The second one is to know that communion is material.

How fitting that before Jesus offered His life on the cross for our shame and guilt that He sat down and gathered with the disciples to celebrate a meal with them called the Passover which started in Exodus when they took the blood of the lamb and placed it on the door posts, the right, left and top and all those who were covered by the blood of the lamb escaped death.

It was at the Passover meal, a meal the disciples had celebrated every year that Jesus sat down and describes Himself as the final lamb, the ultimate sacrifice, and soon His body and blood would be broken and poured out on their behalf so that today who ever is covered by the blood of the lamb escapes eternal death and it will Passover them.

When we come to celebrate we can be confident that because of Jesus’ physical sacrifice on the cross we are in perfect harmony with God because God’s wrath isn’t taken out on a lamb that needs to be sacrificed every year, but on Jesus and it was completely satisfied. Communion is material.

We recently celebrated communion for the first time as a new church and it was really powerful. For most of us we are either new to church or haven’t been in a long time so we took a little bit of time to discuss the purpose of communion. I remember the first time I took communion and I wasn’t sure what to do with that little cracker so hopefully these points will be helpful to you as well.

The first one is to know that communion is experiential.

Communion is just a snap shot of the feast and celebration that we will experience when Jesus returns and it is a time of celebration and joy. It isn’t divided by membership, age, sex, or education, but it is a celebration that is available to all who have placed their faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

In John 2 Jesus is attending a wedding celebration and in the midst of the party they run out of wine and in that culture it would have been very embarrassing and Jesus turns to the servant and ends up turning 150 gallons of water into the best wine so that the party can continue because in Jesus there is a joy that is to be experienced that we can celebrate. There is a difference between believing there is joy and experiencing joy. As we come to celebrate communion it is to not only know of the joy that is in Jesus and what He accomplished at the cross but also to experience the joy.

If we come to celebrate communion and are hindered by all of our shame, our guilt, our list of wrong doings, our faults then let us be reminded that His body and blood were poured out on our behalf so that He took that shame, guilt, and list of wrong doings upon Himself so that we may enter into this celebration and this joy is not only to known but to be experienced.