The More You Know

After more than a decade of offering devotionals for Communion, I've frequently been asked - how do you know so much about Communion? Those in my fellowship have known that I always seem to have at least one or two thoughts in my pocket about the Table. 

The truth is, I don't know very much about Communion. I don't. I know exactly as much about it as I guess anyone else does, as an intellectual exercise, which isn't very much. The Gospels tell us about the Upper Room, but briefly, and Acts mentions the breaking of bread, but beyond that, there's not much to know.

But there is so much to dream.

And that's what it is for me - I'm a dreamer. 

I sit around on my wounded days and dream about what it might be like to be healed. I sit around on my failed days and dream about what it might be like to be forgiven. I sit around on my rejected days and dream about what it might be like to be welcomed. I sit around on my lonely days and dream about what it might be like to have friends. 

I muse often on my human life, on a life that is filled with blessings and brokenness, light and dark, beauty and ashes, wounded and mended, amazed by grace, surprised by mercy, captivated by love, and I dream about sharing a table with Jesus. 

And I realize...He already has one. 

And He's already invited me to join Him. 

Everything I have ever said about Communion is a word that I have planted in the tender places in my own heart and let grow until it has become love. That's it. That's all it is. I let it grow in my hard things until I've fallen in love with Jesus all over again, and I come to this Table and take this cup and take this bread, and it satisfies my soul. 

Just like He wanted it to. 

And I know - it's the Table. It's not the Cross; it didn't die for me. It's not the grave; it wasn't resurrected for me. It's not the manger; it wasn't incarnated for me. It's not the formless and void; it wasn't spoken for me. It's not the womb; it wasn't knit for me. 

But there is something unlike anything else in the intimate fellowship of being with me. Just being. In the normal, run-of-the-mill, everyday kind of human thing we're doing here - eating and drinking and hoping, talking about the Promise, wrapped in love. 

I don't know a lot about the Table, not any more than really anyone else knows. But I love it. From the depths of my heart, I love it. 

That's what makes the difference.