Communion of the Redeemed

March 29, 2018 0 0

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1 Corinthians 11: 26

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The church is never more clearly the communion of saints than when we come together around the Lord’s Supper. Here, as many will testify, is one of those ‘thin places’ of which our Celtic forebears spoke, where ‘the curtain between heaven and earth seems almost transparent’. The Franciscan Richard Rohr calls such ‘places’ in life ‘the edge’, and urges the need for us to live right there, on the spiritual edge of things.

The thinnest of all ‘thin places’ was the cross of Calvary where Jesus, God incarnate, died for the salvation of the world. In that awesome scene, heaven and earth were fully interlocked in the achieving of our redemption.

As we come together to share the hospitality of the Table - remembering Jesus, celebrating God’s forgiveness and grace, rejoicing in our fellowship with all the saints, and anticipating the coming day when the new creation will be fully realised - the living Christ himself is with us. 

The communion of saints is the communion of eternal gratitude ‘to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood’ (Revelation 1: 5). At the Supper we look forward together to the joy of unimpeded communion with him and with ‘all the saints in Christ Jesus’ in a fully redeemed and renewed cosmos, in which the Lamb will be all the glory. 

Hospitable God
We praise you for your redeeming, welcoming love. We cannot begin to understand what it cost to accomplish the salvation of the world. You welcome us as we are to the Table of your grace, and by your Spirit you transform us into image-bearers of your Son.

May the hospitality you extend to us be reflected in the compassion, care and welcome we offer to one another. May we see it as our highest privilege to be the servant of others, for the sake of our Saviour, the greatest servant of all.
Amen.