Communion Sunday

Confession: I love communion. I wish we had it every Sunday like Catholics. The Lord Jesus is everywhere in our world, and touches us in a million different ways; but I like to think there are a couple of places He will never miss, a couple of intimate graces that always lead straight into His heart.

Part 1: A Recipe

Unleavened Bread

• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1 cup bread flour
• ¾ tsp salt
• ½ cup sugar or honey
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk or cream (more as needed)
• 2 tsp oil

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients and stir into dry, adding a little more cream as needed. Do not over mix. Knead briefly, like biscuit dough. Roll or pat to ¼ inch thickness on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Score into squares with a pizza cutter. Prick each square with a fork. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Brush lightly with melted butter and bake 5 minutes more. Remove from oven and brush again lightly with butter. Cut into long rectangles while still warm.

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Part 2: A Song

Almost every time we take the Lord’s Supper together we sing this song, which is almost a chant.

I love it, especially the last verse in which we become a link in a long bright chain–uniting His dark betrayal night with His final coming. He said He wouldn’t taste the juice of grapes again until He tastes it new with us in the kingdom.

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Part 3: A Magic

Confession: Sometimes I am bored with church. I can be cruising along one Sunday after another, especially in the winter, thinking We are a mess. I mean really. How can God stand us? I can’t even stand myself.

And then one day, unexpectedly, the magic will come back. I don’t know why. It may be seeing a youth girl leading music up front. It may be watching my son do the same, for the first time in his life. It may be that particular worship song with almost unbearably intimate words, still falling short of describing Christ as Lover, and suddenly my face is flaming and I am feeling public worship for the first time in months.

It may be the snack afterwards, and the one really significant conversation. It might be the almond-date-coconut balls, sweet in my mouth. It might be the pretzel bark. It might be the chemistry in the group of ladies. It might be that baby who grinned at me. It might be the phase of the moon, for all I know or care.

But the magic is back and I welcome it with open arms. I finally get it: He’s here.

We can talk all we want about the glory days, the Moses days, the Paul-and-Barnabas days. We can talk about the Reformation days, the Menno Simons days, the meeting-in-secret days. We can talk about the Andrew Jantzi days, the big-tent-revival days, the hitting-the-sawdust-trail days. We can talktalktalk. But unless we know He’s here, right here—in my outskirts-of-town-half-renovated-almost-too-small-already church building on a Sunday morning—in my sisters-in-the-chairs-about-me and my brothers-with-all-their-faults-around-me and my little-children-going-to-learn-the-lessons-I-heard-years-ago—church is just another thing to do.

People, He’s happening here, in our time.

I wish there were Big Magic every Sunday; but maybe there is, and I miss it. Sometimes it takes a fresh voice to point it out. The breast cancer survivor. The wild, destructive preschooler calming down into a functional, happy first grader. The young man turning his back on a selfish, immoral life and declaring publicly, “I have decided to follow Jesus!” The 87-year-old woman losing everything in a house fire, and coming to church praising God through her tears.

His Spirit is alive and well, and there’s no place I’d rather meet Him than here.

I’ve often wondered if the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is nothing more or less than discounting His presence. But it’s not so. Nathanael thought He was a joke and Peter thought He was a ghost and Mary took Him for a gardener—and He loved them and led them anyway, and gave them another chance; I know He has mercy on me.

So I show up again, and watch for the fire to descend. Communion Sunday, it always does.

Lord, open my eyes.

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Related post: Communion

The Lost Dogs sing a song that says all I just said, better. Read the lyrics here.

Where do you find Him on Sunday?