By Kristen Mudrack
Communion Meditation, Grandview Christian Church – March 31, 2019
Most little girls dream about their wedding day. They prance around in little white dresses and wait for prince charming to come bounding in on his white horse to save them. As my dad used to say, though, prince charming is a myth and you’d have nowhere to keep the horse.
My first serious boyfriend told me on his way out the door that I wasn’t ever going to find anyone who could love me – and then enumerated several reasons. My college roommate was always being chased by guys, but I was just the cute girl’s roommate. When I moved on to graduate school, I was too focused on getting my degree to worry about boys – and none of them wanted me anyway. By the time I met my now-husband, I had pretty much given up on getting married. I figured that God might have different plans, and I was okay with that. (Cliché, I know. But stick with me – my story has a purpose)
But God, in His infinite wisdom, saw fit to give me what I desired as a little girl but never thought I would have. In December of 2017, I entered into a covenant with God and my husband, in the presence of friends and family. On that day, I promised to love, cherish, honor, and serve my husband in all circumstances of life – till death do us part. I didn’t have to cut animals in half and walk between them like Abraham, I didn’t have to set up an altar and sacrifice on it daily like the Israelites. The marriage license that I signed was an outward sign of our covenant, but the words we promised each other are what we remember, and what we seek to do well, with God’s help.
This table before us is another covenant. One that cost our Lord His life. But when we entered into this covenant by choice, we didn’t promise to love, honor, cherish, and serve Him till death do us part. He promised to love us and cherish us – till death do us restore.
For death did not part us. Christ’s death and resurrection restores us to the relationship that we were meant to have with our Creator and God. This table – the bread and the cup – is the outward expression of the covenant God has made with us. We didn’t do anything to deserve it, and there’s nothing we can do to earn it. It is a gift, freely given. Costly to our Savior, but given freely to us.
From the Fall, our relationship with God has been broken. The covenants He made with Noah, Abraham, David, the Israelites – all were on the way to the fulfillment of restoring that relationship with His creation. In the person of His Son, through his death and resurrection, God bridged the gap and invited us to be in personal relationship with Him.
Restoration won’t be fully complete until that day when Jesus comes again. As a kid, I shouldn’t have been waiting for prince charming on the white horse. I should have been waiting for the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the cornerstone, the beginning and the end – to come when that trumpet sounds and fulfill the plan of restoration.
You are the one God wants to restore. If you were the only person on Earth, Jesus still would have died for you. He invites you to this table today to come and eat. To remember and remind us of the covenant he made with you and with me to restore all the world to himself.
For it was on the night that Jesus was betrayed that he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat. This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, “This is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Take and drink.”
For as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.
