We had the Lord's Supper in church today and it made me contemplate the joy that is communion and Eucharist (Thanksgiving!) with God and our fellow Christians. I could feel the presence of God in our service, and I could see Jesus in the smiles of the people.
A late friend of mine from Kake, Alaska, Rick Mills, used to talk about the closeness to God that he felt when we celebrated the Lord's Supper together. He spoke of the unconditional love from God that he felt as he took the bread and the juice(wine) and remembered what Christ had done for each one of us. It was a deep, wonderful, spiritual experience for Rick.
Theologian John Calvin, who God used to lay a strong spiritual foundation for many Christians, had a great enthusiasm for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Calvin wrote that "it (the supper) was ordained to be frequently used among all Christians in order that they might frequently return in memory to Christ’s Passion, by such remembrance to sustain and strengthen their faith, and urge themselves to sing thanksgiving to God and to proclaim his goodness." He saw the Eucharist as a spiritual banquet, saying "All, like hungry men, should flock to such a bounteous repast. (Calvin, The institutes of Christian Religion, IV.xvii, 44, 46).
One of my favorite books is The Weight of Glory, by the great British Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, who is most well known for his wonderful Chronicles of Narnia children stories, Lewis was a great writer on the Christian faith in a number of other books. In The Weight of Glory, Lewis writes an insightful essay on our inner desire to have communion with God. We secretly, deeply, sometimes subconsciously, long to experience fellowship with God and to bask in His glory. This glory is partly the approval of God, but also partly our entering into the splendor itself. Lewis espouses the belief that each mere mortal as actually an immortal destined for glory or horror. He feels we should treat one another with the great significance that fact implies.
Lewis writes about beauty, and about the simple pleasure of seeing something beautiful, and about how in seeing it we want more. We have a deep desire to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. Poets and artists attempt to capture this beauty for us. And humans long for that beauty, wanting to be filled, immersed, at one with it. This is really a longing for the Creator of all beauty -- God.
Another aspect of longing in The Weight of Glory has to do with reunion. It is a longing "to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off," "to be acknowledged, to meet with some response." Here Lewis shifts from discussions of filling and experiencing fullness and life, to the joy of being known, and moving on to fellowship. We want to be full, to be fullfilled, to be complete again, and when we seek for it, we find we need and want God, who makes us complete -- and this happens in fellowship with God.
We long for glory. Lewis says that we want, "approval or appreciation by God." To be seen as good children by God is an inner goal of Christians. Lewis states, "We long to please God... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain."
But it is made possible through Jesus Christ. Lewis says we move from longing as the desire to be filled (baptized), then to the desire to be reunited, reconnected and known by Him(fellowship), and finally to the desire of being a thrill to the heart of God.
What we want is to be a delight to the Father's heart, and to be so filled with His pleasure that our whole being dances in its fellowship. And with that we are a hairs' breadth away from the Holy Trinity and the great dance of the Triune God. Lewis contends that behind the whole universe was something very lively, not static but highly personal. Behind Lewis's longing and ours is "the first dance," the original dance, the fellowship of the Father, Son and Spirit. This fellowship is not boring, joyless, sad or empty. This is a living fellowship, a fellowship of passion and delight and love, of creativity and joy and glory and communion. Lewis helps us see the Trinity in all of God’s glory and grace, and to see “Glory Himself” in our neighbors.
To see Christ in each other is indeed a joy. We do see glimpses of His presence in church and in everyday life, and it is always a marvelous thing to see Him, smiling from behind the eyes of our brother or our sister in Christ! Such Holy Communion is the thing we live and die for! May we each become "a thrill to the heart of God"!
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