The Lord’s Supper is like juggling balls. So rich is the meaning of the Supper
that you can never grasp and hold all of it at one time. Just as a dozen balls
cannot be held in your hands at once, but they can be juggled, so the Lord’s
Supper cannot be comprehended in all its fullness at any one time. All the
meaning is there when we celebrate the Supper—it can be experienced—but you
cannot hold all of it in your mind and heart at once. So … we can either hold on
to those aspects of the Supper that mean the most to us and let the others fall
to the floor—in which case we cheat ourselves out of blessings God would give
us—or we juggle them, in a sense, grasping one, now another in turn … trusting
God to work in the sacrament to achieve in us the things for which he gave us
the Lord’s Supper.
The church year helps to bring out the multi-layered meaning inherent in the
Lord’s Supper. For example, the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday has a different
tone from the Lord’s Supper at Easter. And both have a different flavor from the
Lord’s Supper at Christmas. (See how I struggle to find words! Tone, flavor—in
the Lord’s Supper God speaks to us through many senses.) Different nuances at
different times, yet all are true! Maundy Thursday rightly points us toward the
Last Supper and Jesus’ death. The Lord’s Supper is about that. Easter points to
resurrection and new life. The Lord’s Supper is also about that. Some people
believe it is only about his death, but they haven’t paid attention. Jesus said
he would not drink the fruit of the vine again “until I drink it new in the
kingdom of God” [Mk 14.25]. So obviously it doesn’t just look backward. It looks
forward too. And it can look around in the present moment. That it, it conveys
to us a truth about what is happening right now. In fact, it does more than just
show us what is happening in the present moment; somehow the Lord’s Supper makes
it true. Jesus is alive, and he is with us. He is with us when we eat the bread
and drink the cup. That is why we call it a sacrament. It is not an object
lesson designed to teach us something in a hands-on way. It is a means of grace.
It is a creaturely act thought which Jesus Christ gives himself to us.
One time the emphasis in the Supper is on the present is Christmas. Christmas is
the Good News of God-with-us. God is certainly with us when we gather around our
Lord’s Table. He meets us here.
By now you understand what I am trying to say about the church calendar and the
Lord’s Supper. The calendar doesn’t give the Supper its meaning, but the
different moods and themes of the year help us to appreciate different aspects
of the Supper that are always there if we care to look.
What then does the feeling of Advent help us recognize in the Lord’s Supper? To
find our answer, we begin by asking: What is Advent?
In a word: Anticipation. Advent is the season of longing for God’s promises to
come true. Advent looks ahead. Even when it looks backward, it looks ahead.
That’s sounds like nonsense, but here is what I mean: Advent looks back to the
anticipation of Jesus’ birth because we are anticipating his return. God’s
people waited a long time for the Messiah to come. The faithful looked for it.
They anticipated it. Christians have long anticipated Jesus’ second coming and
the final fulfillment of all God’s promises. So in Advent we look back at their
anticipation, and we know how they felt because we are doing the same thing. The
joy of Jesus’ first arrival, then, helps us anticipate the joy of his second.
In a nutshell: God keeps his promises, and it feels really good when he does. It
happened before. It will happen again. Advent is about watching and waiting,
being ready, and eager anticipation.
Our scripture reading has been called Zechariah’s song. Zechariah was the father
of John the Baptist. The child in the song is not Jesus, but John. He is not the
Lord, but he goes before the Lord to prepare the way.
Zechariah is one of the old-time faithful—waiting patiently but eagerly for God
to keep his promises and send the Savior. He is singing because he is happy, and
he is happy because he knows the wait is over. God is finally acting as he said
he would.
You’ve probably heard the story. Zechariah was a priest. He and his wife
Elizabeth were God-fearing people, but they had no children and they were
getting on in years. Once when Zechariah was on duty at the Temple, he was
selected to go into the sanctuary and burn the incense offering. While he was in
there, alone, an angel appeared to him with a message. Zechariah and Elizabeth
would have a son. They were to name him John. He would be filled with the Holy
Spirit, dedicated to God, and with the power of Elijah he would prepare God’s
people for the Messiah. Zechariah received the news with confused skepticism.
What would be the sign, he asked, that these things would be so? The angel was
not pleased with his lack of faith, and the sign was, Zechariah was struck dumb
until the child was born. His friends realized something had happened to him in
the sanctuary, but he was unable to say anything about it. … Yet everything
happened according to the promise. John was born, and once he had been named,
Zechariah regained the power of speech, and the first thing he did was sign this
song of praise to the Lord. As I said, he was happy. The long wait was finally
over. God was about to act.
Notice something significant about his song. He is singing about what God is
going to do in the not-too-distant future. John is a newborn. Jesus is still in
utero. It will be a short while yet before everything gets worked out. So
naturally Zechariah talks about it in the … past tense. “God has looked
favorably on his people and redeemed them.” “He has raised up a mighty savior.”
“He has shown mercy.” Only when he begins addressing John does he move to the
future tense, talking about what John will do and about the dawn from on high
that will break to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of
death.
Here is a lesson we can take with us to the Lord’s Table. God is faithful. In
fact, God is so faithful that once you have God’s promise, you have its
fulfillment. It might still be some way off in the future. You may not enjoy it
as a reality at the present moment. Maybe all you have is a small taste, a brief
glimpse. I sometimes wonder if a little pinch of bread and a plastic thimble
full of juice adequately represents the great heavenly banquet Jesus spoke
about. But maybe it does. Sometimes all we have is just the promise itself.
That’s not much to hold on to. But it is something. What we get now is a promise
and the smallest foretaste … and yet, it is enough, because God’s promise is
certain.
Because God is faithful, we come to this Table in order to anticipate the
fulfillment of his promises. Jesus promised to bring God’s kingdom. He promised
to establish peace and justice. He promised to heal our divisions and remove our
sins. He promised to make us a new creation, so that we will finally be the
people God created us to be, and … we will share in the divine life. That is a
quite a lot of promises. He spoke too of a banquet. He often said the kingdom of
God is like a banquet, and he often changed lives by sitting down for a meal
with friends. This meal he gave us, he promised that one day he would eat it
with us in the kingdom of God. Take that promise, and add to it what we learned
from Zechariah—if you have the promise, you can count on its fulfillment. When
we eat and drink the Lord’s Supper in Advent, we anticipate that great kingdom
banquet, and we know it cannot be so far away, no matter how long we have to
wait. …
A popular song declares this to be “the most wonderful time of the year.” I’m
not so sure. For many people it isn’t. If everyone who wanted to take a nap the
day before Thanksgiving and wake up, Rip van Winkle style, on January 2 could do
so, the traffic problem I’ve noticed lately would disappear. I’m not going to go
into the reasons for it. If the holidays are difficult for you, you know why. We
have also had a lot of death recently in our congregation. That’s particularly
hard around this time.
I have always felt Advent is a good antidote to both Christmas burnout and the
holiday blues. It is a comforting season. Advent points us beyond where we are
right now, toward the kingdom of God. If we take Advent seriously, we might
discover the joy Zechariah poured out in song. We are the faithful of today. We
know what’s wrong with the world. We see it. It’s in the news. It’s in our
hearts. It’s in the faces of the people we meet. Waiting is not an easy job,
especially since we want so much for things to be right. What if, just this one
year, everyone in the family could get along? What if … God’s dawn from on high
broke upon us as we sit in darkness and the shadow of death?
We are joyful, not because we isolate ourselves from the world’s pain or numb
ourselves with piles of presents. We are joyful because we know God is about to
do something. God has not forgotten us. Those who are hurting or lonely he
remembers most of all. His promise is for you, whoever you are. It comes to you
through Jesus. By faith and baptism God unties you to him and gives you all his
promises.
So here is what I want you to do. Come to the Lord’s Table with anticipation and
joy. Be like Zechariah. Remember God’s promises, and know that he will keep
them. You may be happy and cheerful; you may be depressed; you may be confused;
you may be tired; you may be something else. It doesn’t matter. God’s promise is
for you. Jesus has promised to meet us here. He gives himself to us today as we
eat our little bread and drink our little cups—all in anticipation of that great
banquet when he will eat and drink anew with us in the kingdom of God. Amen.