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A TASTE OF GOD'S MEDICINE

Someone once paraphrased the old cliché about "burying the hatchet." "Yeah, he buried it," the person complained, "but he left the handle sticking out so he could get at it again." Or today we could say about someone's resentment: "He deleted that off his hard drive, but you can bet he kept a duplicate copy on a floppy disk someplace."

This week on the Voice of Prophecy our radio series title is A CUP AND A CRACKER. And of course, in the Christian life, the Lord's Supper or Communion are supposed to bring into our lives a real burying of the hatchet, an erasing of all computer files and their backups and the hard copy we stuffed underneath the mattress for when we wanted to get it out later and feed on our petty jealousies again.

But does this really happen? How can it happen? Can a bit of grape juice and a single bite of bread — a Wheat Thin cracker — actually clear away our entire cluttered-up horizon of hatred? Do the sacraments really do that?

In the original story where the first cup was poured out for those 12 snarling, ladder-climbing men, I'm sure there were some anniversary-keepers among the disciples. So-and-so had hogged the limelight exactly one month ago today. "And remember last year — in fact, a year ago today — when you stole my sermon idea, Andrew! I'm still mad at you!" Humor columnist Art Buchwald remarked once that they certainly didn't need a desktop computer at his house to keep track of things; his wife, Ann, had a perfectly clear and accurate mental picture of every single thing he'd done wrong in 40 or so years of marriage, and could even cite chapter and verse of some of his sins while they were dating around the time of World War II. She had kept a record.

We can't help but notice an anniversary ourselves today, in fact. On June 4, 1989, eight years ago today as you're hearing this, the Tiananmen Square Massacre took place. We all remember the photo images, especially the young man standing in front of that tank.

But as we consider just that one historical event, surely there would be those who would cling to resentment concerning what took place over there in China. Maybe a relative injured; a friend illegally detained. People's rights infringed on . . . and so today, eight years later, the blood still boils. Somebody reaches again for the handle of that hatchet sticking out of the ground.

Friend, I'm not going to say that the Bible's teachings are easy, but they certainly are clear. Jesus, in His painfully challenging Sermon on the Mount, says in Matthew 5:23 and 24:

"If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."

Now it's true that this passage isn't referring explicitly to the Lord's Supper. But if you read the account as described by John in chapter 13, and then also read Paul's companion instructions in First Corinthians 11, which many of you studied carefully with Lonnie a few months ago, it's very clear that the bread and the wine are not to be taken by those who have unresolved anger or differences with one another.

Jesus Himself, knowing the hard, hate-filled hearts of His 12 disciples, actually donned the garb of a servant and got down on the floor and washed the feet of those fishermen. He wiped away their pride, their record-keeping, their cataloguing of anniversaries. He prayed for their unity — that's a few pages over in chapter 17, but still in the heart of this very same story, the same revolutionary Thursday evening. "The one among you who wants to lead," He quietly told them, sitting there together in the candlelight, "that one's got to serve instead. No more climbing over each other. No more feuds. Service."

Then just a few years later, now in Corinth, Paul really administers what we might almost call a tongue-lashing. "There are divisions among you!" he says. And then in the very next verses, he adds: "And then you come together for the Lord's Supper? No! You've got to examine yourself before you eat this bread and drink this cup!"

And right here, friend, is one of the most difficult teachings in the Bible. We don't keep this very well, and some of us aren't trying nearly as hard as heaven calls us to. Before we accept the bread and the wine, we're actually supposed to search our souls. Are there unconfessed sins there? Lingering bits of anger? Unfixed feuds? Are there still some hatchet handles dotting the landscape of our mind? Before the deacon gets to your pew, Paul says, you need to confess, confess, confess.

In their book, The Body, Chuck Colson and Ellen Santilli Vaughn write extensively about the spiritual requirements that are biblically connected with this act of worship. I think they're absolutely right on all three. Here they are:

First, only believers can participate. We made that point yesterday in our study time, you may recall.

Secondly, believers partaking must be at peace with one another. And of course, right here we must confess that this is an ongoing challenge we so often fail to measure up to. God forgive us, because we very often partake in an unworthy manner, as the Word of God puts it. And I thank God for His patience with us, but friend, that doesn't open up the floodgates to where we can keep that hatchet right there next to our Bibles while we eat and drink these sacred emblems. Absolutely not.

I think Point #3 in this Colson/Vaughn book is equally true. Believers dare not come to the table, they write, except with a repentant heart.

Can you immediately see how very necessary, how vital, how life-bringing this service can be? It's crucial to the Church! Whether it's every week or every "quarter," four times a year as in my denomination, or however your church schedules it, friend, I urge you to not only participate . . . but to participate right. As a sinner who has repented. As a person who has deliberately and consciously surrendered pride. Either bury that hatchet or use it to knock down some of those walls.

Think of a church where this Bible teaching was really followed. It's 12:01 p.m. Sabbath or Sunday morning as the believers go back out to the parking lot. And the air is clear out there! Every angry memory is forgiven! Every hateful thought, every trace of resentful attitudes . . . gone. Every issue resolved, every church board dilemma — if not fixed, is at least now cast in a new light, where praying believers who love each other and pray with each other, will keep working together to find that answer.

It's no wonder to me that Colson and Vaughn conclude in their book:

"Failing to celebrate that communion, or doing so infrequently, can drain the vitality from a church body."

Well, friend, we care about that church body, don't we? And that's as it should be. But also, as we look into the mirror of the soul, as we stare hard into our own heart, don't we see a huge need for regular Communion, for the cleansing that, because it's required, is also provided?

Let me share just one more slice of wisdom from Colson and Vaughn, this time in the form of an anecdote. Pat Novak was serving as a hospital chaplain intern in Boston a few years ago. Still in training. And there one day he met up with a patient who'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks already. But nobody knew, really, what was wrong with John. He wasn't responding to medical treatment, psychiatric treatment. He couldn't keep food down; in fact, for those past two weeks he couldn't even swallow. He was just sitting there in the hospital bed with an IV stuck in his arm as he stared blankly at the wall.

However, when he saw Pat with his chaplain's badge, he kind of brightened up just a bit. And the two men visited. And all at once the Holy Spirit hit this chaplain-in-training with an impulse: Ask him if he wants communion.

Now — this was a public hospital. Chaplains were expected to lay low with those sorts of suggestions. The bread and the wine? Right here? But the impulse was still there, and so finally he carefully broached the subject and began to visit with John about First Corinthians and what Paul taught about resentment and confessing sins and so on.

And all at once this man just let it all hang out. He had something to confess. It wasn't anything tremendously horrible or egregious — the word our writers used. Nothing too scandalous, but John had carried this around and needed to confess.

And so now he had. And Pat, our pastor friend, felt the same impulse a second time. So he asked: "Do you want to take Communion?" And John, already sitting up straighter, said yes.

Well, the pastor had to scurry around and wrap up a bit of cafeteria bread in a napkin. Then down a few blocks to a nearby store to get a little container of grape juice. And he came back to the hospital room, and he and John, reading First Corinthians 11 again — "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me" — took the emblems together.

Remember, now, John hadn't been able to eat or even swallow for two weeks. But right here in that little room, he chewed on the bread, swallowed it, drank the juice, kept it down. And all at once, he was free.

Friend — and this is a true story — three days later John walked out of that hospital completely healed. The nurses were so amazed they called the newspaper, which ran a story on John's experience.

Listen, are you hanging on to some Tiananmen Square memory of your own? Are you so tight with rebellion and resentment that you can hardly swallow? Maybe right now, a diet of bread and wine is what the Great Physician wants to prescribe for you too.