More Wonderful Things I Don't Understand - August 23, 2010

Daily Lectioanry for August 23, 2010
Psalm 119:97-120
Job 4:1, 5:1-11, 17-21,26-27
Acts 9:19b-31
John 6:52-59

John 6:52-59
"'Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.'"  (vs.54-56)
I have ideas about what Jesus is saying here, but I'll be honest I can't tell for sure what he means.  And I can't tell for sure what happens when we try to do what he says here and come to the Lord's Table.  I can, having grown up in the church and having put my time in at Louisivlle Seminary, expound on what I think is going on, but I don't know.  What I do know, or perhaps better, what I believe is something critical is happening.  Something amazing and mysterious and unique happens when we gather at the Lord's Table and share in the feast Christ has prepared.  Somehow, in a very specific and important way it brings us together with Christ.  At Hebron we do it on the first Sunday of the month, a practice that I was a little leery of when I first came here and which I have come to very much favor and anticipate five years later.  In all my previous stops (both growing up and in churches that I served) communion was kind of like a jack in the box.  Your turn the crank (show up for worship) and eventually the clown pops out (you have communion).  You know it's coming, but it's still a bit of a surprise.  Here it is much more a part of the rhythm of our life together.  I don't mention that because it's right, but because it's how I've experienced it.  Today's passage asks us to consider again the significance of what we are doing.  It asks us to contemplate something we really can't completely understand and will not completely understand.  It reminds us that this is vital and this is God we are dealing with.  God who comes to us, knows we need food and drink of a kind that only God can provide.  And God does provide - this I do understand, this I do believe.