Dr. R.H. Edwin Espy Sermon 1965-06-06

for as a member of the riverside church i assure you that it is a special privilege for me to be able to this morning to share with you in a leading our meditation and worship together on a communion sunday it is fitting that we should think with one another about the meaning of the lord's supper what is its significance for us as we gathered together gathered not of our own volition but by christ himself around his table now there are many views among us i'm sure are concerning this most sacred worship experience in the life of the church there are different interpretations

in the different church traditions from which we come and probably no one of us in his own experience feels that he has slowly apprehend all the means of greats that is offered to us in christ and the holy eucharist as it is termed in some of our churches either perhaps those of us here this morning who approach communion with mixed understanding that perhaps mixed emotions mixed expectations are we even at times a bit apprehensive or embarrass him for taking of the lord's supper for illumination this morning let us not quite simply at some of the exploitation of christ

himself if we believe in christ's we can believe in what he has said i do not propose this morning a theological interpretation but as sharing with you a scriptural meditation are reflection in the spirit of communion sundays remember the setting of the last supper jesus final meal with his disciples not the physical surroundings but the association's with the events that were to fall he had come to jerusalem knowing that he was to die the disciples did not know this and he desired to prepare them without fully informing them the first three gospels put

emphasis on the separatists out and on the injunction by christ that his followers should continue to protect of the bread and the y in remembrance of him but the gospel of john makes this even the occasion for jesus' most intimate self disclosure of his whole ministry to his disciples he reveals his own nature and his best and he both comforts and admonishes them he tells them about their mission in the world what is expected of them after he is gone how they are to carry on thus we turn to the five great chapters thirteen through seventeen of the gospel according to saint john for the larger meaning

and that last earthly meeting of the massacre with his disciples now for those of you who are having taking communion later this morning can find a half are this afternoon or evening i commend to you a reverent reading of jan thirteen through seventeen you'll find many various things and we can mention only four of them this morning they all involve commitment to commitment of christ to his disciple the commitment of the disciples duke right the commitment of the disciples to one another and the commitment of the disciples together to the world not first the assurances of christ he was

about to depart from the world and he said to them dr is coming indeed it has come when you will be scattered every man to his home and we'll leave me alone yet i am not alone for the father is with me i have said this to you that in me you may have peace in the world if you have tribulation but be of good cheer i have overcome the world christ was making a promise it would be fulfilled in many ways one of these ways would be the sending of the holy spirit the third person of the trinity jesus said i will not leave you desolate i will come to you account for the holy spirit and the father

will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring dr remembrance all that i have said to you peace i leave with you my piece i give to you not as the world gets good bye to you let your hearts be troubled me there'd be afraid this communion sunday today happens to fall on her because the day in the church year when we celebrate the event fifty days after the resurrection from which many historians they are the beginning of the christian church where it was then that the christian community at jerusalem consisting of some one hundred and twenty people had gathered together and the holy spirit which jesus had promised his followers didn't descend

upon them and some three thousand converts were made to faith in christ that day the presidents of the we're council of churches in their pen to cast a message for nineteen sixty five comment on this great first date of the church that promise was fulfilled at them to cut in mit outpouring of divine power the doubting disciple were transformed and delivering signs of the range of christ over the whole or out from jerusalem they weren't reaching for the farthest corner of the world a great movement of resistance against the established powers of evil living torches to eliminate the night with certainty of a new day to come so christ's first

concern for his disciples was to give them a shortage promise comfort which was soon to find its initial for fraud and the sending of the holy spirit but there was a clear condition attached a return commitment was required the comforter would not come except to those who had faith in christ jesus said at a supper he believed in god i believe also in me and according to the second chapter of acts it was those who believe to receive the holy spirit and peter said to them repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of jesus christ for the forgiveness of sam and you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit for the promise

is to you and your children and to all that are far off everyone who the lord our god calls to him be repentance baptist these manifestations of allegiance were not to be taken for granted jesus was sure as he took a leave of his disciples that not all of them would remain faithful somewhere to the effect immediately he said to them one of you will be training and to peter the cop or not pro tour you have been denied me three times his first requirement of them was that they should be faithful and this commitment of the disciples would have to go farther

jesus said at the supper if you love me you will keep my command truly truly i say to you you know believes in me well also do the works that i do and greater works then these were he do because i go to the father so it is a compact of mutual commitment christ to the disciples and a disciple of christ there was to be a third commitment commitment of the disciples to one another jesus was concerned that they should remain together there were signs of dissension among them they had to fling understanding of the larger of christ and of their own discipleship he had already told them that they were scattered to their own home he

one of the consuming themes of the great high priestly prayer of our lord and chapter seventeen the final outpouring of his heart to his heavenly father before your family what's the importance of his disciples unit before the prayer jesus had said to that well and he'll commandment i give to you that you know one another even as i have loved you that you also love one another by this all men were know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another and in the prayer christ employers the father that they may all be one even as our father art in me

and i envy that they also maybe in us show that the world maybe the dow has sent a unity and cry in order that the world maybe b this prayer of our lord is of course the basic charter of the ecumenical impulse in his church today and happily we find in acts that the early church took this injunction seriously in the second chapter and also believed were together and had all things in common and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all as and he had me here is the commitment of the followers to one another this is what most commanded early christianity to the

un christian world of its day a pig an observer a historian said of the actress director tj behold how these christians love one and finally glazed like scared at his church is committed to the world this has been an issue of controversy throughout the history of christianity and we do not escape from it at the large table the gospel of john has said not only what is so familiar to all of us in this congregation from our mother's knee done three sixteen but what is less familiar in the following search for god sent a son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might

be state through him in christ's high priestly prayer in the setting of that last supper he isn't joining neither monasticism complete isolation from the world in our secularism complete absorption in the world he prays for his disciples witnessed in his name in the real life of the real work i do not pray to power should take them out of the world but the bow should keep them from the evil one they are not of the world even as i am not of the world as now did send me into the world so have i sent them into the world and for their say i consecrate myself that they

also maybe consecrated in truth now when we gather today holy communion we cannot believe that world behind we bring ourselves with us and swiveling the world to the large table far as christians we are meant to be in the world and yet not of the world we believe it's symbolically this morning to be cleansed and reinforced in the power of christ's and of his spirit but we leave it in order better to return to it as his site thus communion is one that the commitment of christ to us in his comfort and promise in which he gives

himself ever on you to his church the commitment of a compact in which we his followers green you encrypt your turn our faithfulness to him the commitment of community in which we make manifest are low and unity toward one another in christ and the commitment of compassion in which we pledged to the world our witness and our service in the name of christ may we approach a large table this day in the fullness of its meaning our gracious heavenly father grant that our commitments in the church and in the world maybe a commitment to be

to whom bialy honor and glory through jesus christ our lord our man