It is significant that we come here for bread and wine, and not for the raw products that are used in the production of bread and wine. We eat the bread and drink the wine, and we do not eat a handful of raw grain as the disciples did once, and we do not eat …
Nothing But Grace and Gratitude
Here is bread and wine. Here is the grace of God. Come as supplicants; come as those who know that they need nothing but the sheer, unadulterated grace of God. Grace, if it to remain grace, must be received as gift. We can be worthy of a gift after the fact, but if we try …
And Here You Are
The grace of God enables us to see and savor the grace of God everywhere. This happens in the created order, in the ordinances of worship, in the Scriptures, in the bread and wine, and in the law of God. For the gracious, everything is grace. When someone does not know the grace of God, …
A Mouthful of Grace
This is the Table of grace, and God has set it down in the midst of a sinful world. Sinful unrighteousness knows enough to stay away, but sinful righteousness is constantly trying to figure out ways to turn this into a Table of law. But God reigns on His throne, and His determinative Word cannot …
Inclusion Excludes Exclusion
Scripture contains two fundamental principles when it comes to the eating of sacred meals. The first principle concerns what we eat, and the second principle concerns with whom we eat. The answers to these questions for Christians are, respectively, bread and wine, and with all who call upon the name of the true God. Excluded …
Two Pieces of Fudge
This is our first celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the Advent season for the year of our Lord, 2010. And note that word celebration. When we celebrate God’s grace to us here, we are learning how to celebrate His goodness in every aspect of our lives, and that includes our orientation to festivals like …
The Spirit Who Bonds
The communion we experience as Christians with one another all the time The ritual enactment of that communion that we experience here is called, not surprisingly, communion. We take communion because we are a communion. And we are a communion because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Consider this benediction that Paul gives. “The …
Table of Plenty
In the Old Testament, one of the things that we learn about meals is that they draw boundaries. They define the limit between who is in and who is out. This is the first, the rudimentary lesson. The New Testament does not set this lesson aside but rather builds on it. The New Testament does …
The City That Cannot Fall
In Daniel 1:8-16, Belshazzar holds a great feast, on the night when the great city of Babylon fell. There was eating and drinking, and there were even sacred vessels from the Temple in use there—but not for blessing. That was the night when a hand appeared and wrote on the wall that “you have been …
What Flows From Here
This is a time of year when many people are decorated up in frightening ways, running around saying frightening things, trying to scare other people. But take heart; the election will be over on Tuesday. Coincidentally, today is also Halloween, when many are trying to frighten people in other ways. But how are we to …