WORLD WIDE
COMMUNION SUNDAY
Recently
our minister reminded us in his sermon of the prayer that Jesus made for his
disciples. On the night that he was
betrayed Jesus prayed that all of his disciples, those present and those to
come in the future, “may be one, as You,
Father, are in me and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world
may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).
Jesus
went on to give his disciples a symbol of their unity in Him, the Lord’s
Supper. The apostle Paul realized that
the Lord’s Supper symbolized unity and wrote to a badly divided church at
Corinth these words: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it
not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of
Christ? For we, though many, are one
bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Corinthians
10:15-16). Yes, we have one Lord,
one faith, one bread, and we are one body.
It is
particularly appropriate that we should celebrate oneness today in the Lord’s
Supper because this is World Wide Communion Sunday. All over the world today Christians and
churches of every kind are participating in this symbol of unity. Let me share with you the words of one such
participant. Here is a communion
meditation by Mordicai Chikwanda of Zimbabwe’
When Jesus was with his disciples
for a final meal, he said that one of them would betray him. He said it would be the one who dipped bread
in his dish. The disciples began to
question him, asking one after another, “Is it I?”
When we come and sit at the same
table, there are essentials that we assume we have in common. Essentials like a belief in one Lord and one
faith and one hope. These essentials form
the basis of our fellowship. When I
think of this kid of table, I cannot imagine that any division would exist
there. I cannot imagine a betrayer being
among us. Instead, my image of such a
table is one where we all belong to each other, where we wish one another well,
and where we genuinely value oneness.
I hope that the original
disciples of Jesus had the same understanding.
I believe that is why they became so upset when Jesus announced that one
of them would betray him. Jesus was
saying to that person that he was violating the meaning of the Table. The betrayer did not understand the
essentials of oneness and so did not really understand the Table.
He concluded by saying: As we come together at the Lord’s Table, it
is an expression of the unity that exists among us. Participation at the Table makes the unity
come to life. And the oneness we share
becomes real.*
As
one body may we now join in the confession of our one faith.
*One Church. A Bicentennial Celebration of Thomas
Campbell’s Declaration and Address.
Glenn Thomas Carson, Douglas A Foster, & Clinton J Holloway,
editors. Abilene; Leafwood, 2008. P 117.
