Introduction
In my childhood, I was captivated by scientific developments: that phase of my
life was punctuated by Apollo
space missions and moon landings. At primary school, we were summoned into
the hall to watch a large black and white television on the stage show a
recording of Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the
surface of the moon. (Contrast me with my wife, who believes Buzz Lightyear walked on
the moon!) I idolised television presenters such as James Burke.
I thought Patrick Moore
was wonderful. My father took me to a meeting of the British Astronomical Association in
London where he was speaking, and he treated the children’s questions
afterwards with the same importance as the adults’. I later learned I shared a
birthday with him.
This love of science fact was paired with a love of science
fiction. (It was about the only fiction that ever interested me, once I’d
outgrown Enid Blyton.) I read novels
such as ‘The
Sands Of Mars’ by Arthur
C Clarke, and went to the cinema to watch ‘2001:
A Space Odyssey’, instead of watching Princess Anne’s first wedding on TV. There
was a children’s television series called ‘The Time Tunnel’. Scientists
entered what I would now call a vortex, and travel either to the past or to the
future. I didn’t enjoy Doctor Who,
though: it was too scary for my over-active imagination, as was a film I once
saw on TV about the end of the world.
But time travel – that fascinated me. Maybe that’s why in my
twenties, I enjoyed the Back
To The Future films.
And ‘time travel’ forms a theme to introduce my thoughts
tonight. On this Maundy Thursday, when we remember Jesus’ institution of the
Lord’s Supper, I want us to reflect on its place in time. Because Holy
Communion touches past, present and future.
1. Past
Have you ever had an experience where your mind recalls a vivid incident from
your past, and you are so caught up in it, you feel as if you were back there? I
have had it, and often when listening to boring preachers, so I hope it isn’t occurring
now! My mind will go off on tangents, and I might find myself thinking about a
particularly happy family holiday. The memory will be so vivid that it is
almost as if smell the sea air and taste the ice cream. If you have had such an
experience, you will probably have said something like this: ‘I was right back
there.’ Of course you weren’t, and neither was I, but it is as if we have gone
back in time to that special moment. Once the daydream breaks, we land back in
mundane present with a bump.
‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ says Jesus in some accounts.
Alternatively, his statements that the bread represents his body and the wine
his blood point to an event that was then about to happen, but which is now
located nearly two thousand years in the past. For us, Holy Communion is a
looking back to the past. It takes us back – albeit, unlike our daydreaming, to
an event at which we were not present. So how is it relevant for us? Authors
have written entire books in attempts to explain the mystery, but let me offer
the odd simple pointer.
One is this: while we were not historically present at
Calvary or the Upper Room, we were representatively. We stand in union with the
entire human race in its separation from God due to sin. We also stand as
disciples of Jesus in union with him. Our salvation did not simply come when we
encountered Jesus for the first time in the here and now: it happened in a land
under Roman occupation, on a hill outside Jerusalem. Physically and individually,
we were not there, but representatively we were. This connects us to the past.
Then, if that is too hard, try this: I think we would all
agree that the events of the past have an effect upon the present. Indeed, the
most important historical events shape
the present. Take the Second World War as a clear example of this. It led to
the creation of the Russian-led Eastern communist bloc, and to the later
freedoms in that region. Germany and Japan went from humiliation to economic,
rather than military resurgence. It led to the formation of what we now call
the European Union, as nations sought to prevent another international war. It led
to interventions in the former Yugoslavia, as the West feared more ethnic
cleansing and genocide. It affected our national politics.
And so on. This is what a powerful international event in
history does. It cannot be hermetically sealed in the past. Rather, a past
event shapes the present. It is the same, only more so, with the Cross of
Christ. When we remember that past event, as we do at Holy Communion, not only
are we connected in a representative way, we are changed in the here and now. It
is not for nothing that John Wesley called the Lord’s Supper a ‘converting
ordinance’.
We cannot come away from the Lord’s Table unchanged. At least,
Jesus does not mean us to do so. In the words of one book, it is about ‘Past
Event And Present Salvation’. Jesus died for the sins of the world, he died
to conquer the forces of evil, and he did this in love to set us free. The
events of this weekend changed all history. At the very least, when we come in
faith to the sacrament, the expectation is that all he accomplished at the
Cross is made available to us. That past event brings us forgiveness, confidence
to face the darkness, freedom from the things that bind us and an assurance of
God’s love.
2. Present
‘This is my body … this is my blood of the covenant,’ says Jesus: simple words
that have divided his disciples for centuries. At risk of over-simplification, I
think there have been four broad strands of thinking about them.
First, you can take them literally. If so, then the bread
and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ. I think this view fails to
take seriously the fact that Jesus was using a typically Jewish heightened
version of metaphor in his speech here.
Secondly, at the other extreme, you can say that the Lord’s
Supper is just an ordinance, something Jesus commanded. It is purely a memorial
meal. But that is not to take seriously other New Testament texts, particularly
in 1 Corinthians 10, that speak of Holy Communion as a ‘communion’ or ‘fellowship’
in the body and blood of Christ.
That leaves two other views. One says that the bread and
wine don’t change, but Jesus is really present in them. The other – and the one
I personally favour – also says that the elements don’t change, but it doesn’t
try to locate Jesus in a particular place. Rather, when we follow Christ’s last
command here in obedient faith, we commune with him in our lives. Obeying Jesus
in faith by taking bread and wine in his memory leads us to an experience of
him at his table.
How many of us can say that when we take the sacrament, we
have encountered Christ? I think a show of hands would have most of us
indicating ‘yes’. If that is so, then Holy Communion is not simply a memory of
the past, it is an experience of Christ in the present.
And for that reason, it is more than a memorial meal or a
memorial service. It is a funny kind of memorial service where the deceased is
present! For although there is a primary reference to the death of Christ when
he instituted the Lord’s Supper – ‘my blood … which is poured out for many’ –
it is also about his resurrection. Holy Communion holds together both the death
and the resurrection of Christ.
Tonight, then, like every sacramental service, is a time to
come to the communion rail with expectation. Here, on Maundy Thursday, not only
do we anticipate with sorrow the betrayal, suffering and death of our Lord, we
also anticipate Easter morning, when we shout with joy, ‘Christ is risen! He is
risen indeed!’ As the disciples recognised the risen Lord in the breaking of
the bread at Emmaus, so we meet him here. He strengthens us, and fills us with
his love. Sometimes we just need to know he’s there; other times, we need the
experience of his presence to thrust us back into active Christian service. What
is it we need from Christ this evening? Whatever it is, let us come to the
table expecting to meet him.
Which leads us onto the third piece of time travel:
3. Future
Verse 29 of our reading is a mysterious one that we easily overlook. Jesus
says,
‘I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the
vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’
But Paul too saw a future aspect to the Lord’s Supper when
he told the Corinthians that whenever they ate the bread and drank the wine in
memory of Jesus, they proclaimed his death until
he comes.
However, although we can overlook this, we build this future
hope into our liturgies. The post-communion prayer is a common place to hear
it. One Methodist prayer (based on some Catholic thought from Vatican 2, trivia
fans!) thanks God for feeding us with the sacrament and giving us a foretaste
of the heavenly banquet prepared for all people.
Now I don’t know how good we are at foretastes of heavenly
banquets. In some Methodist circles there seems to be a competition to cut up
the pieces of bread as small as possible. The chance of having a foretaste of a
banquet seems remote!
There is a sense, though, in which Jesus will go thirsty
until the kingdom of God comes in all its fullness, until the new heavens and
new earth come. He will not drink the fruit of the vine again until he drinks
it new with his friends in his Father’s kingdom. Jesus is thirsty for the
kingdom of God.
And Holy Communion is designed to make us hungry and thirsty
for the kingdom of God, too. While connecting with Christ’s death in the past
and his risen presence in the here and now bring us comfort and hope, the Lord’s
Supper also brings us restlessness and challenge. It gives us a vision of how
the world is meant to be, and leaves us impatient for change. Holy Communion
makes us ask: who else should be at the table? It asks: who is going hungry,
because God’s will is not being done? For it reminds us of how things will be
in the Father’s kingdom. The bread will be plentiful, and the wine will flow –
however hard we Methodists pray to turn the wine back into water, it will be
poured out liberally! As we anticipate the generosity of God the Father who
will host the kingdom banquet, we notice the searing discrepancies with life
now. Holy Communion sends us out to share the Gospel in word and deed. It cannot
leave us in our spiritual enclave.
There is a section of the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the
Battle of Hastings in 1066. The legend beneath it, when translated into
English, says, ‘King William comforteth his soldiers.’ How is William the
Conqueror comforting them? He is prodding them up the backside with his sword! So
too, a true celebration of the Lord’s Supper prods us into action. The vision
of God’s kingdom gives us not a placid hope, but a divinely inspired
restlessness that thrusts us back into the world as Gospel people.
Conclusion
Someone once said that the job of the preacher was to comfort the afflicted,
and to afflict the comfortable. Might it be that Holy Communion has the same
task?
What do we need tonight – comfort or affliction? May God
grant us our deepest needs in Christ, as we gather at his Table.
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