[AI translation] Once again, God's message among us is about communion, as it was on a Sunday a few months ago. One reason for this is that, according to the Bible reading guide that many of us use, this passage from the Gospel of Matthew was the next one today. On the other hand, it is because a week from today, being the last Sunday of the month, we will again set the Lord's Table for the congregation. And perhaps it is not difficult to see the connection between the two facts: obviously the reason why the passage from the Bible on the Lord's Supper had to be taken today is that the Lord wants to prepare us for a more serious, deeper, truer communion next Sunday. The Apostle Paul says: "Let a man try himself, and so partake of the Lord's supper, for he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, because he does not honour the body of the Lord. And he adds, For this cause there are many sick and feeble, and many sleep. It is astonishing that it is precisely the Lord's Supper - which can be the most blessed resource for the believing soul - that weakens the soul, makes it sick and plunges the unworthy guest into a deadly sleep. The same communion can be a source of grace or of even greater judgment! Just as high-voltage electricity can be the source of productive power or a paralysing, deadly danger. It depends on how one touches it. It can be used and it can be abused. And behold, the abuse of communion can have such dire consequences in a congregation that many are powerless and sick, and many are asleep. Would that the Lord would use this present preaching of the Word to see many strengthened, healed and awakened as a result of next Sunday's communion!I would now like to point out a feature of communion that I don't think we have ever talked about in this church. The communion scene in the Gospel of Mark reveals this character better. There we read, "Then he sent two of his disciples and said to them: 'Go into the city, and a man will come before you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him. And whither he goes in, say to the innkeeper, The Master says, Where is the lodging where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a great supper-house furnished and ready: there prepare it for us." (Mk 14,13-15) Do we sense that Jesus is now preparing something quite extraordinary and of special significance for his disciples? All his life on earth, the Lord lived among us in poverty and lowliness. Far from Him was all pomp, splendour and luxury. He descended to the lowest depths and fell into fellowship with the poorest, most miserable people. Now, however, let this one night be an exception! Let this one occasion be a dinner together different from the usual, not so poor, not so unadorned. Now they will rent a large dining-house, a hall, for this evening, and dine there, not in a little room in the outskirts of town. These words - a great supper house, furnished, made ready - in the original text of the Bible and in foreign translations, mean more, a grander, more distinguished room than we hear them. Specifically, it is a larger room with cushioned pews. The comfortably furnished dining room of an upmarket restaurant. So this time they won't be sitting on hard wooden benches. This is a proper aristocratic dinner! Big, shiny candlesticks on the table, preparing a festive meal. And unlike the very poor fare of the time, there is wine on the table to cheer the heart. Now, on this occasion, something gay, happy, festive, gentlemanly, aristocratic is about to take place!
Let us capture this serene, joyful character of communion! It is the first communion, and every communion is a great, bright, noble feast, so it is not something tragic, sad, depressed, gloomy, mournful, but a joyful, festive occasion. Communion is not a 'last supper', nor a 'farewell supper', nor a mournful funeral or even a memorial supper, but a celebration of triumph, a feast of victory. So Jesus, as triumphant Saviour, sat on the eve of Good Friday, but already in the foreshadowing light of the Easter victory! How much more so may we sit thus, not before Good Friday, but already after Easter, as followers of the victorious Jesus Christ! If at that first communion Jesus stood there as One who was certain of victory, so certain is He that He is already distributing the results of His great struggle on Calvary, the fruits of His death and victory, as if He had already won the victory - if He had won it then, on the night before His going to the cross, how much more can the Lord's Supper mean to us now that we are celebrating with joy and gladness with our victorious Saviour, and sharing in the fruits of His death and victory!
Can you see Communion in this way, as a joyful, victorious, festive feast that always reaffirms you in Christ's victory? Which always fills you with the power of Christ's victory? That always directs your eyes, your heart, your soul to your triumphant Saviour who forgives your sins and who wants to win an ever greater victory in your heart! He fought Satan and death for you! So you cannot celebrate Communion tired, discouraged, depressed or even sad, because that is not worthy of Him. But only in the knowledge of victory, and in the joyful realisation that behold, I too, the nobody, the sinner, the man so often defeated, can share in Christ's victory. His triumph over Satan, sin and death can be mine, I belong to Him! I am His, I dine with Him, and He with me. If anyone cannot rejoice in this in his heart, and accept Christ's redemptive victory for himself, let him by no means come to sit at a victory feast, for instead of grace he is eating and drinking judgment to himself!
But the Lord's Supper is a victory feast not only because it proclaims the decisive victory of Jesus on Calvary, but also because it contains a hint of the future. Paul says it like this: "Preach the Lord's death until he comes." From the Lord's Table, we look both backwards, to the decisive victory at Calvary, and forwards, to the glorious return of Christ, when the victory at Calvary will be complete and final in the whole created world. Jesus himself expresses it thus: "Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." (Mk 14,25) So there will be another communion in which He will participate, not only in the bread and wine, in spirit, but in all His divine glory, in His power, in person, in a visible way, among His own. In the kingdom of God which will be realized at His return, the great supper will begin, of which He has spoken several times in parables. And as we now celebrate the Lord's Supper, may this feast always direct our gaze to that final great banquet of victory to come, that great supper of the parable, the marriage supper of the Son of the King, which He will sit with us and with all the many who will flock to His kingdom from every tongue, people, branch, and place!
Do you feel how much triumphant joy there is in this holy hospitality? It is not only the sign, the herald, the seal of the redemption on the cross, but also the pledge of His return and the consummation of His divine reign. Every communion is a great warning from Jesus to us: Remember that the time is coming when I will drink again with you of the fruit of the vine in the kingdom of God! Prepare yourselves! You are on the eve of great glory and happiness! Paul says: proclaim His death until He comes. The Lord's death and His return: these are the two boundaries between which the Christian life is set. The Christian life has Christ's death as its foundation and His return as its ultimate goal.
"Let a man therefore try himself" means to examine yourself: does your life fit between these two limits? Is the basis of your life Christ's redemptive death, and the goal of your life His coming, the consummation of His reign in the whole world? This is the right orientation of the Christian life: To live from Christ's death to His coming, in the firm assurance that He died for me, joyfully preparing to await His glorious appearing. The condensed form of such an attitude is the Lord's Supper, the triumphal banquet of Jesus Christ, already triumphant on the cross and bringing the final triumph!
One last thing! When Jesus talks about the Lord's Supper, he always uses the plural. He says: "Take, eat! This is my body, which for you shall be broken." In the wine he says: "This is my blood, which is shed for many" (Mt 26,28) Yes, for many! So not only you and me, but many! The only way to receive the Lord's Supper with dignity is to join the ranks of others, to become one of God's people. It cannot be done alone, but only in a certain congregation and with a certain congregation. In the Lord's Supper Jesus brings the many into spiritual communion with one another. He unites you, the individual, to others who belong with you to Him! These "many" are made up of very different individuals, but who, by sharing in the body and blood of the same Christ, are joined together in a new and mystical body-body communion. You, who come to this table: the redemptive death of Christ, His body and blood, makes you the real flesh and blood of the other people who come with you!
"Let a man therefore try himself" - means: examine whether you are able, willing, to assume and to realize this fraternal relationship? Are you willing to look upon the many for whom Christ broke his body and shed his blood as much as for you? Are you willing to love this brother in Christ simply because Christ loves him as he loves you? It is easy to do this with the "many," but are you willing to do it with the one or two who have a complaint against you, or against whom you have a complaint?
Before you come here next Sunday, be reconciled to such in full, or else you will eat and drink judgment to yourself instead of mercy! Think well, is there no one for whom the royal banquet of grace would be a judgment to you? Are you not unjust in your judgment of anyone? Have you not wronged someone even in thought? Hast thou not injured the honour of any man by giving credence to malicious calumnies about him? Have you not made someone suspect, or has someone done the same to you? We can so easily hurt others, and we find it so hard to bear when we are hurt! "If you take your gift to the altar," says Jesus, "and there you remember that your brother has a complaint against you: Leave your gift there before the altar, go, first make peace with your brother, and then come and take up your gift." (Mt 5:23-24) Be reconciled in spirit to Christ, and then tell him that you have been reconciled to him! Reconciliation between Christian people is not like reconciliation in the world, where I am reconciled when I receive satisfaction for the offence. So it is not that one stays on top and the other stays on the bottom. Reconciliation never comes from that. But by both being under, and Jesus Christ over! As long as in your dispute with another person you are always trying to stay on top, Jesus is always on the bottom! And that, is it not peace? Can you humble yourself to the point that Jesus remains above? Because if not, do not come to this table! This humbling of yourself is not a retreat, but the greatest victory of all: the defeat of yourself!
If you want to take communion for a week from today, resolve all the unrest in your heart against everyone until then. Next Sunday, when you come up and see that other person whose sight has not given you much pleasure, do not let a lot of bitter memories, painful memories of real or imagined grievances, come back to you, but caress his face with a warm look and greet him in this way: I am glad from the bottom of my heart, my brother, that you are here. For you have come from where I have come, from the cross, and you are going where I am going, to meet the returning Christ. We are brothers! Those who are equal guests of one Lord at his table must look on one another in a very different way from the way they looked on one another before, because at this table they are united in the same holy mystery! And this holy mystery, in spite of all their other differences, their temperaments, their differences of opinion on many things - or even above them - brings them into a new communion, into unity with one another!
May God grant that all that Jesus offers at His table may become a happy reality, and that new life may be raised up among us! Would that we could rejoice together in our hearts and move together towards the day when Jesus will return and drink with us anew of the fruit of the vine in the kingdom of God!
Amen
Date: 18 July 1948.