COMMUNION SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
APRIL 29, 2007
MATTHEW 26:26-30
In the year 64 AD in the city of the Rome, there was the great fire. In the years that followed, rumors spread that the fire in Rome had been started by Nero himself—that the emperor of the Roman Empire had actually started this fire because he wanted to rebuild the city and he wanted to beautify the city for the manifestation of his own glory. Today, most historians believe that Nero did not start that fire in Rome in 64 AD. There’s really no evidence that he started the fire. We do know that Emperor Nero blamed the Christians. He said that Christians had prophesied the end of the world by fire, and now they were trying to hasten the day.
We also know that in the center of the burned-out area, Nero built the great Golden House, one of the greatest architectural wonders of the European continent in the ancient world. We also know that in that first century, there was a lot of misunderstanding with regard to Christianity. I mean, in the Roman world and in the Hellenized Greek world, people just didn’t understand this new movement called Christianity. They particularly didn’t understand the meaning of communion. In fact, in the Roman world, Christians were sometimes accused of being cannibals because Roman people thought Christians ate flesh and drank blood. The Romans didn’t understand all the rumors they had heard about holy communion. They didn’t understand the symbolism of the bread and the cup and the sacrifice and the atonement of Christ on the cross. So today, as we come to this communion Sunday, I want to make sure that you understand better than the Romans did.
We want to make sure that you have an understanding of what communion is all about, that you understand why we partake of the bread and the cup and the beautiful meaning of the Lord’s Supper.
I have two teachings this morning, and the first teaching is this: communion is an acknowledgement of sin. As we come to this table and as we partake of the bread and the cup, we are acknowledging our sin. We are confessing that we are sinners. Now, I know we all have times when we become tired. Some days are kind of draining days, and some days are replenishing days. I just last weekend kind of went through a tough stretch that wore me out. I mean, Saturday we had our discovery class, and then I had a family deal, and we had a birthday party, the 60th birthday party for my brother-in-law.
We had a pretty full day. Then Sunday, we had church. Then after the services I had a baptism and luncheon for family friends. And then we had a family reunion on Barb’s side of the family. But we also had staff retreat that began Sunday night and was up in Buena Vista. And it went Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Even though it’s a staff retreat and I absolutely love our staff, it kind of wears me out, I think, because it’s an extroverted thing and I’m a bit of an introvert. And so I always come home a little exhausted.
We came home Tuesday in that snow storm and had about an inch as we came into Highlands Ranch and 18 inches in Castle Pines North where we live. We just kind of crashed Tuesday night, woke up Wednesday morning, and Barb and I were both really tired, and I knew it was my sermon prep day. On Wednesdays, I prepare my sermon and I was kind of slow getting going. That morning, about 9:30, I sat down at the kitchen table and began to work on my sermon. And the phone rang, and it was Mark and Carolyn Brewer, good friends of ours. And they said, where are you? And we thought for a second in panic, and we realized we were supposed to meet them for breakfast at nine o’clock at Mimi’s restaurant near Park Meadows Mall. And so Barbara and I went into a scramble. And of course, you know, Mark was the founding pastor at Cherry Creek Presbyterian and the founding pastor at Colorado Community and one of my best friends. We just felt horrible that they’d been sitting there and we had forgotten. So Barb said, why don’t you hustle over there, Jim, and I’ll put my face on and I need a different car anyway, because I’ve got errands to run.
So I jumped in the car and I started driving over to Park Meadow’s and to Mimi’s restaurant, and I was on Park Meadow’s Drive and I was thinking, I gotta get there, because I’d already made them wait 45 minutes. And the speed limit is 35 on Park Drive. I don’t know what I was doing. I think I was going about 45. And they had one of those deals up that shows you your speed is, and I saw that (this is the first time this ever happened) as soon as it hit my car the light just started flashing. And I think it took a picture. So I expect that that means I got a ticket or something and I’ll be getting that in the mail. So, you know, video surveillance is kind of like in a lot of places nowadays, and some law enforcement is enhanced by video surveillance.
You can even now, have some automated camera take your picture in your car and you can get a ticket in the mail. And of course, the government is watching and we all make mistakes. I mean, there’s nobody that’s a perfect driver, and I know I’m not. So, we all make mistakes and the government is watching, but of course it all pales compared to God. I mean, God is really watching every moment of every day, no matter where you live. “Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” The Bible says we cannot escape His presence. God sees us. And the Bible says before Him, no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. So God sees us, and not only sees all of our actions; He actually is able to read all of our thoughts.
God knows every thought, and God knows our motives. God not only knows what we do that we shouldn’t do, but He knows what we didn’t do that we should have done. He knows about our sins of omission and our sins of commission. He knows we’re sinners. I hope you know that. I mean, that’s the beginning of coming to Christ, knowing that you’re a sinner.
Now, I have in my hand here a baseball. This is a baseball (perhaps you think that’s what Clint Hurtle should say to the Colorado Rockies). But this is not just any baseball. This is not just any baseball. This is a baseball signed by Don Larsson, and it says 10-8-56 on it. And what happened on 10-8-56? On 10-8-56, Don Larsson pitched the first perfect game in World Series history, and indeed the first and only perfect game in all of World Series history.
On October 8th, 1956, he just faced 27 batters. It was a perfect game. Three batters up, three batters out each inning for nine innings. 27 batters. No one got a hit and there were no walks. It was a perfect game. 27 batters. And I received this baseball from Bo Mitchell, a good friend who’s one of the founders of our church. And it was Bo’s dad, Dale Mitchell, who made the 27th out. He was the last guy up to the plate to face Don Larsson and that perfect game in the World Series. Dale Mitchell was a great hitter. His lifetime batting average was over 300. He was a tremendous athlete. But Don Larsson that day pitched a perfect game. And that can happen in baseball. I mean, it’s rare, but it can happen. Someone can pitch a perfect game without any mistakes. But you see, that doesn’t happen in life.
I mean, only Jesus Christ pitched a perfect game when it comes to life. Only Jesus Christ lived without error. Only Jesus Christ lived without sin. He was the perfect lamb of God. But we are fallen. All of us are fallen. So, the gospel goes forth to the world and we must respond in humility with the acknowledgement of sin. And so, Jesus in Luke chapter 15 gave us the parable of the prodigal son, one of the most famous of the parables of Christ and sometimes called the parable of the loving Father.
You know the story. You know how this son demanded his inheritance, basically rejected his home and left his father and went and lived out in the world in a profligate life, a life of rebellion and a life of sin.
But Jesus tells us that eventually this son came to his senses and returned home and he came home and his father embraced him. And he said to his father, I have sinned. I have sinned against heaven and before you. And you see, Jesus wants us to understand the prodigal son represents the world. The prodigal son represents all of us, because we’ve all left home and we’ve all left God, we’re all separated from God. But we’re invited home. And if you want come home, you have to say, “I have sinned against heaven and before you. I have sinned.” And of course, that’s where salvation begins. And if you’re a Christian, you had some moment where you came to Christ and you came to the foot of the cross and you acknowledged your sin. You braced Him as your Savior and your Lord. And when we come to this table and we partake of the bread and the cup, we’re reminded of the truth that we are sinners.
We acknowledge our sin once again. Now of course, in the fifth chapter of Luke we’re told how Jesus early in His ministry performed a miracle by the Sea of Galilee and there was this miraculous catch of fish. Peter was there, and Peter was so moved and so amazed when He saw this great miracle of the Son of God that Peter fell down before Jesus Christ. Peter didn’t know Christ yet, but he fell down before the Son of God. And Peter said, “Depart from me, for I’m a sinful man.” That was his response to seeing the supernatural. He said, “Depart from me for I’m a sinful man.” But Jesus would not depart from Peter because He came into the world to save sinners. He came into the world to save you. He came into the world to save me. He didn’t come to abandon us. He didn’t come to depart from us. He came to save us. So we come to this table and we acknowledge our sin and we do that before Christ.
Well, there’s a second and final teaching, and the second teaching is this: communion is the celebration of pardon. It’s not just the acknowledgement of sin; it is the celebration of pardon. Now, in the Constitution of the United States of America, provisions are made for the president of the United States to have the power to grant pardons. This is Article two, section two, of the United States Constitution. “The president of the United States shall have the power with regard to crimes committed against the United States of America.”
This power of the President is granted absolutely. It is the only absolute power granted to the President. It does not require the consent of the Congress, and it is not subject to judicial review. The president of the United States simply has the power to grant pardon.
That power was granted through the great efforts of Alexander Hamilton, and it was granted at the constitutional convention of 1787. Alexander Hamilton wanted the president of the United States to be viewed by the American people as a man of mercy and a man of grace. Of course, presidential pardons have always been controversial. The first one was granted by George Washington, our first president, and he pardoned the leaders of the whiskey rebellion, two men who were Pennsylvania farmers. Washington pardoned them. Some of the people didn’t understand. Then Abraham Lincoln pardoned some of the Confederates in the aftermath of the Civil War. But of course, Lincoln was assassinated, and most of those pardons came through Andrew Johnson, the successor to Lincoln. And Andrew Johnson, in a mass pardon, pardoned thousands of confederates. And some people didn’t like that.
Of course, Harry Truman pardoned deserters in World War II. He pardoned in a mass pardon more than a thousand deserters who had deserted during World War II, who had left the Allied forces. And Jimmy Carter pardoned, in another mass pardon, thousands of draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. There was some controversy, of course, that surrounded all of that.
Franklin Roosevelt, just before Truman’s mass pardon, had given individual pardons to people who had committed war crimes during World War II. And he gave out over 3,000—3,687—individual pardons for war crimes during World War II. And of course, Gerald Ford, pardoned Tokyo Rose. And Tokyo Rose had been convicted of treason. And most famously Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. And of course, there was great controversy surrounding that. But to his dying day, Gerald Ford said he never doubted that he had made the right decision.
And today most historians agree with him. The nation needed to move on and the nation needed to heal. So Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. And Ronald Reagan pardoned George Steinbrenner. George Steinbrenner is the owner of the New York Yankees, and he had illegally made contributions to Richard Nixon. And Bill Clinton pardoned Mark Rich. Mark Rich was a fugitive tax evader. And this was a very controversial pardon by Bill Clinton because Mark Rich’s wife had, just prior to the pardon, given $450,000 to the Clinton Library. It was kind of a controversial pardon.
American history is just filled with presidential pardons, and almost all of them are controversial, as some pardon personal friends, et cetera. There’s great controversy. But I think this is true in every case: when a person was pardoned, they felt joy. When a person was pardoned, they felt great joy, a great sense of celebration. Some people were pardoned while they were in prison, and suddenly they were free. Some people were afraid that they were about to go to prison. But now that they were pardoned, the fear was gone. A pardon produces celebration and great joy.
As Christians, we’ve been pardoned. We’ve been pardoned, not with regard to crimes committed against the United States of America, but with regard to crimes committed against God. Divine pardon. There’s never been a president in American history able to pardon people for sins committed against God. There’s only one source of divine pardon, and that’s Jesus Christ.
So you come to Matthew chapter nine, Mark chapter two, and Luke chapter five, and in all three of the synoptic gospels, you see the same account of the healing of the paralytic. I think most of you know the story of how these four guys had a friend who was paralyzed and they heard that Jesus was in Capernaum and that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah, and He had power to heal. So they thought, you know, if we can bring our paralyzed friend, Jesus maybe can heal him. They loved their friend and they were desperate. And so Jesus was at this home, the house was just crowded inside and outside, and there was no way to get to Him. But somehow these four guys got their friend up on the roof on this stretcher, and they cut a hole in the roof and lowered him down. You know the story. Jesus marveled when He saw this young man coming down on a stretcher, being lowered by his friends.
Jesus said to Him, take heart, son, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the Pharisees who were gathered there began to murmur and, and rage. And they said, who does He think He is? This is blasphemy. Only God has power to forgive sins. Who does this man think He is? And Jesus discerned their thoughts. Jesus said to the scribes in the Pharisees, which is easier to say to this man, rise, take up your bed and walk, or to say to him, your sins are forgiven you? But that you might know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, I say to him, rise, take up your bed and walk. And he was healed instantly. It was a demonstration of the fact that his sins had been forgiven him.
Jesus has the power of pardon. So we come to the table and we celebrate that. And the word in the passage that’s in the Greek for forgive is the word “aphiemi.” And this word aphiemi is normally rendered forgive. But in the Septuagint, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, this word aphiemi is used to translate the Hebrew word “sallah.” And this Hebrew word sallah is the word for pardon. And so this is the word used to describe what Jesus did. He has the power to pardon. And if you come to this table this morning as a follower of Christ, He’s pardoned you. That’s cause for joy and that’s cause for great celebration.
Of course, it’s not like any other, pardon. I mean, presidential pardons simply dismiss the crime and grant freedom to the individual. But presidential pardons do not atone for the sin. With presidential pardons, the penalty for the crime is never paid. But you see, Jesus actually paid the penalty for our sin, and He made atonement, and He went to the cross in my place and He went to the cross in your place. His body was broken, His blood was shed for us, taking our place in substitutionary atonement. So when He grants pardon, it’s not simply freedom and release. It’s a pronouncement that the penalty has been paid as well. And so, you come to 1 John chapter one, verse five and to 1 John, chapter two, verse two, and you read how Jesus has expiated the sin of the whole world and how by His blood He has power to pardon. That’s what we celebrate as we come here.
You have to appropriate it. I mean, Jesus expiated all the sin in the world, but you have to appropriate it by faith. If you’re a Christian and you’re coming to this table, you have appropriated it by faith, asking Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and to forgive you. I think it’s kind of like Luke chapter seven, a beautiful story. Jesus is at the home of Simon the Pharisee. This woman comes into the house, and she’s a known sinner and she’s had a sordid past. She’s just lived a tragically sinful life. She comes into the house while Jesus is with Simon the Pharisee, and she starts to cry. She starts to cry and she falls down at the feet of Jesus and she lets her tears just fall on the feet of Jesus. She begins to wash His feet with her tears. She takes her long hair and she begins to dry His feet with her hair.
Then she begins to kiss His feet and she kisses His feet again and again and again. Then she takes this costly perfume which she has brought into the house and she begins to anoint the feet of Jesus. Jesus turns to Simon the Pharisee and says, “Simon, two men were in debt to a money lender. One man owed 500 Denarii and the other man owed 50 Denarii. As neither one could pay the money, the lender forgave them both their debt. Which of the two would love him more? Which of these two would love the money lender more?” And Simon the Pharisee said, “Well, I suppose the one who had been forgiven the most.” Jesus said, “Simon, I came into your house and you did not offer water for Me to wash My feet, but this woman has washed My feet with her tears and dried My feet with her hair. I came into your house, Simon, and you did not give the kiss of greeting. But this woman has never ceased to kiss My feet. I came into your house, Simon, and you did not anoint My head with oil. But this woman has anointed My feet with costly perfume.” It’s an amazing passage in the Bible. And of course, in a sense, Jesus is saying to Simon, “This woman loves Me more than you.” This woman loves me more than you. She’s more aware of her sin. And perhaps her sin was the greater, but she loves me more.
But I was thinking, you know, it’s a very appropriate image for us to come to the communion table. Bible scholars debate, “Was she crying tears of sorrow because of all of her sin? Or were they tears of joy because of Jesus being the source of pardon?” Surely it was both— tears of sorrow because she had sin (she they lived a life of sin) but tears of joy because this man had the power of pardon. And she loved him. Tears of joy.
We come to the table today, and I think tears of sorrow are appropriate because we’re sinners, but tears of joy are also appropriate because Jesus has pardoned us. And it’s cause for celebration, incredible celebration.
There’s nothing like this in any of the religions of the world. I mean, in Islam, there’s not the celebration of pardon. Muslims, to their credit, acknowledge their sin. To their credit, we must admit Muslims acknowledge their sinners. They do. But there’s no celebration of pardon in Islam. I mean, a Muslim can take the Hajj and journey to Mecca and circle the kaaba and kiss the black stone that allegedly fell from heaven. But there’s no assurance of pardon, no promise of forgiveness. Muslims live their lives with much fear. There’s no celebration of pardon. That’s true in Hinduism too. I mean, the Hindu may go and wash in the allegedly sacred and surely polluted waters of the Ganges, thinking that they can maybe find some forgiveness. But there’s no assurance of pardon, no celebration of pardon in Hinduism.
Not even in Judaism is there celebration of pardon. As the Jews of Israel brought their sacrificial animals to the altars of Jerusalem seeking forgiveness of sin, there was no celebration of pardon because they knew the blood of animals could never really atone for the sin of man. But we come with celebration of the pardon that Jesus uniquely offers.
I want to conclude with a little story. It really began in 1889. R.A. Torrey was the president of Moody Bible Institute. R.A. Torrey was one of the greatest Christian leaders in all of Christian history. He was a great revivalist, a great evangelist, a great theologian, and a great scholar. A graduate of Yale, also a graduate of Yale Divinity, R.A. Torrey was the president of Moody Bible Institute in the city of Chicago. He received a letter one day in 1889. This letter was from a dad. R.A. Torrey, reading the letter, could just tell that this dad was in pain because his son was a prodigal.
The dad was just writing R.A. Torrey and saying, my son has lived a prodigal’s life and has turned his back on God and on me and has lived a life of sin. I’m grieving and I just am so fearful for my son and for his future. But I was just wondering if there’s any chance that you would accept my son at Moody Bible Institute. I just think maybe you could turn my son around. R.A. Torrey wrote the man back. He said, you know, I’m sympathetic. I really am. And in your words I can feel the pain. And he says, I’m so sorry and I promise I will pray for you. But surely you already know the answer. Surely you know the answer is no. I mean, this is a Bible college. It’s not a reformatory. We cannot take your son.
Well the father wrote R.A. Torrey back. He redoubled his effort. He just poured out his passionate plea for help and mercy. R.A. Torrey thought, you know, I better pray about this. And he got down on his knees and he began to pray. He felt the Spirit of God convict him that he was to do something very special. He was to accept this boy on one condition. And so he wrote the father back and he said, I will accept your son to Moody Bible Institute on one condition: that your son promises to meet with me for one hour every day. What a commitment R.A. Torrey was making. He was a very busy man, but offering to meet with this prodigal son for one hour a day every day.
Well, that son, was named Bill Newell—William Newell. He went to Moody Bible Institute and he met with R.A. Torrey every day, and his life began to change and he acknowledged his sin and gave his heart to Jesus Christ. He changed and he went on to become a professor. In fact, years later he became a professor at Moody Bible Institute and he became the author of many wonderful commentaries on the New Testament. When Bill Newell looked back on his conversion with R.A. Torrey, Bill Newell wrote a song. Maybe some of you know the song. It’s called At Calvary. “Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me. He died on Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary.”
It’s a wonderful song. I was thinking we can within the stillness of our minds and hearts sing that song as we’re taking the bread and cup today, because it’s true of us, isn’t it? That mercy there was great and grace was free; pardoned there was multiplied to me. And there my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Jesus died at Calvary for us. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.