Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 34 – Sep 1985
Commanded Communion
Sermon by Rev. A.I. de Graaf on Lord’s Day 28
(Suitable: Preparatory Service for Lord’s Supper)
Scriptures: Matt.11:25-30; Exod.24:1-11; Luke 14:15-23;
Psalter Hymnal: 79:1; 79:2; 382; 421; 420; BoW 14; BoW 811:1,5
How can a bride stay away from her own wedding feast?
Would not that be the silliest thing to do?
When in the Old Testament Days
there were the Great Feasts of God’s people,
Passover and the joyful Harvest Feast of Pentecost,
and even the frolicking jollity of the Feast of Booths…
ALL THE MEMBERS OF THAT COMMUNITY
WERE COMMANDED TO PUT IN AN APPEARANCE.
No school holidays or sniffles or plain old tiredness was an excuse to stay home.
God who had done so much for His people wanted to celebrate with them all.
The Lord’s Supper is the highest Feast the Christian church knows.
And it is not optional for God’s children to “take communion” or not.
God wants His children there. All of them.
To lay on this Meal, this Party, this Banquet of Joy
has cost the heavenly host plenty:
He has gone to incredible expense to provide it.
Neither is it a Feast He wants US to celebrate,
no, HE WANTS TO CELEBRATE IT W I T H US.
That’s why it is called COMMUNION.
Which means SHARING… TOGETHERNESS.
And He does not just want to celebrate it with you,
or with him or her, or with ME, either,
but He wants to share it with US, Together.
We are invited, and even commanded, to come there together.
That has been forgotten at times:
then individuals look into the mirror of their sins,
into the private pools of their hearts and decide:
shall I… or shall I not?
But it is a Feast for the whole congregation.
Too much each one feels a singled-out individual,
and is scared of the eyes of all “those others”
boring in his back as he walks to the table…
or is nervous to look into all those eyes
when facing the community at the table
(let alone the staring eye of a video camera spying on him
when he makes that hard walk.)
But you are not afraid of those eyes or of all those cameras,
at a wedding reception either, are you?
And this IS a wedding reception
and… YOU ARE THE BRIDE!
Really- how self-conscious can you get?
Oh if only we were more CHRIST-CONSCIOUS
with eyes full of love for the Bridegroom!
Alas, misuse in ages past and ages of tardy tradition
have given this Meal the atmosphere of an EXAM:
and yes, who would not feel nervous at an exam?
But it isn’t, you know!
We have much to learn here.
Maybe some things to un- learn too.
We will have to find our way back towards the Biblical idea:
This is a feast, a wedding feast,
the highest feast the Christian church as on earth… and in heaven.
That’s how God commands it:
COME! He says 1. because all things are ready
COME! 2. come and REMEMBER
COME! 3. COME and PROCLAIM!
COME! 4. and gladly BE MY BRIDE.
1. THE LORD JESUS SAYS: COME FOR ALL THINGS ARE READY.
That’s what He says in that parable.
But do you know when He really said that?
When He really “made all things ready?”
When He was almost dead.
When He was under torture on that terrible cross.
His body was completely dehydrated,
and his mouth parched with unspeakable thirst.
It was then that on that cross, –
He asked a small kindness for Himself.
He wanted something to drink.
The first drink He had
since the night before when with His disciples,
including a denier and the traitor Judas,
He had shared the fruit of the vine.
Now on the cross He asked for something to drink and he got it.
Again – sour though it was –
from the fruit of the vine.
That drink pushes back the coming death for a moment
because He wants to say something.
He wants to S H O U T something.
You know what He shouted then?
COME BECAUSE ALL THINGS ARE READY
“It is finished” means:
all is done, all is ready now!
YOU CAN COME no matter what has been…
no matter what you have done.
It was finished, I finished it!
Take now and eat, this my Body is for you.
Take and drink now, this Fruit of the heavenly Vine
is My blood and it is for you.
You can come now, and so you MUST come now.
What is holding you back, then?
That YOU did not do enough?
But I did it. I did it all: IT IS FINISHED!
Do not let your pride stop you.
And do not ever let your misery stop you.
IT IS FINISHED, I did it all!
Come then, for all things are ready!
2. THIS LORD JESUS SAYS: COME AND REMEMBER
The devil tries to make you forget.
The devil tries to make you just look at yourself
or maybe at others who have disappointed you so.
But Your Lord says: COME… AND REMEMBER.
All that keeps you away then are excuses.
Excuses and silly ones at that.
Even that you do not feel your sins enough,
Even that you do not love as you should…!
All that is on a par with the silly excuses in that parable:
reasons to stay away from the Feast,
but GOD has all things ready,
His Gospel of Jesus’ completed work for you,
His Gospel of His doing and dying
– to make way for even the blackest among you –
should outweigh any care and any worry
or any pre-occupation that you can ever feel.
Sure these things can be real enough.
But more real is what Your LORD has done to “make all things ready”.
‘Think of Me’ He says, ‘and come to say THANK YOU’.
That is the wonderful old Christian term for this Communion:
The EUCHARIST – to say, “Thank You, Lord, for all that you did:
Your death and utter loneliness,
Your suffering into hell for my rebellion,
Your overcoming of my deadliest foe,
Your taking the brunt of that agonizing punishment for my misdeeds.
Thank you Lord that You did it!
How wonderful you are, O bridegroom of my heart!-
‘Come’ He says ‘and look away from yourself and look at Me’,
I am alive and I love you, don’t you know?
Look, I give you to eat.
I give you Myself to eat.
The German philosopher Nietsche who said “GOD IS DEAD”
also once said sneeringly: “Man is what he eats!”
(Der Mensch ist was er isst)
Jesus says: Here at this Feast I make that true:
You may eat Me and I then become part of you.
And you become part of Me.
I am you and you are Me,
for are you not my loved one, my Bride?
Come and Feast on Me.
I give Myself to you in love.
Forget yourself and love Me, too.
Come and remember Me.
And heave a sigh of relief.
I take your burden off you,
and give you the Feast of Joy instead.
And your eyes will see me.
Greater joy is coming.
Do not forget. Come now and remember!
I lead you to this banqueting-table and My banner over you is love!
3. IT IS THEN THAT THIS LORD SAYS: COME AND PROCLAIM!
Proclaim the death of the Lord who now lives having given you life!
Do not fear the people
who may see you as you walk up to this Wedding Banqueting table!
Let the world know that you are His and rejoice in it.
The Lord’s Table of love is not a place you sneak up to.
Remember, before you ever could confess Him He confessed you!
He wrote your name and mine with blood: His own!
Come – He says – Come and confess!
Yes, the Lord’s call to come to this table also means that you,
who bear His mark of baptism on your forehead,
should not let Him wait unnecessarily long before you confess Him.
Making profession of your faith should not wait
until you have solved all your problems with the church.
It is He who solved the biggest problem of the church:
how killer rebels could become God’s children.
He washed clean those that were tainted with death.
Then thank Him for it and come to the Bridegroom’s banquet.
Maybe churches like ours
have made it a habit for our youngsters to wait too long.
Perhaps we have demanded too much knowledge?
Too much maturity?
As if not also through this Food
more knowledge would come,
and through this Feast maturity would deepen?
But then, when you are touched by love and know it,
are you not eager to know who He is – the Beloved?
And what He did to bring you – and a whole world with you –
from the bleak desolation of death row
into His freedom and glad light?
We come to proclaim,
and we come so that we get better equipped for proclaiming.
We have hope within us through His gift
and we want to be ready to give an answer
to all who ask us about that hope.
But this Feast is also one of the answers we give.
Come – He says – and let everyone see it:
you are not ashamed of the gospel, are you?
And then finally…
4. COME – says this Lord – AND BE MY BRIDE
Trade
Not just wedding guests are we at this Table
but the bride herself.
Flesh of My flesh and bone of My bone.
Thus we belong to Him first of all, and we do so together.
That’s why we also belong together here.
You may say: if the Lord calls us so urgently to come to this table then why does Session exercise that discipline in which – also to members of this congregation at this moment – it says:
“The way you are now you cannot come to the Table”?
Good question…!
It is an awfully heavy thing to do, but the aim is not to keep people away. The aim is, to shock people into taking away the hindrance that would stop them from coming.
The aim is, that they clear away the hatred, the indifference, the lack of love that makes them live in the dark and the cold while they could, if only yielding to the Bridegroom’s call of love, live in the bright joy of this Feast.
It is to shock them out of the excuses,
and out of the rags of pride,
so these can make place for the joyful white of the wedding garment.
That garment He wove with His flesh and blood.
That garment is all His gift.
Sessions must urge people to put that on.
And what joy when the ban can be lifted
and people come out of that darkness into His light.
Discipline is to let people hear that call:
COME you who are burdened with burdens not necessary.
Come you loaded with weights not needed:
they were lifted at Calvary!
See that and confess it
and let the Lord of love lead you back to where you belong!
Don’t you know I give you that peace?
So…!
We will have to rediscover that the Lord’s Supper
the Holy Communion,
the Eucharist of thanksgiving
is the greatest Feast,
the most joyful celebration
that the Christian church knows… on earth as well as later in heaven.
In fact, it comes from heaven.
It is the bread from heaven the Lord gives
because it fully represents – how we do not know! but it does –
Him Who came from heaven to win us back to God.
He who sits at this table looking at this Lord… this Lover,
this Bridegroom, begins tasting the joy of the New Creation.
But such a joyful – at times tearful! – guest at this table
also looks left and right, and says – you too?
He looks through the walls of His church
to other churches
where they also sit at this table
and there are the tears
because of the brokenness of the outward garment of the church.
But He says: “You, too, my brother?”
And when in the week that follows he meets such a fellow Christian
he realises: the same Bridegroom is his… is hers.
The same joy lies behind and ahead.
Whatever divides, greater is this that unites.
Right in the midst of the struggle to reform the Church
John Calvin saw this,
and he confessed that he would be willing to sail all the seas of the world
(in the dangerous ships they then had)
to help bring about the unity of those who share so great a Gift,
who partake together of such a feast.
Fellow feasters we are at the Lord’s banqueting table,
and sharers in the deepest love.
One is the Lord who said:
COME for all things are ready – IT IS FINISHED.
Whoever is taking this bread is my brother.
COME – HE SAYS – REMEMBER –
do not let the devil make you forget what alone is the gospel,
and who alone gave you a share in the Kingdom of God.
COME – He says – and proclaim.
No longer hang back but insist: I, too, want to share in this food.
Profess His Name, He professed yours first.
COME – He says – and stretches out His arms to you:
Come, my bride, I long for you. I love you. I always have.
Look to Me and be radiant.
Amen.