Communion and our meeting tonight

Tonight's service is going to be powerful!

Months of preparation and prayer has gone into both evening services, tonight and tomorrow evening at 7:00 P.M.

My assignment this evening will be to lead our communion time (there are four segments to the concert of prayer - 15 minutes each).

Let me give you some thoughts concerning communion (that I will give this evening - here are my notes below).

Communion is an extraordinary event for a Christian.

Each time we gather together to remember and to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection, God moves in our heart and lives.

To take communion is not to participate in a ritualistic exercise - out of a sense of duty or habit - something we tag on to the end of a service before we head out to a local restaurant.

It is a meal with tremendous symbolism and power.

In this "meal" there is healing, in this meal there is freedom, in this meal, there is power, in this meal there is forgiveness of sins.  In this "meal" there is the presence of the Lord.

This is an extraordinary meal that we participate in this evening.

We're not bringing a sack lunch on our way to work.  Or stopping off at McDonald's for a quick hamburger.  We are not shoving something in a microwave to eat in front of the T.V.

There is power in what we are doing here this evening.  Spiritual power.

We have an extraordinary host. 

I'm not speaking of me as a pastor or any one here tonight.  I am not speaking of someone who takes your order at Taco Bell.  I'm not speaking of a restaurant maitre d' who is friendly, efficient and aloof.

I'm speaking of Jesus.  Jesus and you.  For while we take this communion collectively, we experience the presence of Jesus individually.

Jesus is calling you, tonight.  He knows you by name.  He knows you better than you know yourself.  He knows your situation.  He cares about you.

It's the presence of Jesus and his love for us that draws us to this table this evening.

It is his love that gives us a new identity and gives us a name.  There is a table in the foyer with the name tags of those who are participating in the conference.

Here at this table this evening, God has your name marked in his heart.  And he says, "you are my friend." 

"I am a friend of God." 

Jesus knows you by name.  He loves you.  And the Bible says that he is "ever interceding" for you.  In other words, Jesus is presenting your need, right now, before God the Father.

This is an extraordinary table that we have this evening.

It is not one of those fixed seats at a Burger King.  It is not a foldaway table on an American Airlines flight.  It is not a single-serving tray brought around by the nurses in a hospital.

It is a table that has been personally set for you.  Jesus said, "You did not choose me," but I have chosen you. 

Jesus says, "I call you to by table.  I make a place here for you."

The great thing is that this table expands and expands.  There is no limit to its size.  It cannot be confined.

It may not be fenced.  This table expands with the love of the host (Jesus) and grow with the grace of his invitation to us.

Here comes the thief on the cross.  The woman taken in adultery.  The puny, the pompous, the guilty and the gutsy, the sensitive and the simple, the indecent and the intemperate, the foolish and the fickle, the hopeless and the hopeful.

It is an extraordinary table that pushes to the ends of the earth the gospel of peace.  Red and yellow, black and white, rich and poor, African, Japanese, French, Mexican, American we are all welcomed at this table.

These are extraordinary people we celebrate with this evening.

We are children of God - repeat after me "I am a child of God."

As we leave this table, we are no longer ordinary people.  The ordinary within us wants to abuse or accuse, to obliterate or isolate, to bite back or attack. 

Yet as Christians, we can do the extraordinary.  We can return love for hate.  Peace for anger.  Forgiveness for hut.  We are not ordinary people here tonight, for at this table something happens to us.  The ordinary is swallowed up into the extraordinary. 

We are extraordinary because we have been forgiven through God's amazing grace.

Praise God!

And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:26, "for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

Let's proclaim that Jesus saves tonight as we participate.  Let's leave here this evening with God's Spirit in our hearts, ready to proclaim to the world that Jesus saves.