Rev. David Holwick E Communion
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 4, 2001
1 Corinthians 11:17-34
COMMUNION DONE RIGHT*
I. There's a right way and a wrong way.
A. How NOT to do communion:
Willard Scott, the irrepressible weather reporter on The Today
Show, grew up in a Baptist church.
Once when he was twelve years old, he took Communion and had
a most embarrassing thing happen to him.
He describes it like this:
"In the Baptist church, they serve grape juice rather than wine,
in tiny little individual-sized plastic cups.
Once, I was trying to get the last bit of juice out of the
bottom of the cup with my tongue, when suddenly the suction
grabbed hold and my tongue got stuck in the cup!
I tried desperately to pull that cup off, but it would not
budge.
Then before I could make another attempt, the leader asked
everyone in the church to hold hands with the person next
to him and sing 'Blest Be the Tie That Binds.'
Well, I was the one in a bind.
Here I was with this cup on my tongue, and the people next to
me had grabbed my hands.
Just when it seemed like I was about to be discovered, I had
what I can only regard as a divine inspiration.
I sucked the whole cup into my mouth and held it there until
the hymn was over.
Then, while no one was looking, I reached in and pulled it
off my tongue."
#7099
B. Communion should be special.
1) It can easily become an empty ritual.
2) Done in the Spirit, it can draw us into the presence of
God in a special way.
II. The Corinthians give us insight into the wrong way.
A. Reputation for being a wild church.
1) Known for ecstatic emotionalism: tongues, healing, miracles.
2) Anything accepted - even a member living in sin with
step-mother. They were proud of it!
B. Their practice of communion was just as wild.
1) They had an Agape feast (potluck dinner) before communion.
a) Typical practice of early church.
2) Rich members brought more food, but sat in corner and
gobbled it up themselves. They even got drunk.
3) Poor came in late (from work?) and only got the scraps.
a) Divisions like this still divide church.
You have heard of South Africa's "apartheid" policy,
where blacks could not mingle with whites.
Only recently was it abolished.
Do you know where it began? In churches.
In 1828, a Malaysian slave brought her dark-skinned
husband to church there.
The official teaching of the Dutch Reformed Church was
that no one should be discriminated against
concerning communion.
But some of the whites were offended that this man
would be sharing the Lord's Supper with them.
The leaders of the church knew these whites were "weak"
in knowledge, but quoted 1 Cor. 8:13, and ordered
the dark-skinned man to stay away.
#1245
b) The essential issue here was not discomfort during
communion, but the exclusion of a person "for whom
Christ died."
C. They expected praise. 11:22
1) They were alive and vibrant and knew Paul would approve.
a) He doesn't.
b) Instead, he says their communion is a phony show.
2) We are no different than the Corinthians. Pay attention...
III. From the lips of Jesus.
A. Paul gives the oldest account of the Last Supper.
1) It was a Passover meal. Note "after the supper." 11:25
a) Like a Passover, he gave spiritual meaning to the food.
1> In a Passover, the unleavened bread recalls their
haste in fleeing Egypt.
2> At the Last Supper, Jesus associated the food with
his upcoming death, and what it meant to them.
b) This is what "in remembrance" means.
2) Element of betrayal. 11:23
a) Even at first Last Supper something was wrong.
b) When communion is abused, we place ourselves in Judas's
shoes.
3) Looks forward to the Second Coming of Jesus.
a) We are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.
B. The bread is his body.
1) Variety of interpretations.
a) Roman Catholic - literally becomes the flesh of Jesus.
1> But Jesus is still present when he says it.
2> He is not a loaf of bread, any more than he is a
door. (10:7).
b) Symbolism only.
1> The food merely reminds us of Jesus.
c) Spiritual presence.
1> The food does more than remind.
2> We experience a close fellowship with Jesus. 10:16
3> The spiritual dimension is brought out by the
dangers that can happen if we abuse it. 11:30
2) Jesus died "for us." 11:24
a) He died for a reason.
b) In his own words, he is our ransom. Mark 10:45
c) In communion we share in the benefits of his death.
C. Cup is his blood. 11:25
1) "New covenant in my blood."
2) Recalls Jeremiah 31:33.
a) God initiates new covenant.
b) God's law written on hearts, not stone tablets.
c) Every believer will know God.
d) God will forgive our sins.
3) Jesus's death makes this true for Christians.
IV. The consequences of abusing communion. 11:27-34
A. Taking communion in unworthy manner.
1) Probably refers to disorders in first section.
2) Divisions, selfishness, pride, abuse of fellow Christians.
B. We are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of Jesus.
1) Church could be in view.
a) We are the body of Christ.
b) When they hurt others Christians, they hurt Jesus.
c) (But the church is never called the "blood of Jesus.")
2) Literal body of Jesus more likely in view.
a) We're placing ourselves with those who crucified Jesus.
b) Hebrews 10:29 speaks of trampling on Jesus.
c) "Recognizing the body" (v. 29) is to think of Christ's
death and what it means to us.
V. Examine yourselves.
A. Where do you stand with God?
1) Are you saved?
2) Do you have unconfessed sin in your life?
B. Where do you stand with other Christians?
1) Is there anyone you should be reconciled with?
a) Pray for them right now.
2) Is there anyone you have slighted or hurt? Fix it.
C. We can approach communion with confidence.
A famous Christian scholar wrote:
We must be clear about one thing.
The phrase which forbids a man to eat and drink unworthily
does not shut out the man who is a sinner and knows it.
An old Scottish minister saw an old woman hesitate to
receive the cup of communion.
He stretched it out to her and said, "Take it, woman.
It's for sinners, it's for you."
If the table of Christ were only for perfect people, no
one might ever approach it.
The way is never closed to the repentant sinner.
To the person who loves God and other people the way is
always open, and their sins, though they be as scarlet,
shall be white like snow.
#8768
*To the purists out there, the title should be "Communion Done Rightly"
but Baptists aren't that pure.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#1245 "The Rationalization Of Racism," Beth Spring, Christianity Today
magazine, October 4, 1985, page 18.
#7099 Roddy Chestnut's illustration collection, derived from Sermon
Fodder, May 21, 1999.
#8768 "It's For Sinners, It's For You," by William Barclay, Daily Study
Bible Series: The Letters To The Corinthians, 1975, page 105.
These and 17,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://illust.holwick.com
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HOLWICK'S ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION Number: 3570
SOURCE: Christianity Today magazine
TITLE: A Celebration Feast Of Forgiveness
AUTHOR: Donald A. Burquest
PAGE: 24
DATE: 4/9/82
ILLUSTRATION:
The Lord's Supper should be a time of joy and acceptance of forgiveness.
Protestants tend to be too gloomy about it. One critical part of
Communion should be the announcement of forgiveness following our
confession of sins. Confession is the first step in establishing a new
beginning in our fellowship with God. The Lord's Supper is serious
business and the original one was rather gloomy, but we now have the
Resurrection to take into account.
Communion should end on a note of joy, not gloom. We can announce
forgiveness not on the basis of our own authority, but the authority of
the Bible. Nehemiah 8:1-12 is particularly instructive. When the people
cried at the reading of the Law, knowing they had failed God, Ezra told
them it was a holy day and crying wasn't appropriate. Feasting and
partying are in order.
Christ did not die to make us sad, but to heal us and forgive us.
#3570
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HOLWICK'S ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION Number: 3285
SOURCE: Discipleship Journal, #61
TITLE: When Nothing Is Enough
AUTHOR: Larry Libby
PAGE: 36
DATE: 6/1/91
ILLUSTRATION:
Richard Wurmbrand was a man who knew he had nothing. The Romanian
prisoner of conscience had an indelible experience with nothing in a
solitary cell deep in the cement bowels of a Communist prison in
Bucharest.
Over the weary months of his fourteen year captivity, he and several
other Christians worked out a system of communication through tapping
on a sewer pipe that connected their dark, tiny cells.
As the weeks went by, the men longed to share a Communion service
together. But they had nothing. No church building. No music. No
bread. No wine. How do you have Communion with nothing?
"But wait," one of his fellow prisoners tapped to Wurmbrand. "Nothing
has to be something or -- you wouldn't have it. And consider ... God
hung the world on nothing! It has to be the strongest substance in
the world. Stronger than steel. Stronger than diamonds. And my
brothers -- we possess it!"
So with nothing in their hands, they broke bread. With nothing on
their lips, they sipped from the cup. With reverent taps on a rusty
sewer pipe, they worshipped the Giver of everything.
In his later years, Wurmbrand would remember many communions. But
none sweeter, none richer, than the one with nothing at all.
How deeply was the Lord moved by this man's admission of utter
emptiness? Consider this postscript. On a recent trip to Bucharest, I
spoke with a Romanian television producer who had just interviewed the
famous pastor, now in his late eighties.
Christians in post revolution Bucharest were proudly giving Wurmbrand
and his wife a tour of a new Christian book store in the heart of the
city -- the first in living memory. The Wurmbrands were then
conducted to an underground warehouse room, stuffed with Bibles and
Christian books.
As he peered into the little room, a look of puzzlement came over the
old man's face. Then shock. Then boundless joy. The "warehouse" was
his former cell. And the very place where he had once shared
Communion with no wine and no bread was now overflowing with God's
Word, God's comfort, and God's exhortation. Though nearly crippled in
his feet from years of torture, the old man began to dance for joy.
If Wurmbrand needed God's exclamation point, he received it. When a
man or woman finally brings nothing to God, He takes it very seriously
indeed.
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