At the end of today’s message, we’ll be receiving communion together. As the apostle Paul wrote, we partake in communion together to remember and to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
We do it to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made to undo everything that the devil did to corrupt God’s creation and to make a way to restore everything to the right way that it was created to be.
As we learned last week, Jesus came to re-enforce the foundations of His throne of righteousness and justice so that His grace might be able to be poured out to any willing to receive it.
Jesus made a way where there was no other way, then He reached out His hand to you and I to take us in. Jesus made a way for us to no longer be separated from Him, but reunited with Him as one. Jesus made a way for us to be filled with the Presence of God through the Holy Spirit.
Communion, fellowship, togetherness, oneness; it’s the Greek word koinōnia. Communion is remembering and celebrating and communicating and proclaiming that which we share in common.
Paul wrote:
Ephesians 4:1-13
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
One.
We may be different in just about every other way, but there is One who binds us together in perfect unity. One who is greater than any difference.
One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Communion helps us to remember and proclaim Jesus’ sacrifice that makes this Oneness all possible!
This Oneness is a product of God’s grace through which we also receive spiritual gifts that equip us to come together and form the church, the Body of Christ.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
(Psalm 68:18)
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Wow, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ! The Message translation states it this way:
He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.
What an amazing picture of what the church was created and purposes to be and how it is to function. Each of us unique and individuals, but moving rhythmically and easily with one another as we each fulfill our role and function in response to Jesus as we’re lead by His Holy Spirit within. That’s the church!
The apostle Paul described in great detail what it looks like for us to work together and to become the body of Christ, with Jesus as the head of His church, in 1 Corinthians. Just a brief overview is:
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Sure, some parts of the body are more closely connected and share more in common. Our fingers, for example. They spend a whole lot of time together. They don’t meet up with the toes very often, even though they are part of the same body.
However, if we slam our foot against something or if a toe gets itchy, our fingers go rushing in to help them out! When there’s a need, there is no discussion or consideration, our fingers immediately rush in to meet their need.
So it is in a church body. We’re all connected, we’re all needed, and we all have a part to play. Some roles are more obvious and visible. Others are more behind-the-scenes and supportive. However, they are all critically necessary parts. If any of them suffer or are missing, the whole body suffers as a result.
We all have spiritual gifts that equip and enable us to pour out God’s grace into the lives of others by meeting their needs.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Communion helps us to remember this reality as we share it together; celebrating our differences, but focusing on what we share in common. We have been brought together as a church body, as a church family, through a covenant with God.
It was not at all coincidental or accidental that the very first communion took place among Jesus and His twelve disciples at the last supper while they were eating the Passover meal.
The Passover itself was an annual meal that God’s people would eat to remember the night that death passed over them during the last plague against Egypt. Death passed over them all because they obediently placed the blood of a year-old, male lamb on their door posts in faith that if they do what God told them to do, that God would do what He said He would do.
This is covenant. God makes a promise to us and we respond to His promise by faith. God is faithful and always upholds His part of a covenant. When it comes to a covenant with God, we are the conditional part.
The Passover meal was celebrated as a remembrance of when God took His people by His hand and lead them out of Egyptian slavery into their deliverance and into His promised land. This promise was made generations beforehand to Abram. However, that very night, God’s people were released to go and to worship God freely and were blessed with the riches of Egypt as they left.
It was a remembrance of the first covenant that God made with mankind for their salvation. If they would remain faithful to God, live according to His word and His ways, and make animal sacrifices required to cover their sin when they fail to do so, He would save and deliver and heal and protect them and so much more.
God ordained priests from the tribe of Levi to be mediators between God and man. They gave themselves fully to worshipping God and to oversee the sacrifices and offerings being made to God.
God’s people just couldn’t stay faithful to Him, though. They kept rejecting Him and living lives the way that they wanted to and kept straying away from God. They kept replacing God with other gods and kept worshipping created things instead of the Creator. There was nothing wrong with this covenant, but it was not effective. It was not working.
The book of Hebrews explains so much about the transition from the old covenant that God made for the salvation of mankind to the new covenant that we remember and celebrate through communion. For time’s sake, we’ll turn to just a part of this explanation:
Hebrews 8
1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” 6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people
Again, there was nothing wrong with the first covenant itself. The fault of this covenant was the people. They just refused to live as they were created to. They couldn’t do it on their own.
Now unlike any other “god” or “religion” or “faith” found anywhere in all creation, God, Himself, humbled Himself, wrapped Himself in flesh, lived with all of our weaknesses and temptations, but never sinned. He lived this life perfectly as no other human has ever done before or ever will do again.
God, Himself, lived the perfect life for us. He did this to fulfill the first covenant and all of its requirements. Jesus said exactly this:
Matthew 5:17
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Jesus fulfilled them then, He took upon Himself the punishment that justice requires for not living rightly by them; for sinning. He became the sacrificial lamb so that death will pass over us that we might live eternally.
God found fault with the people and said:
“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
(Jeremiah 31)
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Just as God took His people by the hand and delivered them from their suffering and bondage in Egypt, Jesus has stretched out His hand to deliver us from the suffering and bondage caused by our sin. Jesus has made a way for us to be saved and set free and to be richly blessed!
He did all of the work and now freely offers up salvation to you and I as a gift. All that we have to do is to receive it by faith and to live by faith.
Ephesians 2:1-9
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
If we live by faith in Jesus, we enter into a new covenant with God.
At the last supper, that Passover meal that Jesus was enjoying with His disciples on the very night that He was about to be betrayed, arrested, and wrongfully sentenced to death, Jesus made the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant.
Matthew 26:26-28/Luke 22:14-20/Mark 14:22-24
14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
Right now, we’re going to put into practice what we have just learned about. We’re going to celebrate in the way that God gave us this communion, fellowship, togetherness, oneness; the Greek word koinōnia. Communion is remembering and celebrating and communicating and proclaiming that which we share in common.
What we share in common is this new covenant that we have entered into with God. Our salvation through Jesus Christ. His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection. His Lordship over our lives. His place as head of this church family.