptists, the miracle at the wedding feast of Cana was a complication in the Bible, where we had to explain why Jesus created gallons and gallons of grape juice and how it was NOT alcoholic. I remember listening to lengthy messages on this miracle, all of which were focused on the main point of John 2, which is that Jesus hates alcohol and only loves grape juice. And then the passage ends with this phrase that always threw me for a loop: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11).
Why was this miracle so important? How did creating grape juice reveal Jesus’s glory? Why did he choose this confusing situation to be the first of his signs?
I only got it after I destructed from IFB enough to (reluctantly) acknowledge that they were not serving up Welch’s and that it was in fact, real alcohol. After watching the Chosen, this miracle made more sense to me, but there’s an even deeper meaning to all of this than simply a distraught family who is about to be embarrassed in front of their guests.
(Full disclosure here, I am totally borrowing from Will Campbell’s sermon on John 2 in the next several paragraphs, so if you want to hear an excellent sermon on John 2 and how it relates to the Gospel, here’s the link.)
We were definitely never taught this in IFB, but one of things promised about the coming of the Messiah was that he would bring an abundance of wine.
Genesis 49:10-11 prophesies about Jesus in this way:
“The scepter will not depart from Judah
or the staff from between his feet
until he whose right it is comes
and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.
He ties his donkey to a vine,
and the colt of his donkey to the choice vine.
He washes his clothes in wine
and his robes in the blood of grapes.” -- Genesis 49:10-11 (CSB)
While this may seem a little confusing, it is basically saying that the Son of David, the Messianic ruler from the line of Judah, would bring with him so much wine that he could wash his clothes in it or tie his donkey to a grape vine and not care if the donkey broke the vine or ate grapes.
Amos prophesies about this also.
“Look, the days are coming —
this is the Lord’s declaration —
when the plowman will overtake the reaper
and the one who treads grapes,
the sower of seed.
The mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and all the hills will flow with it.” -- Amos 9:13 (CSB)
There are numerous other passages pointing to the Messiah providing wine (Isaiah 25:6-9; Jer.31:12; Hos.14:7). So when Jesus creates wine at the wedding feast of Cana, he is not only fulfilling the prophecies about the Messiah but loudly signaling that the Messiah is here and the time for celebration has begun.
When Jesus passes the cup around and says, “Drink from it, all of you..This…is poured out for many…” we are again reminded of the abundance we obtain in the Gospel, where Jesus provided for us in an impossible situation, just like he did at the wedding feast of Cana.
We can even be comforted that in hard and difficult situations (like the hunger of the crowds or the embarrassment and panic of the wedding family) Jesus may be glorifying himself in a way that we cannot yet understand.
When you take communion, remember that Jesus is enough. He provides, he satisfies, he gives an abundance and you possess all of it in the Gospel.
Communion was fulfilled through Jesus’s blood being poured out and his body broken
While communion was foreshadowed in the miracles of Jesus, it was ultimately fulfilled through his sacrifice on the cross. Jesus highlights that ‘this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out…for the forgiveness of sins.” (vs. 28).
Through his death on the cross, Jesus fulfills the promise in Jerimiah 31:31-34 where God promises a new covenant where He will “forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” (vs 34, ESV).
Unlike the Mosaic covenant, which the Israelites repeatedly broke their end of, this new covenant is established on a completely different foundation: the death of Jesus, who is the mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 8:15). If the new covenant was a bargain between God and us with us having to promise to do certain things and not do others, we would break it just like the Israelites and none of us would be saved. However, this new covenant is built on “better promises” (Heb 8:6).
Just like the High Priest was responsible to offer the Atonement sacrifice to keep Israel’s covenant with God, Jesus has now become our high priest and has offered himself as a payment for sin, once and for all. If you believe in Jesus, you enter into the covenant, but the amazing thing is that the conditions of the covenant are already completely met in Jesus. He is the one who fulfills it, entirely. There is nothing else you can do to add to his sacrifice–it is already complete.
"For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says:
This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days the Lord says,
I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds,
and I will never again remember
their sins and their lawless acts.
Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus — he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh ) — and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful." -- Hebrews 10:14-23 (CSB)
Communion is supposed be a celebration in remembrance of everything we have in this new covenant, in which we did nothing and Jesus did everything and we get all the benefits. Our response should be gratitude for the crazy goodness of God and love for him because of his undeserved grace to us. Not terror.
We are remembering that Jesus’s body was tortured and torn apart so we would could be reconciled to God. Jesus emptied the cup of God’s wrath and poured his blood out so we could be healed. Jesus has washed us clean and obtained forgiveness for all of our sins and God now sees us as righteous.
This is what we remember.
So here are a few questions:
If Jesus tells us to enter boldly into this covenant with assurance, why would we celebrate it with terror?
If Jesus has obtained forgiveness for us and we are righteous before God, why would we tremble to approach him worried that we forgot to confess a sin?
If Jesus has poured out his blood for our healing from sin’s condemnation, why would we be frantically making promises to never do certain sins again instead of resting in what he has promised?
If Jesus’s body was broken for us, why would we be afraid to take communion as broken people recognizing we are not complete without Christ?
More on this later, but I hope you are starting to see that if communion is a remembrance of the Gospel, then it’s ok for us to come to the table as broken, sinful, not yet healed human beings. We are trusting in the Gospel, which says that you can come to Jesus broken and struggling and sinful and scared and there is mercy and grace for you.
The Gospel does not suddenly change when you put the cracker into your mouth and swallow the juice. It’s still the same and we can believe it the same, without fear or terror or panic about being too broken or unworthy.
The Gospel is that we are all unworthy and only Jesus is worthy. And you are made righteous through his blood.
Take communion and believe the Gospel.
His blood was poured out for your healing from trauma and your endless fight with an addiction. His body was broken so you could be made complete and so you could run into the arms of a loving Father– safe and cherished.
The Gospel is not for people who are worthy and have got it all together. Jesus came for the sick, not those who are well. Communion is the same.
Take it and remember the Gospel: that you are only saved through Jesus, who is faithful in his covenant keeping and lives to make intercession for you.
Communion will be celebrated in the future at the wedding feast of the Lamb.
There is one more thing we should remember when we take communion and it is a joyful one.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
We are celebrating a future date when our healing will be complete, our struggle with sin over, and we will be one with Christ and will bask in his love and favor forever, like flowers growing towards the light.
Every longing you have ever had will be satisfied. All the grief you have ever carried will be gone. All the questions you had and the doubts you felt will be answered. It will be an amazing day.
At the wedding feast of the Lamb, described in the last chapters of Revelation, Jesus has promised he will drink again with us in his Father’s kingdom (Mat 26:29). Our communion, or fellowship, will be perfect, as we will stand in perfect bodies and raise toast after toast to the King.
Like Paul said, when we take communion, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. When he comes, the communion will continue.
So when we take communion, we take it with hope. We take it with the hope that one day we will be taking it in the presence of the Lamb, fully restored and fully healed, with the one who is fully worthy.
Take communion and remember the Gospel: Jesus has promised you eternal life. Drink it as the promise of something to come. Eat it to celebrate his faithfulness, both now and everlasting.
It is notable that Jesus did not ask for a 10 minute prayer time for the disciples to all confess their sins before taking communion. He did not tell them that they would all run away from him in just a few hours and weren’t faithful enough or committed enough. He didn’t have them go to one another and share any secret bitterness or grudges they were holding. No one was terrified of falling over dead at the table. It was just a time of fellowship, intimately sharing a meal with Jesus, with a group of very imperfect people with plenty of sin and flaws who did not understand everything but trusted anyway.
Communion is supposed to be a cleansing experience–but not because we are expected to confess all our sins and promise never to do them again. We take communion boldly because we are remembering Jesus has already completely cleansed us. Communion is about us being holy–but not because we are attaining that in our own lives. We are holy because God the father sees us as completely righteous because of the ransom of the Son.
So when you take communion, what do you remember? Are you remembering the Gospel–that you are fully known and loved in Christ Jesus–or are you forgetting the Gospel and feeling like communion is a time of being known and condemned?
What do you remember, or rather, who do you remember? You or Jesus?
To be continued…
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