Communion

This coming Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  We invite anyone who has a saving relationship with Jesus to participate by taking a small piece of bread and a swallow of juice in a tiny cup.  We are called to prepare ourselves to receive communion.  The Bible warns against taking the body and blood in an unworthy manner.  And so we have often used the week prior to communion as a time to take an inventory of our lives and assess them against God’s will.  Unfortunately, this has left the impression that a Christian needs to be good enough to receive communion.  If there is sin in our lives that we aren’t addressing or if we haven’t lived up to biblical standards, we are disqualified from taking the Lord’s Supper.  

But this is all backwards!  Communion isn’t a sacrament just for obedient people who are living at the center of God’s will.  It is a sacrament for sinful, disobedient people who are grieved by their failures or are even unaware of them.  Communion is for people who don’t feel worthy to receive it.  It is a sacrament for people too dense to understand all the ways they fail.  We are invited to the meal completely by the grace of the One who provides it.  This is the irony of communion: we are the most qualified to receive it when we realize how unqualified we are to receive it.  So come to the table! Taste the glory of a gift that you aren’t worthy of, but are given anyway!