Communion Shared Here

How would you have responded to the offer of a job where the assignment was to deliver a message to a group whose eyes were blind, whose ears were plugged, whose hearts were armor-clad, and whose spirits barely had a pulse?  You were asked to get their attention and rebuild them from the ground up by asking them to die with the promise that they would live again.  To do it, of course, they would have to trust you. 

It is a miracle that 2000 years later, this tiny kingdom work is still alive.  For all that we still don’t see, hear, and understand, after all the bad chapters of abuse of many kinds within its walls and ranks, with eons of twisted teaching, and hearts that still so often resist Him, He has not abandoned the mission.  The church is still here, hobbling often, but always with a thread of authenticity remaining somewhere in the fiber in each chapter of history. 

What were the chances that this could work?  Well, it wouldn’t be because we were so smart and cooperative, but because of a God who was able and willing, who loved immensely, and was authentically and thoroughly good.  He was the only ingredient that could make this possible.

His presence could transform the atmosphere and set our hearts on fire.  He could reach us and lift us up and place us on firm ground, teach us how to walk, then open the books and reveal the adventures of big and small events of work and play and love that could penetrate earth with heaven.  We have to let Him pierce us first by getting deep into our hearts, which often feels like surgery, but it is the way that we are made alive and by which our friendship with Him spills the cup of blessing into the world.

The drops of blood that fell onto earth that long-ago stormy Friday were the first splashes of Heaven’s communion reaching us.  The wine that Father, Son, and Spirit had shared had been translated into the missing element of sacrificial love so full that it overflowed in that culminating morning where a new day truly began. Earth had now literally received it, and even though most still didn’t recognize what was occurring, the planet had seen it, had heard it, had been touched with its power.  It held more hope than we could imagine.  It was all the provision we could possibly need.  

Remember today that it is still here.