Today's culture is adrfit. There is no longer an oppressive meta-narrative keeping everyone in check. Everything changes, and everything changes fast. If you have to wait more than a couple of minutes for your fast food you get upset. If the lines at the self-checkout are long you can't understand why they don't have more. People change their relationships almost as often as they do their underwear.
Yeah, it's a different world. The change that has taken place has left many disillusioned, frustrated, and wondering if there is anything left that matters, that will be what it says it will be.
Many of the college students that I work with are looking for stability. They are desirous that somethign will deliver. They can see through all the bull crap that's out there and so they are cynical. Who can blame them? Every week it sems that another "holy" man has turned out to be a pedophile or morally degenerate in some way. Every week sub concsiously they exclaim with the little boy, after the Black Sox trial, "Say it ain't so Joe!"
This is where infant baptism comes in. More than that this is where the covenant promises of the holy, triune God comes in. He brings about the things that he promises to bring about. He makes sure that they happen, because he can.
I had a conversation one time with a gal about baptism. She was baptised as an infant in a "liberal" "church" of some sort. She had been going to a church in town and they were pressuring her to be baptised now that she was walking with Jesus. They informed her that her "first" "baptism" meant nothing since she was a baby and didn't choose it and that her parents weren't even Christians. Yet, to me it is amazing that the day she was bapised her parents, the congregation, and the officiant promised to lead this girl to Jesus. They covenanted with God and he made good. The promise was on him to make happen and he did. As she reflected on that reality she was deeply moved and drew nearer to the God who had called her as a freshman in college.
As I think about my two kids and their baptisms I am amazed at how the Lord is making good already. Our pastor prayed during Ethan's baptism that he would be an evangelist and that he would take the gospel to the world. His first few weeks as a kindergartner, the first time he was ever around kids who weren't "churched" he began inviting his classmates to know about God. I didn't tell him to. He did it because "they need Jesus like me dad."
In a culture, a world where no one makes good on their promises. God does through this rite of passage into the covenantal community of believers. God shows his faithfulness over and over again to the child who is baptised in the triune name of God. It does not save them but it initiates them into the community.
I can hear the naysayers already, "it doesn't happen for everyone". I know. I don't know why, it's a mystery. It seems more often than not in my experience that these promises made in faith turn out.
The God of the Bible is a God who covenants with his people and includes the children in that covenant. He always has, always will. Why are we afraid to trust him for our children? Why act like he doesn't care, when he does? Why not show a cynical world the beauty of our promise keeping God as we remind our children, our friends, and those around us of their baptism and the promise that God is making good on?
Oh, for the world to see promises kept generation after generation.
My friend Tim challenged me to go deeper with this. So, I have been thinking about it for the last few days and meditating some more about why Communion is so significant right now in our time and place.
I keep going back to mystery and transcendence. So much of our world today is "real" there is no imagination. There is no mystery. Our movies leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to sex, violence, or anything...really. Neither do sports. I was struck by this when I heard a caller on the local sports station talk about his experience as a boy going to his first Tiger game. He said that when he would watch a game on TV it was black and white. He had to imagine the grass being green, the colors of the uniforms, and the color of the stadium. He said that when he walked through the tunnel to enter his seats for the first time he was blown away by the color, the green grass, the green seats, the whiteness of the baseballs, the brownness of the dirt, the blueness of the steel. It seared deeply in his memory.
We have lost that. Now we have 'High Def' TVs were you can even see the sweat drip off the foreheads of the players and the individual blades of grass sway in the breeze. Mystery is gone.
That is the beautiful thing about the supper. There is a mystery to it. There is something that we can't get our hands around. There is an engagement of our imagination as we enter into the presence of the raised Jesus with us at the meal (or snack as it is now). If we will engage our imaginations in the mystery of this sacrament then we can regain something that has been lost. We can enter into the story of our faith and with the church invisible taste and see that the Lord is good. In a culture where our imaginations are stolen from us, actually, where we willingly give our imaginations away, this is our one opportunity to engage them again and embrace the mystery that is supping with the Lord Jesus!
The second thing is transcendence. It seems that much of the Christian life is considered to be humdrum and boring. But, oh, the supper is anything but. It is in this supper that we enter into an experience with Jesus that is beyond us and takes from the normal and we enter into communion, into fellowship, into the presence of our Jesus with one another.
People want to know what is so different about the Christian life? Is it any different from being a good Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu? Yes, in every way! It is found in the transcendent reality of the supper. The supper should bring us into an experience that changes us and draws us into a passionate and emotional and physical and spiritual engagement with our Jesus. With the one who really died for us. With the one who looked at our sin and our turning away and went to the cross anyway. With the one who conquered death and thereby made us conquerors too. With the one whose love for the Father led him to that cross. With the one who sits at the right hand of his Father and intercedes for us. This is the transcendent reality that the Christian alone can experience as he or she eats and drinks with the Lord at his table.
Mystery and transcendence. These two things have been lost in our churches, our culture, and our world. They have gone the way of the dinosaur. It is in the Supper that we can reclaim them, reengage with them, and get lost with them again.
If you want a great picture of getting lost in the mystery and transcendence of the supper grab a copy of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis. The interaction with Aslan and Lucy in the house of the Magician is amazing.
Tim, I know that this barely scratches the surface. I can hardly put all this into words. I am still processing and am thankful you keep pushing and drawing me deeper.
As I begin to write this I am feeling a bit like I am walking on sacred ground. In the Protestant tradition we only have two sacraments: communion and baptism. I have been thinking a great deal about the role of both. As I mentioned before communion is on the top of my mind because I just finished reading a book about it by Robert Letham. It was fantastic!
First, what I am not going to do. I am not going to argue for the merits of the Reformed version (read Calvin's) of communion. I will leave that to the places where it has been dealt with in full. If you want to know the differences between Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed understandings check out Letham's text or the Westminster Confession of Faith.
So, what's the big deal? We take communion once a month in our church and it's a nice ceremony with saltine crumbs and a thimble of grape juice. This is the consistent mode of taking communion in any church I have been in. I have witnessed Catholic mass and also Lutheran communion. There really doesn't seem to be much difference in "how" we go about doing it. There are obvious differences in why and what it means.
So, it's a nice ceremony. The Elders always look good in their suits and the men and women who serve communion are very solemn. It's nice.
But, is communion supposed to be nice? Is it supposed to be so solemn? Isn't it supposed to be "communion" with the risen Jesus? If so, then so much of this ceremony seems to be a little askew from what it must really be.
Sitting in my chair I realized how individualistic communion is currently. Think about the first "supper". The disciples and Jesus hanging out in an intimate setting, one of the boys even reclining on his chest. They were in a circle. They could see each other. They could smell each other's nasty feet. I have been in a setting with college guys many times like this. My poor wife wouldn't even go into our basement until I lit a match to "de-man" after Bible study.
I think that communion needs to be let loose. We need to realize what is really happening. We are coming into, entering into, the very presence of the risen Jesus. We take the "bread" and drink the "wine" and in so doing are united with Christ in community with other brothers and sisters in the body. I can't see who is joining with me with Christ.
It's me and Jesus.
This is not communion, not in its fullest sense.
In this culture we need to re-engage with the mystery, beauty, glory, and awe that communion necessarily is. We must elevate this sacrament back to its high, honorable, and lofty place.
It is mystical.
It is awe inspiring.
It is fearsome.
It is physically, emotionally, spiritually uniting with our Jesus.
Why don't we use real bread? It's inconvenient.
Why don't we use real wine? It might be offensive.
Was the crucifixion convenient? Was Jesus blood spilled not offensive?
The "supper" is to bring us together to experience community with one another and with Christ. I think we need to move back into a mode of doing communion where we actually see each other. Where we rise and go to the front together. Where those under discipline can't hid in their chair. Where the one outside the faith feels being left out. Where those in relationship with Jesus physically rise and stand shoulder to shoulder with their brothers and sisters.
Our covenant children watching and experiencing the longing to rise too.
The weight of glory as we together break bread and drink the wine. We would touch the broken bread. We would smell aroma of the wine and feel the warmth in our bellies as the wine hits.
In a culture that sees through the bull it is time that we return and embrace together the beauty and holiness of communion.
Think about it this way: What must communion have been like in the first century when the faithful were accused of being cannibals (eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus) and of practicing incest (for they were 'brothers' and 'sisters') in the midst of their love feasts? Our communion doesn't inspire this kind of response from a watching world.
I pray that we will embrace communion: the uniting of ourselves as the body of Christ with our head, the risen Jesus.
