Because we can’t feed ourselves
Guest post from Glen..
A minister friend of mine told me yesterday of the home communions he’d been doing. The people he visited were so incapacitated, not only could they not come to church, they could not feed themselves. So my friend fed them, saying,
The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you preserve your body and soul to everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.
This is the very essence of the Christian life. We are helpless and hungry, famished and fainting. He is abundant and available – broken for us. And every communion is like these home communions. All of us are powerless beggars. None of us can feed ourselves.
Perhaps we feel unable to relate to these communicants. Perhaps we shudder to imagine ourselves so enfeebled, so needy. But we forget – physically we will be like this one day and, spiritually, we are like this every day. This is our position before the Bread of life and communion puts us in touch with our beggarly standing.
So let me remind us of our status – and of Christ’s provision – with words used by Toby Sumpter at a communion service. Today let’s be aware that we are desperate but welcome guests at “God’s soup kitchen”:
This table is God’s soup kitchen. This table is where God feeds the hungry, the outcast, the disabled, the orphaned, the abused, the neglected, the lonely, and the lost…
This table is not for people who are fine thank you very much. This food is not for the well-fed, those who get along pretty well on their own, the fit, or the popular. This table is not for people are basically good but screw up every once in a while. This table is for the messed up. It’s for people who are failures. It’s for parents who have failed their children. It’s for children who have failed their parents. It’s for spouses who have failed one another. This table is for the needy, the broken, and the weak. It is for those who are starving for God’s grace and mercy, and they will die if they do not have it.
If you know your need, if you know that you are weak, that you are lonely, that you are failure on your own, and that you need your faithful Father’s love and care, then come. This meal is for you.