A Sensory Experience

What does worship taste like? Smell like? Feel like? 

We live in a world of virtual reality, where we're very busy crafting multi-sensory experiences in places we could never really touch. Put on some goggles, and you can travel the world, but something is still missing. You can hike the volcanoes of Hawaii and never know what lava smells like. You can tour the street markets in Istanbul and not know what the local cuisine tastes like. You can hike with a caravan of alpacas through the Andes mountains and never know what their wool feels like. 

In the same way, many of us go to church and have the same kind of limited experience. We know what the sanctuary looks like. We know what shape the Cross takes. We recall how the worship sounds or what words the preacher said, but our sensory experience of the faith is limited. (Except, perhaps, for those special experiences that are sometimes designed to engage us a little differently. When I was in youth group, we would call these experiences "cheesy prayer night," but honestly, they are some of the most treasured memories of my faith.) 

It takes us to have a movie like The Passion of the Christ to even come close to having a sensory experience of Jesus. We need the dark theater and the surround sound and the way the seats vibrate and the noise of the crowds and the tears of the person next to us and...and there's still something missing. Because even in this, even in one of the most powerful immersive faith experiences of recent times, we think that Jerusalem, even Golgotha, somehow smells like stale popcorn and fake butter. 

Something is amiss. 

This is why I love the Table so much. This is what is so special about Communion. 

In the midst of an experience that we primarily see and hear, it is Communion that invites us to touch, to taste, to smell. It is a truly multi-sensory experience of the faith. It engages more of our senses than the rest of worship does, just by its very nature. 

I've heard it said that the elements we take in Communion don't taste like anything. That little bit of cracker and that one small sip of juice don't have enough substance to them to meaningfully create a sensory experience. 

I disagree. 

I distinctly remember one Sunday morning when we had accidentally come into a supply of cran-grape juice rather than pure grape juice, and I remember how much talk there was about how different the juice tasted that morning. I remember when someone came in and prepared the cup several days before service and left it in the refrigerator, how it tasted a little more stale and just...weird...and how everyone was talking about what happened to the juice. I remember when we changed our cracker, probably for supply chain or cost reasons, and there were so many complaints (church folk love to complain, sadly) that we switched back as soon as we were able. 

So don't tell me you don't taste that cracker and don't tell me you don't taste that juice because if we change it, you recognize it right away. 

The reason you don't think it tastes like anything is because you aren't engaged in the moment. And man, I really wish you were. 

Because this is the moment. This is the one. This is the chance you have to take a trip through a virtual reality right back to that upper room and here, now, you know what it smelled like - you can smell the bread and the people and the juice. You know what it felt like - you are holding the bread and the cup in your hand, your fingers running around their edges. You know what it tastes like - and again, don't tell me that you don't because if we change it, you know it's "wrong." 

There's something amazing about this immersive sensory experience, and it only comes to our worship each week through this Table. 

Jesus said, "Let those who have ears hear," but He also said this, "Taste and see (and feel and smell and know) that the Lord is good." 

Here's your chance to taste it.  

Let us feast at the Table of the Lord.