At the table with Jesus

[AI translation] The feast of Christmas is approaching, when we will set this table here in the church three times over two days, where Jesus Himself awaits the most holy hospitality of all those who come to Him. On this feast, experience has shown that even people who are not used to enjoying the Lord's Supper during the rest of the year come here. Well, I would like to use this Word to encourage all those who are here (although I would also encourage those who are not here) to come, for it is precisely these words that express the very essence of the Lord's Supper: 'He welcomes sinners and eats with them!" (Lk 15,2b) Although this comment was intended by the Pharisees and scribes of the day as a disapproving criticism of Jesus, they were almost stunned at how all kinds of vile, despised, no-good people clung to Jesus! They whispered to each other in scorn, almost contemptuously, "This man takes sinners and eats with them!" It is almost as if we could see their lips pursed as if one were hissing to oneself, "Ouch!"- And yet I am very glad of this malicious criticism, for it expresses a truth that is joyful to us, a beautiful song of the redeeming love of Jesus! A great picture of the communion of the Lord's Supper!In it we see, first of all, who and what kind of people Jesus honours by eating at the same table with them! One would be inclined to think that a communion community, such a holy occasion, such a sacrament, is the company of the spiritual elite of a congregation. The privilege of the elite, the super-converted, an exclusive community where only the most initiated are admitted. But this might lead many people to the wrong conclusion: well, I'm not one of them, I can't be part of it, because I'm far from what a believer should be! Well, my brethren, it is not so! Those Pharisees, however mockingly, were quite right to say that Jesus welcomes sinners to his table! He has always invited the sick, the lepers, the lame, the blind, the beggars, the outcasts of society - even now! The communion of the Lord's Supper is a fellowship of spiritual beggars who want to be healed, to be built up - that is, sinners who want to be forgiven of their sins and to be strengthened in a renewed life! So it is not an exclusive community of a spiritual elite. Jesus does not expect us to come to His table as we ought to be, but as we are. What really counts here is that you can say, but truly from the heart, in the words of our beautiful hymn, your own testimony, "As I am under many sins, but hearing your calling voice" - I come (460,1).
Those whom Jesus welcomes to Himself here (so it is written literally) are not people who have made themselves up with some kind of spiritual cosmetics, who are trying hard to look nice, to look good - these are not showy people - oh no! In fact, they are ugly, disreputable, the kind of people from whom the upmarket elite class shyly shrinks away. They are: criminals! CRIMINALS! People who need forgiveness. Hungry people who want to eat, terminally ill people who want to be healed, people who seek the blessed Physician! You may remember Jesus' parable of the great supper, where the King invites his friends to the feast of His Son, and the invited nobles begin to excuse themselves, one by one, for this and one for that. These people did not attach so much importance to this invitation. This feast was not such a big event in their lives. It was not a surprise, it was not a welcome honour. It was a familiar, taken-for-granted, dull affair. And then, according to the parable, the king sends his servants out to the crossroads to invite everyone, the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind. Why them? Are they better than the others? No! Does Jesus love the poor, the helpless, the sinners, the tax collectors more than others? No! But these are the people who can rejoice that they too are free! They are free to attend such a royal banquet! Free! So those who are amazed and delighted by this invitation! Who ask in amazement: but how can I come to him? So it is precisely those who must be encouraged and urged to come, to come, because they feel unworthy. These are the sinners whom Jesus welcomes to himself!
So if you can be amazed, and if you can just rejoice from the bottom of your heart that you too, yes, even you, are allowed to be part of this hospitality, despite the fact that..., then you too are here! Yes, you who have no hope but Jesus, His grace, His hope: come! At this table, it is indeed as the Pharisees mockingly said among themselves, "This one receives sinners and eats with them" (Lk 15,2b). This! Yes, this is our Savior! This is the Saviour we have!
So at this table of the Lord, sinners are with Jesus! But why are they together? What is the meaning of this fellowship? What happens in this fellowship? On the one hand, it is a recollection of the past, a grateful, happy recollection of the holy sacrifice Jesus made for us on Calvary. But it's not the same kind of remembering that we do on the day of the dead, when we remember someone who has passed away: we recall their words, their memory, we talk about them. No! The point here is not to recall the death of Jesus as a past event, but to enter into the redemptive power of his death by remembering him, to accept, to re-accept this death in its mystical but real power. As truly as we receive, accept and embrace bread and wine. We receive the bread and the wine, we accept them as a testimony of our paid and torn debt, as a sign of the ransom at which Jesus has bought us for himself forever. Yes: let us remember this by partaking of it again, by returning to it again as the source of our life, to draw from it.
But we look not only backwards at this table to the past, but also forwards to the future. So Paul says in the Gospel of the Atonement, "Preach the Lord's death until he comes." (1 Cor 11,26b) Every Lord's Supper: a prophecy of the marriage of the Lamb. So it points not only to His death, but also to the coming of the Lord, in advance. Every communion: a foretold radiance of the glory of Jesus' coming. Every communion: the already here and now present part of the glorious future that will be completed with the reappearance of Jesus on earth. In the Lord's Supper, that happy, glorious future of the Kingdom of God has already begun, as it were, because in the breaking of His body, in the shedding of His blood, that is, in His death on Calvary, God's victory over His enemies: sin, death and Satan, has already taken place, is already among us! Every communion: the banquet of the kingdom of God, the victory feast! From this table, on which are present the symbols of His death: we already see in the Spirit, by faith, the final victory of Jesus, the fullness of His redemptive power.
So to eat the Lord's Supper is also to taste the taste of something very happy, very glorious to come. The congregation of the Lord's Supper looks forward! Let us look forward from here to this glory that awaits us in the time to come! The people on the road look ahead. So let us look to the road ahead, and see it as it is illuminated by the foreshadowing light of the coming kingdom of God. So often we sing, "I know that my Saviour lives, His wings are ready for me, He beckons me, and promises me a crown after the earthly battle. ... The Lord waits with outstretched arms: come, rest, rest in my bosom" (Cant. 421) Well, that's true! So let us take what we believe, let us believe it seriously!
So the man who takes communion lives between the past and the future, between the death of Jesus and the coming of Jesus. We, who believe in Jesus, live today from the cross of Jesus on Calvary to the reappearance of Jesus! So we live not in the past, and not in the future, but between the past and the future in the now! But that is why we live in a different way, as if we were not living in the present between such a past and such a future. Again, I could say that we are at the table with Jesus. So this today is also characterised, motivated and influenced by the fact that we feel ourselves at table, living our lives with Jesus Christ! Here we are all truly the same, we are one!
This table brings together all the different "sinners" into a large family community, into spiritual unity. So that those who have had nothing to do with each other, those who did not know each other or knew each other but did not love each other, are now united, one. Here there is no such thing as us and you. We are intellectuals, you are workers. We are leaders, you are subordinates. We are young, you are old. We forkers, you basement dwellers. We're inner-city, you're suburban. It's a wonderful table. If we extend it in our minds and imagine that this table is just a visible part of a table that spans the entire globe, I would go on to say: it is not that we are white, you are coloured, we are European, you are northern. Here we are all just "us"! We are sinners! From North, South, East, West: we! Here there is none: you! Here there are no others! We all eat from the same bowl, we all drink from the same cup, at the same table, with each other and with Jesus! Just as the pressed juice of many, many small grapes fuse into one drink, just as many, many small grains of ground grain become one loaf of bread: so we all become one body! "It takes sinners and eats with them" (v.2b), among other things, precisely so that these sinners may all be one! One with one another and one with Jesus!
And here it is not even that we are believers and you are not believers! For this very table unites those who do not take communion, that is, all people! For we know, even if many others do not, that they are just as sinners as we are. Or we are just as guilty as they are. So there is no difference between us and you! At least on our part! Jesus' body was broken for all, his blood was shed for all. He loves and calls everyone equally. So whoever sits at the table with Jesus sees all people with Jesus. He is called to practice and live the great commandment of love - for everyone, indiscriminately. In the small, insignificant, uninteresting events of life just as much as in the fateful, big things!
So once again: it is not important how one comes here, but rather how one leaves! Communion is not the end of something, namely a church service that has gone on long enough, which may have been beautiful, may have been good, may have been touching, but it is finally over, and then something else begins: life begins, with all its thousand problems. No! Something begins with communion. At the Lord's table, filled, connected to Jesus and to each other, life begins again with its thousand troubles, but in a different way! More Christlike! More human! The nourishing power of this holy hospitality must radiate out of the church, the light of the festive hours must shine through the drabness, the monotony, the boredom, the many problems of everyday life, the whole of the rest of our lives. Feel yourself with other sinners, with all people at the same table with Jesus, still, even when you are physically away from that table!
Remember that Jesus will receive other sinners with you and "eat with them"! So come boldly when this table is set during the holidays!
Brothers and sisters, let us go with courage,
The night will soon fall,
In this earthly wilderness
To stop is a great danger.
So let us find strength
To hurry towards heaven,
Not stopping to rest
Before the happy goal.
(Canto 455, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 15 December 1968.