Dr Bob Wetzel, Chancellor of Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Johnson City, Tenn., wrote in the seminary newsletter about the decision he and his wife Bonnie made several years ago to be cremated. When they told their girls it resulted in a lot of conversation. The first obvious question his girls asked was, "What shall we do with the ashes?" Bob said, "You would have to understand our family to appreciate the macabre humor that followed. One possibility was to throw them off the bank in the woods near our home of almost 50 years. Or the ashes could be taken back to the home of our youth in Western Kansas and let the prevailing southwest wind blow them as part of a typical dust storm."
"The humor continued with even more ridiculous possibilities for 'waste management.' But then our older daughter became serious and said, 'No, we need a place to come back to.' Then," Bob said, "I thought of how I always visited my parents' grave whenever we visited Western Kansas. Nearby is the grave of our son who died in infancy. Yes, I had a place to come back to, to remember, and somehow say to them, 'You are remembered and loved.'"
After Jesus died, they put him in a borrowed tomb. It became for a couple of days "the place to come back to." And several disciples went there -- but it was empty. Since then disciples go to the "tomb" in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem but he isn't there either. Some go to the beautiful garden of the tomb in Jerusalem and while it feels more authentic, it too does not qualify as "a place to come back to."
Jesus must have known that his disciples would need a place to come back to. A place that actually exists, a place that is tangible and real. A place that every disciples knows about and knows just where it is. And a place where he is not absent. This could well be one of the reasons for giving us the Lord's Supper. It certainly serves this purpose.
Frances and I have taken communion thousands of times in our home churches over the years but we have also taken it in a Lutheran Church in Wisconsin, a Cathedral in England, among the ruins of ancient Corinth, and many other places. But wherever the Lord's Supper is observed it is the place to come back to, to remember, and somehow to say to him, "you are remembered and loved."
For this reason, as we come to the Table, we remember his words: "This is my body, given for you ... This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood ... Do this in remembrance of me."
