To have Communion with Jesus

 

The word “communion” by itself means “an act or instance of sharing, intimate fellowship or rapport”.

For the Christian, Communion means this and so much more.

The sharing of intimate fellowship with God can come at many times during our day. It should come as we pray. It should come as we read the Bible. It should come when we talk about Godly things with our friends or when we are enjoying His creation by taking a walk. Because of the Holy Spirit, we are always able to commune with God at any time.

Jesus makes this quite clear in His message to the Church of Laodicea –

²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)

The sharing of a meal is an intimate experience. Not only are we doing what we have to do to sustain our own life, we are doing it with someone else and they are probably eating the same food you are. What you are putting into your body, they are putting into their body. There is a closeness which does not occur in other interactions.

Now, think of sitting down and having a meal with Jesus – and not just one meal, but every meal after you open the door for Him. Think of the intimacy this implies. Also notice that He says He wants to have these meals with YOU. This is true communion where there is two way communication. Our God, the Creator of the universe, wants this very personal, two way communication and communion with each of us. He wanted this communion with us before we realized we wanted it.

When Jesus spoke about his body and blood at the Last Supper, He was reminding His disciples about what He had talked about some time before which many of them found difficult to deal with. Here is what Jesus said at the Last Supper –

¹⁴ And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 

¹⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. ¹⁸ For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 

¹⁹ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 

²⁰ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Matthew 22:14-20)

Focus on verses 19 and 20. During Communion we are to eat the bread and drink the wine. Now compare this to what Jesus said in John chapter 6 –

^47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

⁵² The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹ Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. (John 6:47-59)

If you found these verses hard to deal with, congratulations, you are not alone. Many of His disciples could not handle what Jesus was getting at as you can see from the succeeding verses.

⁶⁶ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 

⁶⁷ So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹ and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

You see, as Simon Peter said, where else do we go? It is either all about Jesus or it is not. It cannot be about anything else. That is why so many of His former disciples walked away because they could not bring themselves to fully commit to Him.

Jesus uses metaphors to get His point across that He is the only way to salvation both at the Last Supper and in this passage in John’s Gospel. We are to feast on His words because He is the Bread of Life and without Him is death. We are to drink in His Being because He is the never ending water of life as He told the Woman at the Well in Samaria.

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

We are also to be covered in the blood He sheds so our sins past, present and future are wiped clean by His sacrifice - for we cannot come to God in our unbelieving, sinful state. We must be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus that came from His death on the cross which should be our punishment. The drinking of the juice of the vine at the Last Supper symbolizes this New Covenant that Jeremiah first talked about hundreds of years earlier –

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The Communion we celebrate with bread and wine is a beautiful symbol of the ongoing communion Jesus wants with each one of us. It is not a superficial relationship like you have with people who are just acquaintances. It is a deep, very deep, and abiding relationship where Jesus can say –

¹⁴ I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. (John 10:14)

Take Communion and commune with Jesus often. Always remember it is He who wants to commune with us. All we have to do is believe, say “Yes, Lord” and open the door He is knocking on so He can come into our heart.