The Heart of Communion
For a lot of people, they think of communion as juice and crackers at church twice a month. Historically, communion was love feasts where early believers would gather together in homes and eat a meal, and that was the Lord’s table. People started having issues, though, where rich people would eat great meals but not allow the poor people to join. Later, the church made communion juice and bread to address this problem, but that’s only part of biblical communion.
Biblical communion includes a deep spiritual connection between God and the people of faith. This is so important because, as John wrote, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35, ESV).
When God calls us to stand as a righteous testimony to the world, it starts by walking through life with true communion. We can see that illustrated in the story of the prodigal son. It’s actually a story about two sons; one was a party guy, and the other was a legalist. Jesus was talking to both groups, saying, “Both of you live in the heavenly Father’s house, but neither one of you really understand who he is.”
Here’s the thing. In the Middle East, especially in that time period, no man with a prodigal son who’d wasted his inheritance would ever humble himself to run out and meet that son, much less receive him back into his house. You can practically see people listening to Jesus and scoffing: No father would do that.
They didn’t understand the love of God because they didn’t have communion with him. This is the love of the heavenly Father. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone. It doesn’t matter what dark place you’ve strayed to in your life. You may be in a place where you’re asking, “Does God even love me anymore?” Jesus says, “Yes. God loves you.” He’s waiting for you to turn around toward home. He’s waiting for you to leave your younger brother’s party in anger. He’s waiting for you to speak to him in honesty and raw feeling. He’ll run out onto the road to embrace you; he’ll leave the party to find you.
Knowing the heart of God is why communion is so important.
John Bailey is the Vice President of World Challenge Inc. and the Founding Pastor of The Springs Church in Jacksonville, Florida. John has been serving the Lord in pastoral ministry for 35 years, ministering the gospel in over 50 nations, particularly as a pastor and evangelist in Cork, Ireland.