Communion Meditation – August 2024
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. – Ephesians 5:2
In terms of origin, Christianity is not a Western religion. Our Lord and Savior was born into the part of the world we call “the middle East” and then Christianity took a few centuries to spread across the Western world. But contrary to some people’s perception, Christianity has never been an exclusively western religion. Certain Asian countries like South Korea have large Christian populations. North Africa was evangelized in the 1st century and is the dominant religion in many African nations today.
I bring this up because many religious rites have a distinct cultural tone to them and it is difficult to translate them across new and different cultures. But the observance of the Lord’s table is something that can happen quite easily in a baptist congregation in southwest Missouri just as much as in a metropolitan church ins Seoul, Korea. In one sense, it can happen easily here as well as there because eating and drinking are universal, and bread and wine are also (near) universals.
But it can happen to a greater extent because the elements of the Lord’s Supper are symbols of the true language of the Table, and the true language of the table is the language of sacrifice. The body that is broken in sacrifice. The blood that is spilled in sacrifice. Sacrifice is a universal language.
A mother in Nigeria knows what it is to spill her sweat on behalf of her children. A father in the Philippines working long hours in the sugar fields knows what it to break his body for his family. We manifest the love we have for others by the things that we will endure and the things that we will give up in order to improve their lives.
The Table of the Lord communicates in English, in Japanese, in Swahili, in Tagalog, and in every other tongue of mankind. We can all see and understand the depths of God’s love for us by the depth of His Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. And when Christ gathers His elect together from every nation, tribe, and tongue, we will all be praising the Lamb who was slain in one voice. So come hungry, and welcome to Christ.
Nathan Writes 