James T. Cleland - Communion Meditation (March 5, 1961)

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-	Let the words of my mouth	0:09
	and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable	0:13
	in thy sight,	0:17
	O Lord our strength	0:19
	and our redeemer.	0:22
	Amen.	0:25
	We are gathered together	0:34
	at the table of the Lord Jesus Christ,	0:36
	the Son of God.	0:40
	He is the host	0:44
	and we are the guests.	0:47
	We are most of us well acquainted with the service,	0:51
	but do we understand it?	0:57
	Have we so thought about it	1:01
	that we derive	1:03
	spiritual sustenance from it	1:06
	for our benefit?	1:10
	Here are three facts for us to keep in mind	1:13
	so that we may not be	1:17
	awkward visitors here,	1:20
	but rather happy guests,	1:23
	glad to be invited	1:28
	and blessed when we depart.	1:31
	Now first,	1:35
	this service is an act of God.	1:38
	He is responsible for it.	1:43
	He is at the center of it.	1:47
	He is in charge of it.	1:50
	Now that doesn't entirely make sense, does it?	1:55
	Surely, we prepared the bread and the wine.	1:59
	It was we who dressed in our Sunday clothes and came here.	2:05
	We have done the singing and the praying	2:12
	and we shall do more of it.	2:14
	Now there's truth in the puzzled reaction	2:18
	but it misses the whole reason for our being here.	2:23
	The sum and the substance of a sacrament	2:28
	is that it is something which God does.	2:31
	God gave his Word,	2:38
	his healthy message of hope.	2:41
	He also gave the Lord's Supper,	2:45
	his table,	2:49
	where we are fed to our spiritual nourishment.	2:50
	Now that's not easy for us to grasp	2:54
	and more difficult for us to accept.	2:57
	We want to be the ones who do things.	3:01
	Our whole American way of life teaches us to be activists,	3:05
	do-gooders,	3:12
	with the danger that in short order we become busybodies.	3:14
	Now don't become too excited and rednecked over this.	3:20
	There's plenty for us to do as Christians,	3:24
	but let us discern everything in its proper place.	3:26
	In the sacrament,	3:31
	as indeed in every activity of the church,	3:34
	God acts first.	3:37
	We react.	3:39
	He moves.	3:43
	Then we move in response.	3:45
	This has been caught in one of the communion hymns.	3:49
	"My God,	3:53
	and is thy table spread?	3:55
	And does thy cup	4:00
	with love overflow?	4:03
	Thither be all thy children led,	4:06
	and let them all its sweetness know."	4:09
	First thing we do at communion is relax,	4:14
	sit down,	4:18
	say thank you	4:21
	for inviting us.	4:24
	Sacrament is something which God initiates.	4:27
	Secondly, this service is a visible act of God.	4:33
	We're accustomed to the fact that God uses words	4:39
	to convey his nature and his will to us	4:43
	in the reading of the Scripture	4:46
	and, this may surprise you,	4:49
	in the sermon.	4:52
	The sermon is theoretically not a man blathering	4:55
	but God speaking.	4:59
	This thought carries weighty import	5:03
	both for the pulpit and for the pew.	5:05
	But man has other senses.	5:09
	He sees and tastes as well as hears.	5:11
	And in the Lord's Supper,	5:15
	God, through Christ, acts out his spoken words	5:17
	so that we may see them.	5:24
	The visible message is in no way different in content	5:27
	from the teaching of Jesus or from the preached gospel.	5:31
	To share your bread and wine	5:36
	depict to us	5:40
	love,	5:42
	fellowship,	5:45
	sacrifice,	5:48
	and the kingdom.	5:50
	The news grasped in the mind's eye is all about God	5:52
	and Jesus	5:59
	and those who follow him.	6:01
	Now just as meaning may be grasped in a handshake,	6:04
	so profound significance may be sensed	6:10
	in drinking from a common cup,	6:12
	for Christianity, in its great wisdom,	6:17
	has refused to separate the spiritual from the material.	6:19
	So long as we live on earth,	6:27
	the only way we shall recognize the spiritual	6:31
	is to see it embodied in the material.	6:36
	That is why it's called a sacrament,	6:42
	the outward and visible sign,	6:44
	the indication, the suggestion	6:47
	of an inward and spiritual grace,	6:49
	favor,	6:53
	loveliness.	6:55
	Now this should not surprise us who see in the flag	6:56
	more than an oblong of bunting,	7:00
	or in the wedding ring,	7:04
	more than a circle of metal.	7:06
	In the bread and wine,	7:10
	we see Jesus.	7:15
	Now we need not believe that the bread and the wine	7:18
	become the actual body and blood of our Lord.	7:21
	Jesus talked about being a door	7:26
	and a road	7:29
	and a vine.	7:31
	But we don't have to take him literally,	7:33
	though we should always take him seriously.	7:34
	Years before he was born,	7:38
	his most distinguished ancestor, King David,	7:41
	talked in this fashion too.	7:46
	He was hiding in the cave of Adullam	7:49
	to avoid the Philistine raiding parties.	7:52
	He was thinking of his birthplace	7:55
	and quite understandably, he muttered out loud,	7:57
	"Oh, that someone would give me a drink of water	8:01
	from the well of Bethlehem,	8:05
	the well that's by the gate."	8:08
	Three of his men, overhearing him,	8:12
	did just that.	8:16
	They daringly infiltrated the Philistine lines,	8:19
	laid hands on a skin full of Bethlehem water,	8:24
	brought it to the king.	8:29
	You know what he did?	8:32
	He acted as a priest.	8:35
	He took the water	8:38
	and poured it out	8:41
	to the Lord.	8:44
	How would you have felt	8:47
	if you had been one of these three men	8:48
	who had fulfilled David's longing	8:52
	at the risk of their lives?	8:57
	Angry?	9:00
	Insulted?	9:03
	David explained it in words so memorable	9:06
	that 3,000 years later, we're talking about them.	9:09
	He told them very simply,	9:14
	"This isn't water.	9:15
	This is blood,	9:19
	your blood."	9:22
	Now for a Jew, blood belongs to God and to nobody else.	9:25
	And so David gave it to God.	9:30
	But one of us says, but it wasn't blood!	9:35
	Well, if we insist on that,	9:38
	then we missed the whole point of the story.	9:40
	But if we nod our heads in agreement and say,	9:44
	yeah, I understand	9:47
	that water was blood,	9:50
	then we understand what both David and Jesus	9:54
	were driving at.	9:58
	This bread and wine on the table	10:01
	are symbolic of the visible acts performed by Jesus,	10:03
	Son of God and Son of David,	10:08
	to symbolize the love and hoped-for fellowship	10:11
	which he had preached and lived in Galilee and in Judea.	10:15
	This was and is his body and his blood.	10:20
	This is our Lord.	10:26
	Directly and very briefly,	10:31
	this service is a received act of God.	10:33
	Some of us were maybe a little worried	10:39
	because so much stress was placed upon what God did	10:41
	and so little upon what we do.	10:43
	Where we must do something,	10:46
	we must receive the sacrament.	10:50
	It's useless by itself lying on the table,	10:56
	no matter how beautiful the order of service,	11:00
	no matter how well appointed the table,	11:04
	no matter how sincere the prayer of consecration.	11:08
	The nourishment must be consumed	11:14
	by you,	11:18
	by me,	11:20
	otherwise it will not work to our benefit,	11:22
	otherwise God is not the giver.	11:26
	You know, many folks think that the one channel of grace	11:31
	in the Reformed Church	11:34
	is the reading and the preaching of the Word.	11:37
	But the reformers never said that.	11:43
	They said, one channel, not the one.	11:47
	They said, one channel is the reading,	11:51
	preaching, and hearing of the Word.	11:56
	No congregation,	12:02
	no sermon.	12:04
	There cannot be a valid sermon without a listener.	12:06
	But these men said something else.	12:11
	They said, the Lord's Supper	12:14
	is also a channel of grace, a channel of the Word,	12:16
	and it cannot be valid	12:21
	unless both bread and wine	12:25
	are received by the congregation.	12:28
	The Word of course may be preached	12:33
	without the Lord's Supper being celebrated.	12:35
	But the Supper is the Word	12:37
	seen as well as listened to,	12:40
	tasted as well as heard.	12:42
	And it is the congregation	12:44
	which does the tasting and the seeing,	12:46
	and it is you who bring this riddle to fulfillment.	12:49
	"Thy body,	12:57
	broken for my sake,	12:59
	my bread from heaven shall be.	13:02
	Thy testamental cup	13:05
	I take,	13:09
	and thus remember thee."	13:11
	We complete God's action	13:15
	by receiving it with understanding and gratitude.	13:18
	We are associates of his in the sacrament.	13:24
	The Lord's Supper then is God's doing.	13:30
	It is God's doing	13:36
	well pleasing in our eyes.	13:38
	It is God's doing	13:43
	well pleasing in our eyes	13:45
	and for us to receive.	13:48
	Therefore, let us draw near with faith	13:53
	and take this holy sacrament to our comfort,	13:59
	that as an old divine said so well,	14:06
	"Christ	14:11
	may make a better residence	14:12
	in us."	14:16
	Amen.	14:20
	Let us pray.	14:22
	O God, whose blessed Son did manifest himself	14:27
	to his disciples in the breaking of bread,	14:31
	open the eyes of our faith	14:36
	that we may behold him	14:40
	and thee at this table	14:43
	spread for our benefit	14:46
	through him who is the bread of life	14:50
	and the royal wine of heaven,	14:54
	even Jesus Christ,	14:58
	thy Son,	15:02
	our Lord.	15:04
	Amen.	15:07

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - Communion Meditation (March 5, 1961)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4x925k9b

Date:

March 5, 1961

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0137
ref5478_3e3
uachapelsermaud
duke:628517
dcrau002155
ark:/87924/r4x925k9b
a53d21e4-14af-447e-927e-ede65d1023cb

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - Communion Meditation (March 5, 1961)

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