Communion With Jesus

Alba 8-10-2025

COMMUNION WITH JESUS

I Corinthians 10:14-22

If you have seen the film, “Mrs. Doubtfire”, you know that

Robin Williams plays a divorced man who dresses up as an English nanny in order to see his kids every day. He has three children. He becomes great friends with their mom (his ex-wife, who doesn’t realize his real identity).

Near the end of the film, Mrs. Doubtfire is invited to a very important family dinner with his ex-wife, her new boyfriend and the children. But at the same restaurant at the same time he has an interview with a T.V. producer who only knows him as a man, not as Mrs. Doubtfire.

He has to keep excusing himself to change from the disguise he wears for his family to his real person for his interview. Eventually, he gets mixed up and Mrs. Doubtfire sits at the TV producer’s table, and his mask fall off at his family’s table. Sitting at two tables becomes a disaster! Sitting at two tables is impossible.

God invites us to choose his table. But it is an all or nothing proposition. He doesn't want us going back and forth spiritually. He doesn't want us to stray, but to stay with Him. I like the way the New Living Translation has Genesis 6:9. It says, “This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.”

That is what God desires. He wants all of us to be in close fellowship with Him. And in the New Covenant relationship we have with Jesus, our time around the communion table as we partake in the Lord's Supper is a high point connecting us with Jesus in a special way.

In I Corinthians 10:14-17 the apostle Paul challenges the Corinthians with these words: “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”

The Lord’s Supper is union with Christ. Paul believes that the Corinthians will be sensible enough to understand this. It is actual participation with Jesus by remembering the body and blood of Christ! It is a covenant renewal every time we take the cup and the bread. It is actual fellowship with Christ.

An important aspect of taking communion together is that we share our faith and love for Jesus and what He has done for us. When we partake of communion we are proclaiming oneness with Jesus and oneness with fellow believers and followers of Christ. The one loaf represents that though there are many in the body of Christ there is only one body. It is Christ’s table we come to and we do so together, remembering Jesus shed blood and broken body. Our time around the table is more than a memorial. Paul tells us that we fellowship or participate with the blood and body of Jesus when we have communion. Certainly, this is experienced through faith, but Christ is no less present. Communion is not a funeral. Jesus is alive and we eat at his table! There are debates about the substance of the emblems. There is the Catholic view that says the emblems literally change into the body and blood of Christ. Scripture does not seem to teach that. Because communion was instituted by Jesus prior to His crucifixion. And at that time when speaking to the disciples, He called the bread and wine His body and His blood. But notice, that was before His body was broken and His blood was shed on the cross.

By the way, I spoke of the bread and the wine. A number of churches require that actual wine be used in communion. I heard of a church that when people took the juice it was bitter, and they scrunched up their faces as they drank it. They expected grape juice and got something they didn’t expect. What happened? It turned out that the woman preparing communion found an unmarked bottle of prune juice in the refrigerator and assumed that it was the juice for communion.

What is interesting though, is that this woman developed cancer a short time after this. So she went to live with her daughter, but returned to the church a few weeks before she died to say goodbye to her friends. And in her honor, they served communion with prune juice that day. Well I assure you that we use 100% concord grape juice which is, as Jesus called it in Matthew 26:29 the “fruit of the vine”.