1 Corinthians 10:16-17
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
Well, good morning everyone. Um, last night, my wife and I endured a very cold and rainy, uh, field hockey game. We watched our granddaughter play down at the, uh, Kingsway regional school. It was pouring down rain, which just made me wonder how in the world the human race has survived without heated car seats.
Um, They are wonderful. As I thought about, uh, coming to my, my, the, the rules that I was given for this mornings addresses that it has to be brief. And so I’ve worked really hard to keep this brief, but as I thought about celebrating communion with you here this morning, uh, we realized Linda and I realized my wife, Linda is here as well.
First I’m Jerry Costello. I always forget that Marx has remembered. Introduce yourself, Jerry Costello. I’m the campus pastor at our, at our colleagues, uh, campus. But as we were thinking about coming here this morning, we realized we’ve never observed communion here at this campus before. Um, and so we just want to say, thank you for sharing this with us this morning.
The word communion itself is derived from the Latin word communio, which means sharing in common. That in turn is the Latin translation of the Greek word, a word that many of you, or most of you’re familiar with the word koinonia, which we find in our English Bible it’s translated fellowship, which is our typical understanding of that word, fellowship, communion sharing in and participation in.
I need you to remember that one, the last one participation in, because that will come up again later. Whenever I approach this table. And I guess I’m thinking about this because I, uh, this is my first time observing it with you. But whenever I come to this table to the celebration from the time I was just a boy, I can never not think of how it is that we came to observe this and what it has come to mean in our lives.
I remember. The little plastic communion cup in my hand, or I guess back then they were, they were always glass, this little glass communion cup that we were used actually remember spilling at one time I was sitting in the front row as I was toying with it, but the thought of what is this thing that we’re doing here and wondering always, are we doing it right?
And is there a right way to do it? My mind lately is all, has gone back to the disciples to those men. Uh, in that upper room and it could be that it was all of the disciples, not just the 12, but all of them may, could have been men and women up there observing this final communion with their friend. The one they’ve come to call Lord and savior and to recognize as the one who is God’s own Messiah.
They’re sitting in that room. As their friend, their Lord, their master pulls from these very common elements from their very familiar celebration of the Passover.
What did this table mean to them as they left that room and spread out across first their region, and then the globe tradition has it that St. Thomas, that Thomas the apostle. Was in India by the year 50 to 80, all the way to India, to Southern India. What did this table mean to them as they spread out and began to share the gospel with people who were not there on that night?
How precious did this table become? As they taught new disciples to remember events that they were not there to observe. And what significance did they place on this table on these elements as they spread out around their world, we know that as history of the church has unfolded, there’s great controversy around this celebration, great division, great conflict, even bloodshed for some Christian traditions, you know, the Catholic tradition when we first bought our, uh, our colleagues would build them.
It was, had been a Lutheran church and right in the middle of the floor, there was a, I would call it a massive alter. The thing, probably ways we just put it on rollers and pushed it to the back. And now it’s our stage, but the thing probably weighs 2,500 pounds. And what the elaborate setup they had around it, because in the Lutheran tradition, the Eucharist is central to their worship.
Much different than ours for us, we observed communion, like we’re going to today and it’s semi-regular and we don’t put the same emphasis on it, that other traditions to do much of the controversy. And you know this as well as I do much of the controversy swirls around Jesus’ words in John six. I just want to read a part of that for you this morning.
Jesus said to them truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood. You have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks, my blood has ever lasting life and I will raise him up on the last day. My flesh is true food. My blood is true. Drink, whoever feeds on my flesh and drink some of my blood abides in me and I in him as the living father sent me and I live because of the.
So whoever feeds on me, he also has life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread that the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. And I don’t know about you, but these are difficult words to read and understand. It sounds as, I don’t know how else we could describe it.
It sounds like what he’s referring to is cannibalism. Which to us humans, all of us humans, isn’t a horrible thought. And it was to those who heard it on that day, as well. As a matter of fact, John continues after this. Many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Even as I read these words again this morning, even as you heard these words again this morning, I can’t not wonder.
How this relates to what we’re observing this morning. And I wonder, does it have anything to do with our observation this morning?
Thankfully, there’s a passage in first Corinthians chapter 10, that kind of helps me understand, uh, how this all works together. Our own observation, as well as Jesus’ words on that day. You need to understand, I don’t want in any way to minimize, uh, the elements that we observe. And I also don’t want to spiritualize Jesus’ words or the celebration or the elements and chapter 10 of first Corinthians Paul is warning the believers regarding their continued participation, that word koinonia, their continued participation in.
The temples of their former gods. So you live in the city of Corinth and there’s the temple of Apollo and you used to worship there. And now you’ve heard the word of Christ. You’ve heard the gospel and you’ve come to know Jesus as your savior, but you still walk by Apollo’s temple on your way home from work or on your way to the market or on your way.
And you still bump into your fellow, your former fellow worshipers in that place. But now you’re a believer. I don’t have time to sum up this whole to read you this whole passage, but I would encourage you when you have some time this week, maybe this afternoon read first Corinthians chapter 10. It’s fascinating.
Paul says much. So let me just kind of sum up what Paul is doing, especially towards the latter part of this chapter is he relates, and this is very important. He relates. The bread and the cup are elements from communion, the ones who are delivered from our, by our Lord, to his disciples, to both the Jewish sacrificial system and to the sacrifices made to the idols there in Corinth.
What Paul does is he compares these events. With an understanding to the significance that they hold for the participants in each, the Jews and their sacrificial system, the idols, I mean, the, the worshipers of the idol worshipers in Corinth and, and the Christians observing, he compares these three observations with an understanding to the significant.
That they hold for the participation participants in each in no way. This is very important in no way. Does Paul downplay the significance of an offering to an idol, to the worshiper, to the participant instead later on in the passage, he is actually going to warn the Corinthians, not to downplay or not to make light of this significant.
But the offering to an idol has on the participant on the one, making the offering in the weight behind this warning is significant. Is this significance that the believers have been taught to find in their own participation in the Lord’s table? Think of it when you’re thinking of that former idol, worshiper and his offering sacrifice to his idol.
I think of it. In terms of the significance you give to these elements, the significance significance you’ve been taught to give to these elements. As we observe the Lord’s table,
it’s deeply sacred. It’s deeply significant. So right here in the middle of chapter 10, I just want to read this verse for you. These two verses verses 16 and 17, the cup of blessing that we bless. Is it not participation in koinonia? The blood of Christ, the bread that we break? Is it not participation in koininia?
The body of Christ and listen, because there is one bread we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread. I think Eugene Peterson in his. His version of the, of the Bible. He calls it, the message does a beautiful job. And I want to read this passage to you in that, because it expands on what Paul is saying here.
The message says this. When we drink the cup of blessing, aren’t we taking into ourselves. The blood, the very life of Christ and isn’t it in the same, isn’t it the same with the loaf of bread we break and eat. Don’t we take into ourselves, the body, the very life of Christ, because there is one loaf. Our many newness becomes oneness Christ.
Doesn’t become fragmented in us. Rather we become unified. In him, we don’t reduce Christ to what we are. He raises us to what he is now. Eugene Peterson certainly adds more than what is in the original language here. He embellishes quite a bit, but he does. So to make clear the point that Paul is making the weight of Paul’s argument.
And this is beautiful when we take Christ into. As we observe as we partake of this bread, that was broken. When we take Christ into us, he does not become an infinite number of Christ. Rather we, the partakers, the sharers, the participants in become one in him. Did you get that? We’re going to take little individual pieces of.
Matsa there were created that were broken in a factory somewhere and plugged into this little snack pack communion kit for us. And when we do so, what Christ is, or Paul is saying is that we are not separating Christ. Uh, bread that was broken there then does not become separate things, but rather it becomes one.
As we partake of it, we need to not take the significance of what we do here this morning. Lightly. Am I suggesting maybe this is magical, mystical. Maybe, maybe I am something significant is happening here. It’s not a casual observance that we partake this morning. What was broken for us is made whole in us, not in us, individually in us as we are one in him, what we need to understand and what is symbolized here?
Is that our union with one another in Christ, it’s not a secondary matter to our faith. This is the point of communion again and again, and again, it is not a secondary matter of our faith that we are one in Christ. It is part and parcel of the whole thing.
It doesn’t matter that you and I are about to sh to partake of a broken piece of matzah that came from a factory somewhere. It’s a matter of fact, it really is not about the loaf at all, or who broke it or where it was broken. And it can never become about the loaf that was broken because then the loaf can become an idol.
The very thing it can not be allowed to become. This is all about the one who was broken for us. The one who gave his life blood for us, we are shares in participants in the one, not the one loaf, but the one that, that loaf symbolizes we are shares in participants in Christ. Excuse me. We have fellowship quite an ear participation in.
Him with him. We are in communion with, we are in communion with him.
This is our communion. This is what makes us one. We are made to be one in the one who lived and died and rose. That we might be one in him. We are made to be one in the one who, who lived and died and rose again, that we might be one in him. John chapter 17. Jesus makes this perfectly abundantly clear in that prayer to his father on that last night.
Talking candidly with the one who sent him, the one who came from the one he has known forever. He lets us know his disciples know as they are witnesses, as they are observers participants in. As they listen to him, talk to his father, they find out that this has been the plan all along. This is what the son came to a.
Not only our oneness in him. I seen him and him and the father, but that we together his disciples, the participants, the observance, the fellowship of this table that we together together would know it perfectly together. And participated in it together as one we take what was broken and in our ingesting it, what was meant, what goes, what goes into many becomes one.
And it does so in us because there is one bread we who are many. We we who are one body, we read it again because there is one bread. We who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread. Pastor Mike is going to come now and lead us in the observance of the Lord’s table.