Communion Sundays were terrifying for me when I was growing up. The following verses from 1 Corinthians 11 scared me:
So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died. 1 Corinthians 11:27-30
I remember one night after church sitting on our front steps with my dad weeping because I was so afraid that I had failed to adequately confess my sins before I took communion. I was sure that God was going to strike me dead. Taking communion had become a sort of spiritual Russian roulette.
Oddly enough, that moment characterized my view of God and of my role in my relationship with Him. I believed that I was responsible to demonstrate to the Creator of the universe that I was really sorry for my sin and that if I could confess sincerely enough that He would forgive me. I was missing the Gospel and missing the beauty of the truth proclaimed at the Lord’s Table.
Far too often we try to approach God through our own righteousness. We try to perform and grovel when we don’t thinking that we will somehow earn God’s favor by doing so. Tim Keller says that the truth of the Gospel is that we are far more evil and wicked than we can imagine and at the same time, far more loved and accepted that we would dare hope. Jesus came to earth and took on flesh. He became fully human and lived the perfect life that we could never live. He died on the Cross, taking our sin on himself. He took the full weight of God’s wrath for sin so we would never have to. This is the truth that we celebrate at communion. We don’t prove anything to God. We come to celebrate the grace that we freely receive from him and to look forward to the day when all his church celebrates the wedding feast of the Lamb together. This is something we do to remember what Christ has done for us and to look forward to the promised communion we will share with our Savior for eternity.
-David Allston, Church Staff